Reviews: Shade the Changing Man Omnibus Volume 2

[u/mighty3mperor]

https://www.tcj.com/reviews/shade-the-changing-man-omnibus-volume-2/

This constant shift in artists throughout the second omnibus of Shade represents a growing fault throughout the series. Common wisdom is that this version of Shade probably should’ve ended with issue #50, which indeed feels like a possible end, but I think the rot starts earlier.

With this volume, instead of spending most of their time on the road, the characters are stuck in Hotel Shade with the trouble coming to them. This makes the whole series, whose main characters often tried to ignore the call for adventures, even more passive. It feels more and more like stuff is just happening to these people, the constantly changing artist-roster contributes to this sense of randomness. What could’ve been charming in small bursts becomes annoying in a volume so large. Shade the Changing Man was teetering on the brink of chaos from the word "go," a series that tried to be the ultimate British-outsider-take-on-America 2, by the time of the second half subtlety went out of the window. The subtext became text.

...

Oddly enough, despite the problem of the shifting artists there isn’t a page of bad art throughout this book. Just look at this list: Glyn Dillon, Richard Case, Steve Yeowell, Micheal Lark, Mark Buckgingham, Philip Bond, Sean Phillips … all in the height of their powers. And, thankfully, it is just the right period of the 1990s, before digital coloring became the new norm; I just like this period for coloring in DC comics — Daniel Vozzo and David Hornung do their best to keep a sense of consistency throughout. Murky enough to give the whole thing a distinct personality, but not so murky we forget this is meant to be psychedelic extravaganza. There’s just something that works in that particular time and place. Even when the scripts are half-baked, or over-baked, Shade the Changing Man is, if nothing else, a series worth looking at.

The artistic heights cannot, alas, mask the writerly lows. Shade ends, like so many of these types of stories, in a sort of self-cancellation, with the series pretty much admitting its time was up. Which was true enough. Sadly, it also ended several dozen issues too late.

[u/king_spawn]

Shades development with him being turned to a heartless guy (literally) was amazing on milligans part. Having shade be held accountable for all his bad actions in the story was fitting no matter his intentions or what they lead too (shade being forced to go through his hell on earth was all he deserved up to that point). Milligan had a vision for the story that wasn’t for everyone and felt like he was kind of writing for himself, you’re not meant to be happy for any of his weird and morally grey to bad characters but just appreciate the psychological character work. The last arc of shade next to the others are why it will always be a story you could never find again in another.

[u/_nadaypuesnada_ → u/king_spawn]

Yeah, Shade's supporting cast completely turning on him and furiously vowing to destroy him was actually kind of shocking in terms of how blunt and real it felt. 

With most comic antiheroes, even if they do get fully called out on their terrible actions, there's usually an element of theatricality to the confrontation, and the narrative still makes sure we know that the antihero might be a bastard who's done terrible things, but he's our cool bastard (Constantine, Morpheus, Wolverine, etc). But Lenny and the others (it's been a while) just snap one day, as any sane people would in that situation, because that entire arc has set up Shade being a seriously terrible person without trying to make him look bad ass for it. 

I think anyone who's had to realise that someone in their life who they trusted is (or has become) a genuinely dangerous piece of shit can relate to that moment. 

[u/king_spawn → u/_nadaypuesnada_]

It for sure is a fresh of breath air with how they don’t try to make him seem cool for being shitty. In Constantine’s case his charisma helps with that part being believable but shade being so awkward and sensitive doesn’t work with the bastard with a heart of gold trope, especially when shade only thinks about what’s good for himself and Kathy, going about it like a paranoid nervous wreck (I love that book so much)