1901

- Dragoon and Dr Destroyer cross over from Heroes Unlimited earth aiding in the defeat of the alien Capellan invaders.

- Before leaving they detonate a Gen² bomb in the atmosphere in the hope that metas might one day appear on this world to defend it from future alien invaders.

1915

- World War 1 begins.

1917

- Russian revolution.

1918

- World War 1 ends.

1919

- 1^st transatlantic flight.

- Airline services begin.

- Einstein develops atomic theory.

1920

- League of Nations formed.

- Prohibition begins.

- Radio broadcasts begin.

1922

- Mussolini performs fascist coup in Italy.

- Inspires Private Hitler in jail.

- Ghandi begins protests against English imperialism.

1923

- Tutankhamen's tomb discovered.

- Hitler writes Mein Kampf.

1924

- Lenin dies, Stalin’s bloody rule begins.

- Dirigibles begin flight.

- Hoover new head of FBI.

1925

- Genetics/Evolution teaching denounced by Church and banned around the world.

1926

- Forensics/Ballistics invented.

1927

- Transatlantic telephone and radio begins.

1929

- Wall Street collapse, world depression begins.

- Ballistics accepted in court.

1930

- International banking begins.

1931

- Al Capone jailed.

- The Gifted (mutants) begin appearing.

1932

- Japan invades Shanghai.

- Mystery men appear around the world to fight domestic organized crime.

- Cooperation between international police forces begins.

1933

- Blood typing discovered.

- Hitler wins German elections.

- Prohibition lifted.

1934

- Hitler declares martial law and begins magic experiments.

1935

- Transpacific airlines begin.

- Italy invades Ethiopia.

- International airmail begins.

1937

- Roosevelt president.

- Hindenburg destroyed.

- 1^st helicopter invented.

- Retractable landing gear for planes invented.

THE GAME BEGINS

- Private Investigator Rourke in England opens his agency.

- Anjelica Suneice hires him to investigate a ghost in her mansion.

- She tells of previous PI who went slowly insane while investigating and was eventually found dead.

- They decide to hold a séance with the help of the local sheriff, Madame Crystal (of Challengers of the Fantastic), a female reporter, grounds staff and 2 of Anjelica’s friends.

- During the séance banging is heard on the ceiling, doors open and slam, candles are blown out and finally the room catches alight.

- Rourke is suspicious of the events and begins investigating.

- In a hidden drawer in a burnt desk he discovers a diary belonging to the original inhabitant and is attacked by a ghost.

- While dodging the ghost’s attacks Rourke finally locates the burial site of its remains, digs them up and burns them dissipating its spirit.

- Further investigation reveals the previous PI died of poisoning, chemicals were used to ignite the room, and Anjelica’s chemist friend is secretly her cousin.

- After fighting off an attack by the groundskeeper (and killing him) Rourke confronts her cousin, beats the shit out of him and turns him over to the constabulary.

- Rourke makes page 2 of the London Tribune (Justice Inc making page 1) and soon receives a new case.

- 2 nights before a member of the Soames family was killed by a pitchfork welding scarecrow.

- Research reveals that in 1895 a gang hospitalised their grandfather and killed their grandmother.

- Over the next few weeks a scarecrow was witnessed to pitchfork each member of the gang before finally disappearing.

- Rourke is hired to act as their bodyguard and discover who the scarecrow is.

- The next day they discover one of the nephew twins stabbed in the barn and a cousin impaled on a tree.

- A little later Reece is discovered dead in her room with her grandfather unconscious next to her with a pitchfork.

- The sheriff arrests the grandfather as the murderer showing evidence of him being the original scarecrow.

- A suspicious Rourke breaks into the morgue only to be attacked by the other nephew twin and the town doctor.

- He kills the twin and beats the truth out of the doctor.

- Not long ago the sheriff, the doctor and one of the twins discovered that gold taken from a heist 50 years ago was hidden in the house so they came up with the scheme to retrieve it.

- Rourke then heads over to the sheriffs’ to confront him and proves the faster draw shooting the sheriff through the heart.

