For the first half of The Shadow's tenure in the pulps, his past and true identity (outside of his Cranston disguise) are ambiguous. In "The Living Shadow", a thug claiming to have seen the Shadow's face recalls seeing "a piece of white that looked like a bandage." In "The Black Master" and "The Shadow's Shadow", the villains of both stories see The Shadow's true face and remark the vigilante is a man of many faces with no face of his own. It was not until the August 1937 issue, "The Shadow Unmasks", that The Shadow's real name was revealed.