The Shade #7 – Review

By: James Robinson (writer), Javier Pulido (artist), Hilary Sycamore (colorist)

The Story: Just your usual father-daughter demon-slaying outing in Spain.

The Review: Of all of Robinson’s international creations thus far, La Sangre has quickly become the most fully developed and compelling one yet—yes, even despite the fact she’s a vampire in a DCU that’s quickly being overrun with vampires.  Part of what makes her feel so substantial compared to the other guests on this mini is her enmity with the Inquisitor.  Their acidic relationship has as much history and passion as even veteran hero-villain dynamics.

Too bad Robinson doesn’t have the luxury to explore this relationship at a more suspenseful pace.  Instead, he’s forced to squeeze the decades of contempt between the Inquisitor and La Sangre into three pages.  Even then you only feel the heat of their mutual hatred around the edges of their massive blocks of text.

Make no mistake: this is an incredibly talky issue, and much of the talk has either to do with the Inquisitor’s rather complicated plan to steal all the souls in Barcelona, or with his and La Sangre’s opposing viewpoints on faith and morality.  While most of this material feels heavy and abstract, it does reveal the Inquisitor’s true motives.  Maybe he originally desired Sangre’s banishment because of her seemingly demonic nature, but now it’s an obsession with bringing her down to his level, to make it clear that even when both are damned, he has the higher ground.

Much more successful is the Shade’s monologue regarding his past, in particular his long late wife.  Strange circumstances for such reminiscing, considering he’s fighting a demon embodied with the might of Hell itself, but that makes his reverie no less touching and beautiful: “My wife made a mutton stew like no other.  My wife loved the gray-green color of a pigeon’s breast.  She was always first to the door, delighted, upon hearing carolers outside at Yuletide.  She loved bread and dripping with a hot cup of tea.”  Even though she’s obviously a product of her time, Robinson’s choice of words (no imagery, mind you—we never actually get to see her) allow us to understand why she resonates so deeply with this ostensibly soulless man.

The Shade #6 – Review

By: James Robinson (writer), Javier Pulido (artist), Hilary Sycamore (colorist)

The Story: There seems to be some bad blood between you two…

The Review: Every now and then I’m reminded with a start just how many British writers there are in the comics business.  It’s not something you think of often, since they spend all their time writing American characters in American settings with an American audience in mind anyway.  Ultimately, too, the distinction is somewhat irrelevant as the variety of writing styles among the Brits and Yankees is so broad that you can’t really tell them apart by text alone.

I say all this because The Shade may be one of those rare exceptions, a title that reads with an inescapably British flavor.  Yes, yes, the title character is of English origin, and his proud Victorian foppery gives him away long before he even begins to speak, but that’s not it—not entirely.

Compare with Paul Cornell’s Knight and Squire; in that series, the pride of British culture was on full display, but a very modern, sarcastic, bombastic type of culture, where even as the characters engage in that famous understatement, they reveal the heat of their feelings nonetheless.  Not so here.  Shade comes from an earlier, much more reserved period, so no matter what the situation, his voice rings with a light, even airy timbre that is at once amusing, perceptive, and intelligent, never clearly showing emotion.  For example, to the raging Inquisitor, he remarks, “How very uncivil, sir.  How very rude.  Why, I’ll have you know…some of my best friends are sodomites.”  Only timing and context hint at the threat veiled within the joke.

Another quality that reveals the Britishness of the writing is how easy and enjoyable it is to read even the exposition.  At my grad school commencement, we had a very petite London lady deliver a speech, and I remember the entire audience was held spellbound by her rich choice of vocabulary, her sparkling accent, her class, and most of all, the even rhythm of her dialogue.  You can feel that same effect in the script here.  Robinson manages to fill whole pages of nothing but talking heads and still make it gripping, largely because of the almost poetical turn of his writing: “Commissioner Cervantes’ father.  Tough, tight-fisted detective.  ‘Quixote’ was the nickname everyone called him.  He fought crime from the 1940s through the next couple of decades.  Devastating right hook.  Died of cancer in ’68.”  In a few sentences, Robinson gives a compelling impression of a man whom you never see, yet gets you interested in him anyway.

The Shade #5 – Review

By: James Robinson (writer), Javier Pulido (artist), Hilary Sycamore (colorist)

The Story: Vampire pirates—you all knew it had to happen at some point, right?

