Perhaps the answer lies in the plot’s structural repetition. Rather than praising innovation, like I do in the works of William Witney or Universal’s Flash Gordon, what is to be valued here is the safe assurance of sameness. For the serial’s greatest fans—young boys, ages nine to fourteen, The Shadow’s repetitive structure allows them to feel in control of the story’s world and their own world. The story structure doesn't vary: in each episode, we get 1) the resolution of last week’s episode, 2) the Black Tiger plotting destruction with his henchmen, 3) The Shadow finding a new lead on the nefarious industrialist, 4) fist fights, and 5) a closing cliffhanger. The same safe, circular approach follows week after week.

This apparent mood of reassurance is a radical break with the entire purpose of the cliffhanger—to keep us in suspense until next week’s resolution. In Chapter Ten, "The Underground Trap," there is no suspense. The Shadow busts in on the Black Tiger’s men who want to invade a bank vault from an underground cave. An acetylene tank explodes (surprise?) and the Shadow is buried under a rubble of rocks and beams (what else?). The narrative flashforward (an odd feature in Columbia serials that tells us what’s in store next week) shows the Shadow rising from the wreckage! The kids in the theater don’t even have to wait a week to know that all’s well. By contrast to Columbia’s safe security, Republic serials are exciting and vivid because of their chapter endings (the quality of the stunt and the questions and speculations raised in the audience before the accompanying week’s resolution), and how well Witney and John English play with film form (expanding time through additional edits or closing off a previous week’s absent reverse shot).

But there is innovation at work in The Shadow. In Horne’s shift away from the audacity of the cliffhanger to more subtler forms of filmic mood and cultural critique, The Shadow becomes a pleasingly strange brew of proto-noir verve and down-home hokiness.

The proto-noir elements bleed through the opening credits. A parabolic light umbrellas crooked letters that spell "The Shadow." Darkness fills the empty spaces and Jory menacingly intones, "I am the Shadow." Menace also embeds Jory’s costume. The dark cape billows as he runs down a path or drops from a skylight, and the black mask and crouched hat combine gangster mythology with the western outlaw to create a double-image of fear. This image resonates strongly through Jory’s presence—hawk eyes, hooded over the mask, penetrating all around him.

Maybe this isn’t your idea of what a serial should be, but Horne’s comedy creates a self-reflexive posture that makes us question what we value in serials, and ultimately opens the text up to larger ideological questions. One such question concerns the perception white Americans have of Asian Americans. Throughout the serial, Jory dons a black wig, some make-up, and eye-enhancers to become Lin Chang, "oriental" gangster. Jory’s Chang—the stereotypical accent, the fawning obsequiousness—is played for racist laughs, but Horne has the last laugh on us all. In Chapter Eleven, "Chinatown Night," the Shadow, riding with his assistant Vincent (a cabbie), is hotly pursued by the police (they suspect the Shadow of being a criminal). Vincent stops in front of the Oriental Bazaar and out of his cab steps Lin Chang. "Oh, you want something from me," he says in an exaggerated voice to the befuddled cops who lazily scratch their heads. "Oh, I could have sworn this was the cab," says one with a dazed voice. "Okay, buddy, get moving," says the other. This moment of denying the presence of a true absence of Asian identity is ludicrous. Clearly, the vehicle’s license plate and cab number remained consistent throughout the chase, clearly the Shadow is Chang, but never for a moment do the police suspect that Chang is a white guy masquerading as an Asian. Horne’s joke may be saying that "all Asians look alike," but he’s also making a subversive comment: whites don’t really look at minorities; instead, whites accept cultural stereotypes as real. And for that insight, I like James W. Horne.