- Rourke then frees the grandfather and locates the gold giving it to the surviving family members.

- Dr Faris (the head of Challengers) invites Rourke to dine with him at the Empire club and discuss his joining the group.

- While there they bump into 3 former associates of Faris (Tom, Tony, Fred and Rick) who then join them for tea.

- Soon after a delivery boy arrives with a box of chocolates for the group.

- Tom collapses after eating one of the chocolates and with his dying breath whispers to Rourke about a diary.

- Rourke chases after the delivery boy and after being satisfied he didn’t know anything heads up to Tom’s room which he finds has been ransacked with the diary missing.

- Later that night Tony is found hanging in his room with note confessing to killing Tom.

- Some background checking the next day reveals that the chocolate came from a factory owned by Rick.

- When confronted he pulls out a gun and is promptly shot dead by Rourke.

- The diary is discovered in Rick’s house showing that Tom was blackmailing him because he was gay.

- Karl Steed returns to Australia and his family mansion after a disastrous trip to Thailand in which he discovered his parents were drug lords, and then witnessed their murder at the hands of rival Tong groups.

- During his escape the stress of the truth about his family and subsequent events caused his gifted powers to manifest in the form of darkness and psionic type abilities.

- Using these he was able to kill some of his pursuers and finally make it to the U.S. and then back to Adelaide.

- He vows to atone for his parents' crimes and wipe out injustice everywhere using his family's ill-gotten wealth.

- Inspired by the U.S. mystery men and remembering one of the men he killed who had been terrified of his shadow powers he names himself the Shadow.

- Karl then decides to take a trip to England and meets the famous Dr Faris of the Challengers for advice.

- Dr Faris proves eager to help but first asks Karl for a favour, he sent Rourke on a mission to retrieve the book of the Necronomicon from the estate of a Lord Henry Falsworth but is way overdue.

- Donning garb provided by Faris and 2 pistols Karl agrees to go as the Shadow.

- Using his powers the Shadow is able to sneak past the guards and their dogs but within the mansion he finds Rourke dead and the safe open with the book missing.

- He is then overwhelmed by a vision of the book bringing great danger to the world and returns to Faris.

- The following morning he has another vision of an 18 year old girl being taken by the same people.

- He then sees the girl in a newspaper article about the daughter of an Italian consulate in London being kidnapped by Muslim extremists.

- The Shadow next visits her apartment but finds it stripped bare.

- The landlord is reluctant to talk so the Shadow beats it out of him.

- It turns out about a month ago she some strange new people started visiting her, mainly Arabs.

- A week ago she started acting nervous but paid her rent a month in advance anyway.

 - Then yesterday she suddenly disappeared and the same people turned up and offered to pay him one years rent in advance in exchange for his silence.

- They then took all her furniture and belongings.

- Shortly after her father came to visit and broke in to find her missing and went to the police.

- A further beating reveals that the men had a tattoo of a pyramid on their arms and she was also often visited by a local tarot reader named Madame Ulishia.

- After breaking both the landlord's legs the Shadow changes back into his normal clothes and goes to visit Madame Ulishia.

- He poses as a businessman wanting a reading but part way through it she sees his true aura and tries to cast a paralysis spell on him.

- Karl however is able to resist it and slams the table into her.

- But before he can question her Chinese gangsters break in with guns blazing, a stray shot killing her.

- Karl kills most of them leaving one for questioning.

- But as the gangster tries to answer he bursts into fire from a Chinese symbol on his chest.

- While searching the he finds a pyramid tattoo over her heart.

- In her back room he finds a brochure on the Church of Universal Brotherhood.

- Karl then visits the girl's father Dominic DeCorso who is able to dig up some information on the Church including its head office in Cairo.

- In Cairo he finds the Church in an old movie theatre with an information centre in the lobby.

- The spokesman there explains that the Church seeks the universal enlightenment of all mankind.

- Karl then asks him about the pyramid tattoo.

- The storeman doesn't recognize it but goes to retrieve the chapter leader.

- Abdul Abdalla explains to Karl that it is the symbol of the Illuminati a secret ancient organization the Church has sworn to fight.

