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Shade the Changing Man: Difference between revisions
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{{
[[File:Shade_the_Changing_Man_60_Cover_2394.jpg|frame|Shade in his armor on the cover of issue 60.]]
{{quote|"At this point I started to lie. And as I lied, I realized I might be telling the truth. This often happens to me."
|Shade, ''The Passion Child''}}
Originally a short-lived series created by [[Steve Ditko]], Shade ran for 8 issues (June, 1977-September, 1978) before its sudden cancellation. The protagonist later turned up in the ''[[Suicide Squad]]'', where he was a regular cast member from issue #16 to #37 (August, 1988-January, 1990). Like many other [[Silver Age]] heroes he then got a thorough [[Continuity Reboot]] under [[The DCU|DC]]'s ''Vertigo'' imprint; the alien fugitive with a technological gizmo was replaced by a soulful poet from a parallel world who could [[Reality Warper|warp reality]].
▲{{quote|"At this point I started to lie. And as I lied, I realized I might be telling the truth. This often happens to me."|Shade, ''The Passion Child''}}
▲Originally a short-lived series created by [[Steve Ditko]], Shade ran for 8 issues (June, 1977-September, 1978) before its sudden cancellation. The protagonist later turned up in the [[Suicide Squad]], where he was a regular cast member from issue #16 to #37 (August, 1988-January, 1990). Like many other [[Silver Age]] heroes he then got a thorough [[Continuity Reboot]] under [[The DCU|DC]]'s ''Vertigo'' imprint; the alien fugitive with a technological gizmo was replaced by a soulful poet from a parallel world who could [[Reality Warper|warp reality]].
The reboot was written in 1990 under Britwave author [[Peter Milligan]] and then-fledgling artist [[Chris Bachalo]]. Like the work of previous British authors [[Neil Gaiman]] and [[Alan Moore]], the series was highly experimental, combining history, mythology, literary allusions, and genre deconstruction. The series would run seventy issues, reaching its conclusion in 1996.
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The series has a cult following, but can be difficult to find, although the first 19 issues have been republished in TPBs. In 2003, original author Peter Milligan teamed with Madman artist Mike Allred to write a one-off Shade story for Vertigo's tenth anniversary special.
Recent years have seen Shade making appearances in some of Milligan's other DC work - his ''[[
{{tropelist}}
* [[Affably Evil]]: The Devil, who comes across as a civilized, cultured gentleman {{spoiler|who eventually stabs Shade in the back. He is the Devil, after all}}.
* [[Alternate Universe]] - Meta.
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** Not to mention the fact that Shade's reality altering powers are presented as an allegory for the authorial act of creation.
* [[Ax Crazy]]: Troy Grenzer and the supermarket gunman in the sheepskin jacket. Shade also has a short bout of it during his deal with the Devil.
{{quote|
'''Shade:''' He's not interested in souls. And he's not really the Devil. And he's not as bad as you think. Quite easygoing, really. }}
* [[Back
* [[Beat Still My Heart]]: Shade's heart is stolen by a squatter in his home after a battle. He embarks on [[Incredibly Lame Pun|a half-hearted rescue of it and when he finally catches up to it, has a heart-to-heart talk with it]]. {{spoiler|And then steps on it when he decides he's better off heartless.}} It appears from time to time, still beating, moving under its own power, and even has internal monologues.
* [[Bitter Wedding Speech]]: Subverted. Lenny is invited to her uncle's wedding, years after he babysat her as a child, and masturbated while watching her sleep. She has everyone's attention when she gets onto the table in front of the married couple, expecting a speech. She simply unfastens her dress and lets it fall off her with a smirk on her face. The reception ended in family violence.
* [[Blessed
* [[Changed My Jumper]]: On the rare examples of time-travel, it was easily [[Handwaved]] by Shade only appearing to personalities known to stay under the influence of substances, sometimes including hallucinogens. In one unique aversion, all of Hotel Shade and everything inside reverted gradually to earlier analogues and fashions, until they finally arrived in colonial Salem. Constantine mused on the fit of various underwear through history.
