Shade: The Changing Man #44

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Shade: The Changing Man
Issue: 44
Date: February, 1994
Publisher: DC Comics (Vertigo)
Writer: Peter Milligan
Penciler: Chris Bachalo
Inker: Rick Bryant
Colorist: David Hornung
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Shelly Roeberg, Karen Berger
Cover: Duncan Fegredo

Trapped in the midst of an outbreak of 17th Century witch hysteria, Lenny and Karen are about to be hanged, and Shade is not helping matters at all. In fact, he's actually transformed himself into the gallows tree as he wages an internal battle between his love and hate for Karen. Meanwhile, John Constantine tries to figure out the spell to get all of them out of this mess, only to find that the secret he needs is buried in a very dark place in his own past.

Loaded with overtones of abortion politics and religious puritanism, the story also features some heartbreaking interactions between all of the main characters. It also fills in some interesting backstory on Constantine, and serves up a side helping of time paradoxes.

I didn't read the issues leading into this one, so I probably missed some of what was going on here. There was a LOT going on. But even without all of the backstory, this was a memorable chapter in the tale of Shade and his fellow travelers.

Rating: 8.5/10

Shade: The Changing Man #35

Well, here we are about an hour until we head to the airport. Two more comics in the stack after this one. Looks like I will be reading (and possibly reviewing, wifi permitting) those two on planes and in airports. The itinerary is Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok to Mumbai to (lovely) Newark NJ. Long trip with long layovers. Definitely adventure material.

In the meantime, here is some more classic 90s Vertigo for you.

Title:Shade: The Changing Man
Issue: 35
Date: December, 1993
Publisher: DC Comics (Vertigo)
Writer: Peter Milligan
Penciler: Chris Bachalo
Inker: Rick Bryant
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Shelly Roeberg, Karen Berger
Cover: Chris Bachalo

Shade and Lenny are trapped in Brian Juno's Garden of Pain, where Juno intends to torture Shade as part of his plan to ascend as a god. Meanwhile, Kathy is dead, or at least having a near-death experience, sitting in a cosmic waiting room with a group of angels who have a deal to make with here.

Wordy in places, but once it gets going, this story brings the intensity. Like the other issue of Shade that I recently reviewed, this is the conclusion of a major storyline, and it hints at another new phase in the relationship between Shade, Lenny, and Kathy.

Lenny, as is often the case in this series, gets most of the best lines and moments. I always enjoy reading stories she appears in. She's one of the very few characters that exist truly outside of tropes and classification.

Aside from the general verbosity in places, and some confusing elements early on (understandable as I has not read the issues leading up to this), this is a really solid conclusion with great dialogue and a few surprises. 

Rating: 7.5/10 

Shade: The Changing Man #18

Finishing up the last of the small stack of comics that I brought with me when we moved overseas. I have a big collection of comics back home. Mostly bargain-bin fodder, but a decent sized collection. Twenty-five longboxes or thereabouts. And that's after I ditched five longboxes for pennies-on-the-dollar to clear space a year or two ago.

Of those, there are probably about three longboxes worth of unread comics, most of which I bought during buying sprees in bargain bins at stores and conventions. 

During the last days of packing for our move to the other side of the world, I figured I'd grab some unread comics, but I was pretty short on space. I had a bit of room in a carryon bag, and I knew that comics I crammed in there were in danger of getting wrecked.

So my criteria when I went into the unread comics stack was pretty simple. I grabbed books that were already bagged and boarded (most weren't) until I had all that would fit. The result was a very random mix.

I'm down to my last few. After this one, seven more to read.

Title:Shade: The Changing Man
Issue: 18
Date: December, 1991
Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Peter Milligan
Penciler: Chris Bachalo
Inker: Mark Pennington
Colorist: Daniel Vozzo
Letterer: Todd Klein
Editor: Alisa Kwitney, Karen Berger
Cover: Jamie Hewlett


This is the finale to the American Scream storyline that formed the main narrative in the early issues of Vertigo's Shade: The Changing Man (technically this is pre-Vertigo, but it's the series that was brought under the Vertigo umbrella). 

Shade is being backed into a corner. His only chance to save Kathy and defeat to American Scream is to return to Meta and kill Wisor. But he doesn't know how to get there, and he isn't sure he can do the deed even if he does find a way home.

There are final confrontations all round as Shade and Agent Rohug confront Wisor, and Wisor is forced to confront his own creation, the Scream.

The opening scenes are the usual frenetic insanity that is to be expected from Shade, with appearances by Christopher Columbus and an animate version of Mount Rushmore. The climactic faceoff is good, if a bit neat in its resolution, but the real gem of the issue is the epilogue sequence, which is poignant and heartfelt, and lays the groundwork for a new direction for Shade's story.

Rating: 7.5/10