- He also knows of the stolen book and explains that it can be used to free the insect demon spirits who keep trying to invade this world, it must be destroyed.

- He then arranges for a guide to take Karl to Lord Jihad's palace just outside of Cairo claiming he is a member of the Illuminati.

- He sneak in as the Shadow but is somehow detected and winds up having to fight his way through the palace.

- Lord Jihad isn't present but in his study he finds information on slavery rings in Europe, Africa and the U.S. all run by him.

- The Shadow then massacres more guards along the way to the subbasement where he finds an underwater lagoon where a German submarine is just leaving.

- In a nearby pen he discovers the consulate's daughter and some Caucasian and Arabic slave children.

- He turns the children over to the authorities and takes Deanna back to her father in London who promises to help Karl any time he needs it.

- Using the maps he found the Shadow smashes various child rings around England killing all the Illuminati members he finds within each.

- With Faris' help he then returns to Cairo and again using the maps goes to visit a pyramid on the outskirts of the city.

- Inside he finds a very large chapter of the Illuminati and promptly proceeds to exceed his previous slaughter level.

- In one of the lower levels he finds a seadock and the same U-boat which was at Jihad's mansion.

- He kills only one of the guards causing the others to hasten the sub's departure and then sneaks aboard.

- The sub leaves via Port Said and heads out to sea to rendezvous with an oil tanker.

- While the crew transfers cargo, the Shadow climbs aboard the tanker and finds it filled with munitions crates with the Illuminati symbol on them.

- The Shadow then creates a fuse leading towards one of the crates, lights it and jumps overboard.

- The resultant explosion rips the tanker apart and holes the sub.

- He then manages to swim back to the port where he is helped out onto the dock by Dr Faris, Madame Crystal and Helen DeCorsa who then thanks him for having rescued her cousin (the consulate's daughter).

- They have come to enlist his help as they have traced the Necronomicon to India.

- In Calcutta they are met by the Maharaja Jassaman's royal guard and escorted to him.

- He explains that for a long time now he has been fighting opium smugglers and is the last one left of his family with his father and four brothers all having gone insane and suicided.

- He needs help to stay alive.

- While Faris and DeCorso go to the Maharaja's library Karl and Crystal go to speak with the his general for information on local criminal gangs.

- He provides some information but becomes visibly nervous at the mention of the Illuminati.

- Karl uses his standard persuasion technique (a beating) to loosen the general's tongue.

- However just as he is about to talk a needle flies through the window and hits him in the neck.

- Karl rushes outside but is unable to find anything.

- Back inside the general starts bubbling that he is Napoleon.

- Inside his room they discover a box of cigars with the Illuminati symbol on each one.

- Closer examination of the cigars reveals them to be hollow with opium inside.

- After all this is shown to the others Dr Faris then suggests arranging for a dummy of the Maharaja to be placed in his bed with an open window.

- That night while Karl hides in the shadows a fakir creeps up to the wall and uses a magic rope to climb up to the window and blow a needle into the dummy.

- The Shadow then follows him but quickly loses sight of him.

- Crystal however senses that one of the trees is not alive and Karl soon discovers that it has a hatch with a ladder within leading down into the catacombs beneath the palace.

- They soon come across cells filled with starving children and rooms with cases of cigars.

- While Crystal leads the children out the Shadow continues exploring.

- He soon comes across a person wearing a black cloak over his head, kills him and takes his cloak.

- After a while he stumbles into a conference room, is berated for being late and told to sit down.

- Deciding he's put with enough assholes for one night the Shadow instead kills everyone in the room.

- He examines the corpses finding some high ranking officials including the Japanese diplomat, the Maharajah's maid and butler, a colonel in the Indian army and the South African consular and his wife but not the fakir.

- In a safe he finds plans for all the Indian operations.

- Upon return to the palace Karl discovers that the fakir has kidnapped the Maharaja's son and driven up to the mountains.

- He follows and runs the fakir off the road.

- While Karl gets into a gun battle with the fakir another person runs out of the car with the boy heading into the bushes.

- Karl use his shadow powers but the fakir is able to see him by tapping into the D'arque.

