Hell's Heat Wave

(I only have the first issue)

This is the first issue in a three-issue series from Dark Horse. The cover is very well done, definitely like those that appeared on the actual Shadow pulps in the 1930's.

A guy is trying to get a guy named McGill to peddle drugs. The Shadow shows up and kills the first guy. Meanwhile a body is pulled from the river. It's lips have been sewn shut. The body is taken to the morgue. The Shadow sneaks in, undoes the stitches, and removes a finger from the guy's mouth, then sews his mouth back up again.

Members of a local Tong show up to examine the body. Then there's a major battle that erupts in the street nearby. The finger was from a woman, and one of the Chinese power men in the area learns whose it was, calls in the husband, and gives the finger to him.

There's another gun battle, and two tong groups may end up joining to fight a common enemy. Then a grenade is thrown into a bar and there is now trouble between Italian groups. Then there's another shootout between two tong groups and another explosion. A price has been put on the head of one of the Italian leaders, and a group goes after him and there's yet another shootout.

There's yet another shootout, a smaller-scale one, and a new tong leader arises and says he wants to have a meeting to end all the tong fighting.

The woman who was missing a finger, Len Sum, is at the root of all of this, apparently. Her body is found in a church, along with another Chinese. There's also a section with the first part of the Tao Te Ching in it. The last page has a drawing of the Shadow and the notes he has made on what is happening.

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