The Shade #3 – Review

By: James Robinson (writer), Cully Hamner (artist), Dave McCaig (colorist)

The Story: To beautiful Australia, Shade just wants to say a happy g’day, mates!

The Review: Shade’s transition from villain to something of an antihero has been a gradual, uneven process and even now his motivations are somewhat questionable.  He doesn’t exactly go out of his way to do good in the world; he tackles evil and crime only insofar as it interferes with or promotes his interests.

So when you see Shade arriving in Australia to take down the Idle Hands, a gang on rocket scooters, he doesn’t do it out of the goodness of his heart, but rather does it in exchange for further information on the Caldecotts, one of whom has apparently taken up residence Down Under.  Shortly afterwards, he seeks the advice of Diablo Blackshade, a magician he once confronted back in his high larceny days, who very brusquely makes it plain that he has not forgotten the incident: “I’m not your friend.”

Still, Diablo does offer some valuable insight into what Shade’s up against, and he reveals something even more important: “I see your soul, Shade.  Here, now, I see it growing.”  This will come as a bit of a surprise, as it’s been long assumed Shade ceased having anything of the kind a long time ago.  Obviously, his regained ability to love has something to do with this spiritual development, but it’ll evidently take something more to complete the process.

It’s encouraging to see that Shade doesn’t seem resistant to having his soul back.  In battling Mangar-kunder-kunja, a lizard god of the Australian Aborigines, Shade actually takes Diablo’s teachings to heart and channels his “eternal spirit-child,” in essence showing his true self, free of his usual flippancy and wit.  It’s a surprisingly vulnerable, even gentle act (“of faith,” he admits), one that leads Mangar to state, with some surprise, “Evil you are.  Good you are, too.”

The Shade #1 – Review

By: James Robinson (writer), Cully Hamner (artist), Dave McCaig (colorist)

The Story: Props, man—anyone who can pull off a top hat in public today is pretty legit.

The Review: I mentioned not too long ago that while Robinson’s efforts at writing the Justice League left me completely unimpressed, I thoroughly enjoyed his work on Starman.  Aside from the tremendous development he gave to the titular hero, Robinson also wrote a formidable Shade.  As a result, the villain-turned-“hero” gained a background of mythic proportions and one of the more complex, inscrutable set of motivations among DC personalities.

This issue captures Shade’s appeal very well: erudite, rugged, and charming, living in the lap of luxury (Starman: “I could give [the tea] a warming nudge with my power gem.”  Shade: “Not with my best bone china, you won’t.”), and tops in the metahuman ranks besides.  For the Bronte fans, Shade is pretty much Edward Rochester with superpowers.  Be prepared, though, for some obscure references: “Why don’t we skip the tea entirely and watch an Ingmar Bergman film?”

The Rochester parallel comes even stronger in Shade’s scenes with Hope O’Dare.  While he projects a very private figure, a master of understatement, he has no qualms speaking lavishly of his affection for Hope, who, like Rochester’s Jane Eyre, doesn’t find that kind of romancing all that romantic.  She tells him, quite perceptively, that there’s nothing sexy about Shade turning into her neutered beau and that he ought to look into taking up some adventurous hobby.

It seems like adventure is out to find him, however.  Amidst Shade’s many scenes of quiet contemplation, we catch a glimpse of German agent William Von Hammer, who in Bond style singlehandedly dispatches a whole motley crew of killers.  It’s an impressive sequence, for all that it doesn’t feature our star.  Against a thug in a rocket pack, a beast-man, and several goons in nifty armor, Von Hammer takes them all down with a single pistol.

Justice League Dark #1 – Review

By: Peter Milligan (writer), Mikel Janin (artist), Ulises Arreola (colorist)

The Story: Madame Xanadu, you are being a major downer right now.

The Review: Some words come with major connotative baggage attached, which people don’t always realize when they use them.  I’d say “dark” falls in this category.  Lately, you hear writers drop this word a lot in plugging their projects, as if by doing so their work will instantly take on a layer of “seriousness.”  Instead, they usually only succeed in sapping “dark” of all its meaning.  Nowadays, the mere mention of it elicits only a shrug and eye-roll.

DC went full-on trigger-happy with the word, creating a whole line of books under the “dark” umbrella.  Luckily, they have skilled writers onboard to give credit to the description, and Milligan is no exception.  You don’t get much darker than a two-page splash of a bunch of identical women on a highway, each in various stages of getting maimed by speeding vehicles.