- Regardless it doesn't save him from a bullet to the head.

- The Shadow then races after the other person and discovers that he is the Maharajah's brother who had faked his own death in order to continue running his operations more freely.

- Karl then shows him the correct way to die and returns the Maharaja's son.

- Karl returns to Adelaide but a couple of weeks later Faris sends word by wire that he has traced the book again.

- He departs immediately for Shanghai, China where he meets up with Crystal.

- Shortly after arriving they witnesses a British citizen beating on a Chinese boy and Karl interferes by breaking the man's arm.

- The man runs off swearing revenge.

- They then head for the shop where the book was last at.

- Just as they enter a sedan pulls up and sprays the shop with bullets, Karl protects Crystal but the owner and some customers are killed.

- However the owner is able to whisper the name Mitsuharito before dying, the book is no longer there.

- Enquiries at other bars leads them to the Black Lotus restaurant where they witness Mitsuharito leaving with several other men in a car.

- They follow him and after 2 hours arrive at a railtrack in the countryside.

- He and the other men get out, set something up on the tracks and speed off.

- The track explodes not long after, just in time to cause a train to derail.

-  Karl sets off after Mitsuharito  and eventually runs him off the road.

- He then becomes the Shadow and kills Mitsuharito's guards before resorting to his favourite tactic of beating the information out of him.

- He reveals that he is a smuggler for the Tong and stole the book from the Illuminati for them.

- He was paid to blow up the track by the Japanese emperor but doesn't know why.

- He is then persuaded to introduce the Shadow to his contact the next day.

- Once there the Shadow also beats the contact into telling him the location of the book at the Peking palace of Dr Sin.

- Karl and Crystal immediately head over there but by the time they arrive have to force their way through a city in panic, the Japanese have declared they will invade over the destruction of their train.

- However they are all knocked to the ground by an explosion from just outside the city and observe a beam of light emanating from a nearby hill.

- Karl and Crystal rush over and find a palace on the hill brightly lit up with storm clouds gathering overhead.

- Inside Karl becomes the Shadow and kills all the ninjas within before entering the main chamber.

- Here he finds Dr Sin  sitting in a pentagram and reading from the Necronomicon while being observed by the Persuader and the  mob boss Dr Alchemy.

- He opens fire on Sin but he is protected by some form of invisible barrier deflecting the bullets instead into Dr Alchemy.

- He is then attacked by the Persuader and is overwhelmed by his superior hand to hand skills.

- At this point a rift opens up dragging the Shadow and the Persuader into it.

- The rift then turns red and explodes.

- Sin collapses and is carried away by his henchmen.

- The Shadow awakens to find himself lying in the Chronal Citadel near a huge floating globe with the Persuader nowhere in sight.

- Just before the rift closes behind him crimson energy bolts fly out and shatter the nearby globe and various equipment.

- He sees two figures fall out (Dragoon and Hope) but before he can approach them is attacked by chronal agents and forced to flee further into the citadel.

- The Shadow soon finds a portal chamber and jumps through a rift.

- This scene is continued from Dragoon's perspective in Heroes Unlimited 38/Rifts.

- Continued from Heroes Unlimited 40/Empire of the Stars.

- The Shadow arrives on Marvels Earth straight into the hands of a Sentinel patrol.

- The exploding rift however destroys the sentinels before they can capture him.

- He then comes across a gang in the process of beating a young boy and kills them all.

- The boy then leads him to the burnt out shell of Avengers mansion where he is mindprobed by Moondragon before being introduced to the rest of the rebellion.

- They don't know how to get him home but suggest that there might be some equipment that can help in the Fantastic Four's former headquarters.

- The only problem being that it is now a sentinel research base.

-  The Shadow having no other choice agrees to join Moondragon, Photon, Ikaris, Dagger and several dozen humans in their assault on the Baxter building.

- As they approach the building they witness all the Shi'ar ships nearby leaving and heading for orbit (for this event from Dragoon's perspective see Heroes Unlimited 40/Empire of the Stars).

- Being much less powerful than most of the others in the group Karl mainly observes the battle and helps the wounded.

