Living the Fantasy…
When I was a child, I often fantasized about being a superhero; you know, one with powers! Such superheroes often wore masks or cowls to hide their secret identity. Well, now with the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears that I can live out my superhero boyhood fantasy everyday, wearing a mask out in public wherever I go without being hauled off to the asylum. And to think, had I worn a mask out in public even six months ago, people might have thought me an armed robber! Now I can wear a mask, and just blend into the crowd undetected, ‘cause everyone’s wearing a mask!
Now the type of superhero mask that just goes around your eyes like the Lone Ranger or Green Lantern wore won’t pass muster in the pandemic. It’s got to go around your nose and mouth, which is more concealing and mysterious. So concealed, I could be The Shadow, decades ahead of the curve with the power (acquired in the Far East) to “cloud men’s minds!”- – Don’t certain politics do that to some? The trouble is, such masks tend just to cloud my eyeglasses, and crime fighters who blunder into things make a poor nemesis of crime. Criminals might, however, be disabled by laughter…
So I’ve got official blessing to wear a mask out in public, and in fact am strongly encouraged or even required to do so. Now if I could just get a similar blessing to wear a dramatic cape, I’d really be on my way to my boyhood superhero look! Capes are dramatic, you see, just by their very nature, and you can really swish about with them, assuming that they don’t trip you or get caught in the door, which might be embarrassing…
Eventually, of course, the aspiring superhero must acquire a sidekick, sort of a crime-fighting associate who is kind of learning the trade. I’m still working on that one… 
Tags: masking and superheroes, retro cool
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FOXSYLVANIA 
June 27, 2020 at 1:54 am
You could always wear contact lenses!
As for The Shadow? Yes, I remember him well.
The vaguest memories, of course, involving replays of the old radio show on my hometown station when I was an elementary school kid in the early Sixties. The title character’s basso profundo voice turning out to belong (as I discovered years later) to Orson Wells (of Mercury Theater fame)!
Then, came the DC comics of the Seventies. Starting with a guest-shot in a Late Silver Age issue of BATMAN!!
And, needless to say, I still watch the Alec Baldwin movie version every time it comes on. You gotta love to hate that Shiwan Khan!!!*
For those who’ve never heard of this character, even during his published adventures in Dynamite Entertainment Comics? He started out as a Rod Serling-type narrator for a Depression-era anthology show sponsored by a company called Street and Smith. From there, he graduated to pulp magazine hero; movie serial hero; and, then, WWII comic book hero!
Author (and part-time stage magician) Walter Gibson was inspired by the 1920’s stage play of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA in creating the image of The Shadow that most of us have, today. That, in turn, inspired a couple of gentlemen named Finger and Kane to write and draw a certain story for the twenty-seventh issue of Detective Comics (volume 1) from National Periodical Publications, circa eighty-two years ago.
So, who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men, even before Batman does? The Shadow knows! Bwahahahahahahahahaha!
*Think Ra’s Al Ghul…without the hot-and-cold running daughter.
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