* [[Continuity Nod]] - Meta's Ditkosian mythology referred to [[Steve Ditko|Steve Ditko's]] work on the title, largely thrown out of canon during Peter Milligan's run.
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* [[Dysfunction Junction]] - played straight with some characters, subverted by other characters who are just trying to seem more interesting than their actual background would suggest, and inverted by others who come across perfectly stable in spite of having every reason to go mad.
* [[Emotionless Girl]]: The Passionchild, an androgynous pretty boy who incited emotion to the psychotic degree in everyone around him, but never expressed anything. He didn't even speak until Shade cracked into his inner world, and found nothing.
{{quote|
* [[Enemy Within]]: For Shade (thanks to the [[Green Rocks|power of madness]]) Hades became an [[Enemy Without]] and an [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] in the same story arc. He also seemed to become less threatening and more helpful, so perhaps it's for the best that he vanished the scene before [[Badass Decay|Spikeification]] set in.
* [[Executive Meddling]] - First when DC demanded the comic continue past Milligan's intended conclusion at the end of the Angels story arc. Again when the comic was canceled during the Roots of Madness story arc.
* [[Expository Hairstyle Change]]: Every time Shade {{spoiler|dies}}
* [[Gender Bender]]: Shade's consciousness leaps into the body of a recently murdered woman. Unfortunately, he was unable to alter her body to resemble his old one until he solved her murder and put her soul at rest. This led to various comical scenes with Shade experiencing the [[Male Gaze]], his first period and sex as a woman.
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** And then there's Shade himself, who gets a new haircut every time he {{spoiler|dies}}.
** According to Milligan, hair is a major theme of the series.
* [[It Runs
* [[Mad Artist]]
* [[Medium Awareness]]: A movie camera infected by the American Scream shows awareness of both film and comic conventions. And the narration during 'The Great American Story' calls much attention to panel framing and transition, then at the end the writer character reveals his name to be an anagram of Peter Milligan (and is suddenly rendered much slimmer and younger), implying that he ''was'' the narrator.
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* [[Power Born of Madness]]: prime example of the [[Reality Warper]] ("forge what you need on the smithy of your soul".) Shade began merely poetic, and therefore only insane to his native culture, so he was able to survive being flung through the Area of Madness relatively sane. With time on Earth, [[It Got Worse|he got much madder]].
* [[Reality Warper]]: Shade
* [[Ret
* [[Rewriting Reality]]: One arc features an inversion: anything that frustrated writer Miles Laimling wrote would be fictional, even if it were true before. Miles drew inspiration from personalities around him, and as their traits became more lifelike in his fiction, those traits would fade from the individuals they were inspired from.
* [[Sarcasm Failure]]: Lenny is always good for a snark, no matter how dire the situation. Her [[Sarcasm Failure]] was a result of an author, an unwitting personality plunderer, who had written her into his book, and shocked her enough to drive her to a suicide attempt.
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* [[Too Kinky to Torture]]: Version 3 of Milligan's Shade expresses enthusiasm for the idea of being tortured, as long as it's being done by an expert.
* [[Weirdness Magnet]]: Shade and his crew end up living in 'Hotel Shade', which the Angels told him would "draw madness to it like a magnet." Even John Constantine paid a visit.
* [[What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made
* [[Who Dunnit to Me?]]: Story Arc 'The Road'.
* [[Who Shot JFK?]]: The second and third issue give us a Sphinx with JFK's head that asks people this question and eats them when they're unable to answer. The JFK-Sphinx's madness is fueled by a Kennedy admirer-turned conspiracy theorist. In the end, he's forced to ask the question, {{spoiler|and says we're all responsible, for letting the President's death overshadow his life}}, but the real truth is {{spoiler|confronting the manifestation of his obsession allows him to come to terms with the death of his young daughter, which he can only blame on life's unfairness}}.
* [[Who Would Want to Watch Us?]]: In the final issues, after [[The DCU|DC]] had decided to cancel, Lenny is describing Shade to her father.
{{quote|
'''Lenny:''' If he were, his comic would probably be canceled.
''(both look out of panel)'' }}
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[[Category:Vertigo Comics]]
[[Category:DC Comics Series]]
[[Category:Shade
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