- The sentinels are soon defeated and while the others examine the lab equipment Karl helps himself to a laptop, some CDs and 2 1990 issue automatic pistols.

- Before he can hide anything else in his bag Photon interrupts to tell him that the phasegate they need is at Sentinel Mountain in Egypt.

- As they exit the building they are ambushed by more sentinels but quickly rescued by Quasar, Jack of Hearts and the Inhumans who have just escaped their lunar prison thanks to Dragoon.

- The Manthing sinks into the ground and begins restoring the earth while Quasar transports the entire group to Sentinel Mountain.

- After a furious and savage battle the sentinels are finally defeated thanks mainly to Black Bolt's sacrifice using his sonic scream to its deadliest fullest.

- Moondragon is able to operate the phasegate and send the Shadow home.

- Karl arrives back at the palace only to find it completely deserted, through a window he sees Japanese troops and vehicles entering Peking.

-  Crystal comes out of hiding in the nearby forest and informs him that after he vanished so did the Necronomicon, Dr Sin's servants then took them all away. They decide to make their way back to Shanghai.

- From there they are able to charter a plane back to Calcutta with Crystal returning to England and Karl to Australia.

- Once back home Karl immediately has built a lab within his mansion with the latest in equipment but is soon faced with the dilemma that he is no scientist and cant work out everything he brought back from the other dimension.

- A few days later a solution presents itself in the form of his reading about a scientist lecturing at Washington University named Einstein who has come up with some remarkable theories about the universe.

- Karl takes the next plane to Washington.

- Once there he arranges to attend one of Einstein's lectures and then follows him back to his office.

- Inside he shows Einstein the equipment he brought back and demonstrates his own powers, he then explains everything that has happened to him up to this point.

- He agrees to help and gives Karl his home address asking him to turn up the next day with all his devices.

- The following morning Einstein continues his examination while explaining to Karl how the U.S. military has hired him to look at some equipment they have recovered from the ocean which seems alien in nature (it's actually the Capellan ship Dragoon trashed in 1901).

- However he has to leave for a science convention in Geneva for 2 weeks but invites Karl to stay and look after his house in the meantime.

- Karl agrees and moves in the next day.

- That evening Karl hears noises downstairs and becoming the Shadow goes down to investigate.

- He is confronted by a man with a shaved head and wearing a mask.

- The 2 fight and the Shadow breaks his neck.

- A search of the body reveals a German passport and a matchbook from the hotel Bistro where Einstein is meant to be staying at.

- Karl takes the next plane to Geneva.

- He arrives at the hotel and heads straight for Einstein's room but finds the door ajar and his room in a mess.

- Karl rushes downstairs only to collide with 2 more men with shaved heads, he kicks both in the testicles then rushes onto the street.

- Outside he sees Einstein in the back of a car being driven off by more of the same men.

- Hailing a taxi he gets the driver to follow the car but not long after they are run off the road by another car and plunge into a lake.

- Karl manages to get out of the sinking taxi and then goes back to rescue the driver.

- He then hitches a ride back to the hotel and after searching the professor's room finds his address book.

- He discovers the address of another professor in it and goes to see him.

- As he enters the house though he only narrowly misses being run down by the same vehicle which previously put his taxi in the lake.

- Karl enters the house and after an extensive search finds the owner tied in a corner.

- The owner explains that he was experimenting with uranium and molecular bonds but the 2 men who broke in stole all his notes.

- At this point Karl goes to get the owner a drink and seeing a bomb with a ticking timer only just manages to get them out in time.

- That night the Shadow breaks into the German embassy at Nyon killing all the guards he encounters.

- Outside he sees them rushing Einstein to a waiting boat on the river only to be themselves ambushed by another group of men.

- The second group manages to capture Einstein and take him in their own boat.

- The Shadow then kills the remaining nazis and steals their boat to chase the others.

- After a 10 minute trip they arrive at an airfield.

- Some of the group is able to delay the Shadow long enough to get Einstein onto a plane and away.

- Totally frustrated the Shadow kills everyone left behind then discovers the Illuminati tattoo on each of them.