The Review: Even though the current line of DC titles has a lot of variety to it, you can’t help noticing how much of the storytelling is confined to the U.S. of A.  Of course, comics across the board from every publisher tend to be America-centric, which is mostly fine by me, since I love America (wink!).  But you know, there is a whole rest-of-the-world out there, and it seems a waste for the vast bulk of titles to use it for nothing more than the occasional backdrop.

So by far the most exciting feature of The Shade has been the opportunity afforded us to not only visit different periods and countries, but actually stick around for a while and get to know the place.  What Robinson has been doing brilliantly is establishing settings outside the continental United States that feel like living, breathing, fully-realized worlds all their own, as if they’ve been in existence all along and we’re only just now dropping in to see them.

Nowhere is that more apparent than Robinson’s handling of the foreigner superheroes he’s brought into his story.  Now, it’s one thing to conceive a character, attach a few random powers, and call him/her a superhero; it’s another thing to give them depth and roundness, with enough interesting substance to make them compelling by their own rights, not just as ciphers to your protagonist.  On Batwing, Judd Winick popped out a new hero, one after another, in nearly every issue, and not a single one felt accessible or succeeded in resonating with you.  Here, within a few pages, Robinson makes La Sangre a heroine so fresh, fascinating, and just plain cool that it makes you want to search desperately to see if she has a secret ongoing feature somewhere.

Madame Xanadu #15 – Review

by Matt Wagner (writer), Michael Wm. Kaluta (art), Dave Stewart (colors), and Jared K. Fletcher (letters)

The Story: Madame Xanadu finally comes face to face with Al Nar.

What’s Good: As the demon pursues Richard Miller, Wagner and Kaluta do a fantastic job of depicting the chase, really giving a paranoid feel to the book. You get a sense of Miller’s mind unraveling, and this is largely courtesy of Wagner’s never wholly committing to the nature of Al Nar’s presence. Were some of those appearances only in Miller’s mind? Was the demon actually present, but only visible to Miller? It’s never entirely clear, and this ambiguity only heightens the dizzying fear that makes the chase feel all the more claustrophobic. Kaluta’s positioning of Al-Nar and the dog only enhances this feel, as they either pop in from the bottoms or corners of the panel, or suddenly appear to dominate entire panels of their own.

This issue also does what this entire arc has done so well, effortlessly fusing the seemingly disparate elements of magic and old-world mysticism with film noir New York. The chase sequence feels Chandleresque in spite of the demonic presence. Furthermore, the Sandman continues to be a classic hard-boiled presence.  Seeing him fight alongside Xanadu against the demon is a perfect summation of this blend of genre, as the mysterious gumshoe with his weird gun is injected into an otherwise wholly mystical confrontation.

Beyond that, there are a couple twists regarding the Sandman’s identity and the nature of the demon that come as nice, warm little surprises. They’re not shockers, but they do manage to amuse. I think this is largely due to them being pretty obvious, and even hinted at a couple of times, but with the parallel story, the murders, and the magic, those little hints got lost and forgotten. If anything, the reveals are almost like reminders.

Kaluta’s pencil shading remains one-of-a-kind, rough but detailed and moody. Kaluta’s rendition of 1940s New York can only be described as classic. However, the real star here is the final battle with the fire demon, which is nothing short of cataclysmic. Kaluta manages to fully portray the sheer size of the battle as well as the chaos of it, with flames aplenty. He manages to make it comprehensible with just a hint of difficulty to emphasize how crazy the events really are.

What’s Not So Good: This arc’s defining quality has been how effortlessly it swapped between its parallel stories, despite the time frame being 500 years apart and in different countries. However, that’s not the case this month. The balance is gone, as only 4 pages are spent in Spain. As a result, some of the things that made this arc so impressive are forfeited.

The length is also disappointing, in that there is no surprise in the story.  It simply comes to its end, concluding just as we knew it would right from the start of this arc and adding nothing to the inevitable ending.

The final battle with demon is a bit problematic as well, as the conclusion of the battle isn’t particularly inventive. Essentially, Madame Xanadu throws a bunch of random magical crap at the thing until eventually something works. I felt the story deserved something a little more well-played than that.

Conclusion: Great art, great atmosphere, and a great tone, but the parallel story structure finally breaks down a bit.

Grade: B

-Alex Evans