Hey Gamma Heads,
Welcome back to Content Overload, the series where we go in-depth with my favorite media.
Today, we’re looking at one of my favorite comic books, Shade The Changing Man From DC Comics. this series follows Rac Shade, a poet from another world forced to fight the madness that is consuming America.
The following article was written by myself for a college class during my years at Savannah College of Art and Design. Thanks, Professor Duncan, for putting up with my Vertigo Comics hyperfixation.
When Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo set about reinventing Rac Shade, the possibilities were endless. Shade was a character that had started with a short run by his creator Steve Ditko for DC Comics in 1977. Equipped with the M-Vest, a piece of technology that can channel the power of madness, Shade was a force to be reckoned with. Until he disappeared like many other characters into the background. That was until 1990 when Milligan took a chance.
Rac Shade was reinvented for a new generation and with that came the responsibility of capturing the spirit of the era. A new kind of madness was spreading throughout the real world in the form of conspiracy theories. From the Moon landing to the shape of the Earth, these dangerous ideas were consuming lives. This is where Shade's adventures truly begin.
Issue Two of Shade’s second series is written by Peter Milligan with pencils by Chris Bachalo, inks by Mark Pennington, colors by Daniel Vozzo, and letters by Todd Klien. It picks up where the previous issue ended with Shade having been transported to Earth into the body of a serial killer on death row. He escapes and teams up with Kathy George, the daughter of the killer’s victims, to go on the run.
The madness that Shade has powers over has grown and is infecting the world. A writer, Duane Trilby, has been trying for years to track down the truth of who murdered John F. Kennedy. He unwittingly becomes a pawn to the madness as it warps the world around him. As a result of this, a sphinx in the shape of JFK’s head appears in the center of downtown and consumes anyone who can’t answer its riddle. “Who killed JFK?” Shade and Kathy must figure out the unsolvable riddle which takes center stage on the cover as shown above.
According to one European journal conspiracy theories happen when a culture has a crisis like the death of a president or a pandemic. Afterwards, when people remember that event they may be warped by the theories about it. The most famous examples are the theories about who killed JFK, that the Earth is flat, or that the Moon landing was faked. These theories all happened after a huge event or crisis and then spread as people began to work through their feelings about that event. Conspiracies about the pandemic and the vaccine are the modern equivalent of those older theories. People with ill intent or distrust in governmental figures warped the truth to further their own intentions.
These broad ideas are how Milligan ties everything back into the characters. Shade has little memory of who he is while Kathy struggles with the fact that Shade is in the body of her parents' killer. Both are struggling with a crisis and the madness takes advantage of it to wrap them up in its control.
As seen in the image above from Issue #4 Shade has to battle madness made incarnate in the form of the American Scream, a skeleton that claims to represent all the people with “unquiet minds”, which can be interpreted as those who believe in conspiracy theories. It tied their individual struggles with crisis into the struggles that were encompassing the United States at the time. Crises both small and on a global scale help build both characters and conspiracy. Shade is shaped by his encounter with the madness in Trilby who has become consumed by his journey into conspiracy. These crises are what Shade must learn to navigate if he is going to become the champion of madness.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this please consider sharing this article with others by clicking the button below.
If you want to share your thoughts click here.
If you're new here consider subscribing by clicking here.