- The next morning Karl hears on the radio about a plane being shot down over Austria.

- After some time Karl manages to track the prisoners to Vienna and uses his shadow powers to sneak into the fortress.

- He gets Einstein out but not before having to fight a death duel with the Enforcer.

- From there they are able to make their way to Rome.

- At Rome airport they bump into Eric Haddock an old school friend of Karl's.

- He is now the pilot for Joseph Rockefeller, currently the richest man in the world.

- Eric then introduces him to Rockefeller who insists on flying him and Einstein back to the U.S. on his new latest model transatlantic plane.

- Karl agrees but then notices that Rockefeller's assistant Spalding seems unhappy about this.

- Halfway across the Atlantic Eric suddenly comes out of the pilot's cabin, tells Karl that Spalding passed his message and is wondering what he wants.

- Karl is confused especially since he gave no message to Spalding.

- However Spalding suddenly appears with a gun and tells everyone to remain seated.

- The plane then changes course and soon an island appears below.

- They attempt to land on a makeshift runway but it turns out to be too short and the plane crashes into some nearby trees.

- Spalding and the co-pilot then force the survivours out of the plane.

- Outside Kyle Jessup a mob leader is waiting with a group of Maori natives who then immediately begin dismantling the runway.

- Jessup reveals that this is simply an attempt to gain all of Rockefeller's money by ransoming him, he then has them locked in a bunker nearby.

- Once night falls Karl becomes the Shadow, kills the guards and leads the prisoners into the forest.

- A telepathic voice prevents the Shadow from walking into an ambush and then guides him and the others into a nearby cave in the central volcano.

- At the bottom of some steps they find a statue head which resembles an astronaut.

- Pressing an eyeball causes the statue to swing up to reveal an entrance.

- Once they enter the statue closes again.

- Jessup soon catches up but unable to find a way through the statue gets his men to bring in some explosives.

- Within the tunnel the Shadow is met by a member of the Eelan race which have a damaged ship in the volcano they have just finished repairing.

- Jessup detonates the explosives on the statue which inadvertently triggers a fault line and causes the volcano erupts.

- The Eelan hurry the prisoners onto their ship and just manage to take off before the eruption hits their area.

- They then witness the lavaflow engulfing Jessup and his men who couldn't get away fast enough.

- Soon after the Shadow and the others fall asleep and reawaken a day later in the U.S. in Central Park.

- Einstein takes an official leave of absence from the U.S. military to travel with Karl back to Australia and properly examine his equipment.

- A week after settling in to Karl's mansion Albert begins visiting the markets on Grenfell street to buy antique models of boats.

- On one trip Karl goes with him and they find an old galleon with the name Unicorn on it.

- As Karl buys it a man comes up and offers him double for it.

- Karl has only just managed to convince him that he wont sell when another man appears offering even more for it, a haggling contest quickly develops between the 2 men.

- Karl and Albert takeoff while the other 2 argue with each other.

- Back at the mansion Albert finally discovers how to activate the laptop, in his excitement though he knocks the galleon off the table.

- Only the mast breaks off but within it they find several parchments with some type of code on it.

- The next morning Karl sees in the paper that one of the men who tried to buy the galleon off him the previous day has been murdered.

- His suspicions aroused Karl visits the man's apartment and finds an identical galleon to his own but with the name Pegasus on it.

- Its mast has also been broken and the parchments are missing.

- Returning home Karl discovers the second man waiting at the gates for him.

- The man explains that he was hired to steal the parchments but then wasn't paid and will reveal all in exchange for money.

- Before Karl can reply a car speeds past spraying the gates with a tommygun killing the man but missing Karl.

- Before dying he points to some sparrows.

- The next day Karl begins his investigations but after a fruitless search returns home to find the place ransacked and Albert missing along with the galleon.

- On a hunch Karl then visits the registrar and looks up the names of all the antique dealers in the state.

- The richest ones turn out to be the Bird brothers out at Norwood.

- The Shadow then breaks into their mansion killing all the guards he comes across until he finds Einstein in their chapel.

