Shadowman

The Valiant Universe

De: Shola Adedeji

Narrado por: James Fouhey

In this thrilling origin story, one young man finds himself in the middle of a war between powerful gods, and tasked with saving the city he holds dear.

Jack Boniface is having a weird day. Considering himself above the voodoo beliefs of his father and community back in New Orleans, Jack left his hometown to pursue his intellectual dreams at NYU. Normally, Jack is confident in his ultrarational approach to the world, but this morning he swears he can sense things moving in the shadows and keeps having the strangest daydreams about a hideous monster.

Below New Orleans lies the Deadside, where Baron Samedi rules over a pantheon of Lwa—voodoo gods. However, when Freda—among the most beloved Lwas in New Orleans and one of Samedi’s wives—goes missing, the Deadside falls into chaos. Freda’s absence negates a decade-long agreement to protect New Orleans from unnatural violent death, resulting in a power struggle that spills over into the human world.

When an unexpected death brings Jack back to New Orleans, he finds a city in violent uproar and a neighborhood under siege by undeniably supernatural forces. Turns out Jack was wrong: The voodoo world is quite real. And, if that wasn’t enough, Jack finds out he is heir to the mantle of Shadowman, an entity tasked with maintaining the delicate balance of power between the Deadside and the real world. Will Jack be able to control his new powers and right the balance before it’s too late? Or will the discord in the Deadside destroy New Orleans forever?

A new Shadowman is rising. Jack just hopes it’s not from the ashes of his city.

©2025 Valiant Entertainment LLC. All rights reserved. www.valiantentertainment.com (P)2025 Blackstone Publishing

Enjoyable re-imagining

The story is (yet another) retelling of Shadowman 's origins. The story is overall good, the performance of the narrator is pushed the story up from a B to an A-. It is far from the worst Valiant Comic related novel but the retread of Jack Boniface 's ascension to Shadowman is what keeps it from being the top tier. It is better than the new Bloodshot novel, far superior to the Faith novels, it falls below the Bloodshot movie novelization and the Eternal Warrior novel.

A Great YA Version of Shadowman

I'm a fan of Shadowman, and this was a really fun take on the character. I love that we got to see a bit more of Jack's origins and some of the inner workings of his powers that I don't remember seeing in the comics.

The ending of the story was a bit abrupt, but I'm hoping we see more from this iteration of Shadowman and Jack Boniface!