This can all be gratuitous if it has no reason for being other than to shock you.  Milligan keeps his grimly imaginative ideas grounded in a steady plot and character-developing moments, unless he’s using them to set tone.  Like John Rozum on Xombi, he has a knack for laying out a series of visuals for gut-hitting impression: “…cows give birth to mechanical meat slicers…the power station threatens to explode when it is imbued with consciousness…and gets bored.”

At the heart of all this strangeness, inside a glowing-green envelope where “time itself slows down,” and “Neutrons crush inside atoms,” lies Enchantress.  For a while, over in the now defunct Shadowpact, she demonstrated remarkable self-control, but now she seems totally unhinged at last, going the way of Scarlet Witch and magically lashing out against all who approach her maddened state.  Included among her victims are several members of the Justice League, with Superman realizing he’s no match against the cuts of “Filthy flying teeth!”

Flashpoint: Secret Seven #2 – Review

By: Peter Milligan (writer), Fernando Blanco (penciller), Scott Koblish (inker), Brian Buccellato (colorist)

The Story: Don’t mess with this guy—he’s cuh-raaazy!

The Review: In fiction, as in real life, you really have to get to know someone before you start caring about them, one way or another.  Either their personality has to be distinctive enough to really stick to you, or you have to learn enough about their lives to appreciate what happens to them.  Anything less, and no matter how interesting their story turns out to be, you lose the emotional weight that really gives it impact.

That’s sort of the problem we run into with Shade and his Secret Seven.  Honestly, there’s a bunch of interesting bits going on here, particularly in watching the rest of the Seven (grown-up Amethyst, thieving Mindwarp, stage magician Abra Kadabra, punk Zatanna, and demonic Raven) get seriously cranked out on Shade’s influence.  Unsurprisingly, none of them are too happy Seven membership includes temporary bursts of psychotic behavior, leading to some fairly serious reorganization choices in the issue.

Plain and simple, we just don’t know enough about what’s going on to be sympathetic to much of it.  Shade’s growing suspicions of his own breakdown should be more affecting, but from the beginning we’re led to believe he’s always been a bit screwy.  Mostly we’re left wondering why no one did anything about it before, especially since the last set of Seven all (minus Shade) killed themselves in the most questionable circumstances.

It’d be helpful if we had a better understanding of how the M-Vest works, exactly.  All this dancing around whether the “M” stands for “meta” or “madness” serves only to irritate, as neither definition does much to inform you on the vest’s powers.  We know from the previous issue that Shade’s vest has evolved beyond its original capacities (whatever they are), but whether that has anything to do with its increasingly disorienting effects remains up in the air.

Flashpoint: Secret Seven #1 – Review

By: Peter Milligan (writer), George Pérez & Fernando Blanco (pencillers), Scott Koblish (inkers), Tom Smith (colorist)

The Story: Crazy people hunting down other crazies…that’s a reality show pitch, right there.

The Review: There are basically two traditions you can take in writing an Elseworlds (for lack of a more apt term) story: make pointed comparisons between the world you’re writing and the world it’s based on; or just tackle the Elseworld on its own merits, as if it’s the only world people would know.  Though each strategy has its pros and cons, generally it’s better not to waste too much time calling attention to the specific alterations.

Secret Seven essentially takes the second route, and of all the Flashpoint tie-ins, it feels most genuinely like an entity unto itself.  If not for the Flashpoint logo emblazoned across the cover, the events of this story could easily take place in the normal DCU.  This is good since the story and characters largely stand on their own; you’re not distracted pointing out what’s familiar.  It’s also bad because it doesn’t use the creative potential of the altered Earth to full advantage.

This issue focuses on two of the current Seven: Rac Shade, the Changing Man, and June Moone, the Enchantress, both relatively obscure characters.  Enchantress’ involvement with DC’s premiere team of mystics, Shadowpact, makes her more familiar to you, but that’s also because Milligan’s version of her sticks very close to the original.  Shade, largely absent from the stands since the mid-nineties, might as well be making his debut in this title, since you’re probably like me and have never even heard of him before.

Perhaps Milligan wants us to read this series less as a Flashpoint tie-in and more as a special mini featuring the DC character he’s best known for writing.  You’d have to be a Shade fan to fully enjoy this issue, as most of it assumes you have some knowledge of his mythos; concepts like the Meta Hightable, the M-Vest, and even the basis of his powers are thrown at you without much explanation, leaving you frequently puzzled as to what characters are talking about.