- He then kills both the Bird brothers and takes all their scrolls.

- By putting all the scrolls one on top of another a message appears giving longitude and latitude coordinates for some small island off the Queensland coast.

- Karl takes the next train there but part way is confronted by a man claiming to have been mugged by him and is arrested by police.

- Karl allows himself to be taken while the other man leaves with his scrolls.

- A few minutes later Karl escapes the police by becoming the shadow and takes another train to Queensland.

- At Brisbane he hires a boat to reach the island.

- On the island he finds an estate along with the third Bird brother and more guards who he promptly dispatches.

- Within is a forgers printing press, a hangar and some fake currency.

- He then uses the retrieved scrolls to find a nearby cave where he discovers a pirate's horde of treasure.

- After several weeks of peacefulness Einstein is finally able to get the rest of Karl's equipment operational allowing them to view all the files within.

- The main news at the moment aside from the increasing conflict in Europe and Asia is the Lois and Clark expedition to South America to dig for Mayan ruins.

- One night Karl visits a magician's conference along with several socialites.

- One of the acts includes an Indian seeress who identifies the wife of Clark in the audience.

- She then declares that Clark and the others are in great danger from the vengeance of the sun god and promptly passes out.

- The next day Karl reads in the paper about Lois and Clark having lapsed into comas and being rushed back to England by the rest of their team.

- Karl decides to follow Clark's wife back to England to investigate.

- Upon arrival they visit the hospital where they discover that another 2 members of the team have also gone into comas.

- Karl rings the last 3 members to warn them. Taragon has already hired bodyguards, Falconer agrees to meet Karl at the hospital but Reedback falls silent halfway through the conversation.

- Karl rushes down to the foyer to catch a cab to get to Reedback. Just as he gets outside Falconer's taxi pulls up but he has also lapsed into a coma.

- Closer examination reveals broken bits of crystal shards on the floor of the taxi.

- Karl then heads for Reedback's place and finds him in a coma on the floor with similar broken crystal shards near him.

- He next heads to Taragon's where he finds the outside guards all asleep. As the Shadow he sneaks inside and finds Taragon also asleep in a room, he then notices soot falling out of the fireplace.

- Outside he catches sight of a fakir running away and shoots him in the back. Before he can reach him he comes under fire from the fakir's accomplices and is forced to go around by which time they are speeding off in a car.

- The Shadow then grabs Taragon's car and follows before losing them  in a forest.

- The next morning Karl goes back to the hospital where the coma patients have suddenly started going into convulsions. This continues for exactly one hour before they lapse back into comas.

- Sneaking into the police station the Shadow discovers that the car he was chasing has just been fished out of the harbour with 3 dead Indians in it, each having been shot in the head.

- At the portmaster's office he finds out that the Pantamac (an Indian freighter) sailed several hours ago for South America.

- Karl next visits a private lab and pays to get one of the crystal shards tested. The analysis reveals that it is coated in a chemical which induces a deep coma, a chemical found in a plant which only grows in Peru.

- Karl then books a plane to Peru.

- 2 weeks later Karl reaches Callao in Peru.

- A week later the Pantamac arrives but noone is allowed aboard due to it being quarantined with yellow fever.

- Karl is forced to leave the port but that evening it is the Shadow who returns and follows the disembarked crew onto a train.

- Partway up the mountain though a fakir enters the Shadow's car and shatters a crystal ball at his feet. The sleep gas forces the Shadow to revert back to Karl at which point the fakir attacks him. Overcoming the gas's effects Karl manages to shoot the fakir in the testicles and jumps off the out of control passenger car.

- After a long walk Karl reaches a small city and tries to report the train incident to the police but they are evasive and uncooperative as are any locals he tries to speak to.

- A while later he spies a young Indian boy being beaten by some English tourists and fights them off but the boy also disappears.

- The next morning while walking past a hedge a voice calls out to him offering to help but that it must be done secretly.

- As Karl moves off an elderly Indian approaches him and warns him to leave as he is risking the wrath of the followers of the Sun God.

- When Karl refuses the Indian gives him a medallion telling him it will protect him from their magic but not their agents and then disappears while Karl examines it.

- At midnight Karl meet his secret helper who turns out to be the boy he rescued from the tourists. Zorrino tells him to buy mountain equipment and mules for the long journey to reach the Sun God city in the mountains.

- A few days later they reach a river and are forced to make a treacherous crossing by birch boat but wind up being swamped by alligators. The Shadow kills a few before the 2 of them are swept away by the current and over a waterfall.

- At the bottom of the waterfall they are dragged underneath and behind it where they wind up in a subterranean lake. From there they follow a tunnel upwards to a sealed doorway surrounded by Aztec symbols. After some time Karl deduces the correct sequence for the symbols opening the door...right into the middle of a religious sacrifice and are attacked by Aztec guards.

- The Shadow creates a few sacrifices of his own causing the Aztecs to flee in fear. A few minutes later the high priest comes over and asks why the Moon God has invaded their temple. The Shadow tells him he only came to find the cause of the explorers' ailment.

- The high priest explains that the expedition broke into their tombs and defiled them so his people created voodoo dolls of them to take revenge.

- The Shadow convinces them to end the punishment of the explorers and not harm the boy who helped him. He agrees and shows Karl the short way back to Callao.

- Back in England Karl discovers that the team has come out of their coma and made a complete recovery.

- During his flight back to Australia Karl ponders the priest's reference to a Moon God.

- A few weeks later Karl decides to start taking his cat for a walk in the hope of using its cuteness to pick up chicks.

- While at the local fish markets at the dockyards Karl's cat gets its head caught in a tin of crab with part of the label missing. Thinking no more about it they return home.

- Karl returns the next day to continue his interrupted fish shopping. However he finds the police there pulling a body out of the port. Taking shadow form he sneaks into the morgue van and examines the body. The man appears to be Arabic and has a kosh tattoo (identical to the one encountered in the 5th adventure Cigars of the Pharaoh). Further examination reveals the victim still has all his money on him and part of a label from a crab tin with the name Karaboudjun written on the other side of it. Karl decides to return home for the moment.

- Later that evening the Shadow heads back to the docks and locates the freighter named the Karaboudjun. Within its hold he discovers dozens of crates full of wine bottles and tins of crab. Upon closer examination he discovers that the tins are really full of opium.

- Breaking into the harbour master's office the Shadow discovers the ship's point of origin was Port Alun in the Sahara.

- The next day Karl takes a plane back to the middle east.

- Once at Port Alun he makes contact with the British governor of the area who controls the local legion outpost, and helps keep the peace with the Bedouin tribes.

- Karl discovers that there are no proper customs checks in Alun with anything being passed through. The most regular caravans however come from Marrakesh in Morocco.

- Paying a small sum Karl arranges for travel with a caravan heading to Marrakesh. Along the way they are ambushed by Berber raiders who prove no match for the Shadow.

- A few days later they arrive and through some forceful persuasion the Shadow discovers that Mohamed Ben Ali is the main distributor of crab tins in the area. After a thorough thrashing Mohamed reveals that his supplier is Omar Ben Salaad, the most powerful man in the middle east.

- That night the Shadow pays a visit to Omar only to witness him leaving with a large retinue of guards. He follows him to a warehouse but loses him in the enormous cellar full of wine barrels. Eventually he discovers that one of the barrels is empty and has a secret door inside. The door opens to a tunnel which leads to further down into an even larger storeroom full of opium and guns.

- Further exploration reveals more tunnels leading to yet more storerooms similarly filled. Eventually the Shadow stumbles onto an office type room with a single tied prisoner and several guards. After disposing of the guards he discovers that the prisoner is Kinji a member of the Japanese special police who was investigating a child slavery ring when he was captured.

- They then find a ladder which leads up to Omar's palace and fight their way through the guards. Finally they stumble into Omar's main bedchamber where he is present  with some young boys. The Shadow shoots Omar in the testicles before dragging him onto the roof (five stories up) and throwing him off.

- Kinji gets the children out while the Shadow burns the palace down. The children are handed over to the British legion as the locals don't care.