Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes!

Shade the Changing Man #1 

It is our second "First Issue on the First" and this month's title features the actual first appearance of Shade the Changing Man with story and art by the legendary Steve Ditko. I vaguely recall as a kid seeing Shade in an issue of Who’s Who in the DC Universe. After that, I wasn’t aware of the character until high school when I read a few issues of the Vertigo version that a girlfriend had left laying around her room. I knew Ditko had created him and that the team from Vertigo had probably gone in some crazy other direction with the character. That was the extent of my exposure to the character before finding this “Electrifying First Issue!” in the dollar bin at a local shop.

The cover alone is worth the price of admission. Intentional or not, it bombastically takes Ditko's Objectivist ideals to their natural reductio absurdum conclusion. Shade stands front and center while pontificating, “The full power of the M-vest is unknown—and although it could destroy mankind-- I must use it to save my life!” That cover copy might just be the Ayn Randiest thing Steve Ditko ever wrote. This untested technology might cause genocide, but I need it to save something even more important than an entire race of people—MYSELF! 

A friend and fellow collector described Shade the Changing Man as the last good thing Ditko created and, despite making a few harmless jabs about Speedball the Masked Marvel and Squirrel Girl, I am inclined to agree with him. So, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It reads really well in spite of being a totally different animal from the Vertigo incarnation of the character. More happens in the space of a few pages of this than in entire issues of modern “decompressed” comics. Premise, conflict, setting, and all the major characters are there right out of the gate with a handy set-up for easily introducing new menaces/monsters of the month.

What does the M-vest do exactly? That's hard to say, and not even it's creator (in the comic or the real world) seems to know for sure. What we do know is the M stands for "madness" and the few uses of it on page seem as if it warps the perceptions of those around the wearer, especially the spatial perceptions of those affected. Shade often seems to be bigger and more savage/monstrous to those he is fighting. Typical of 60s and 70s era storytelling, madness is usually depicted through a distorted, fish-eye lens and sufferers seeing invisible monsters. Whether these perceptions reflect actual physical changes in Shade himself seem unlikely, though that was something the updated 90s Vertigo comic did explore, making the main character a literal changing man (and sometimes woman!).

The art is solid with nothing for those who can appreciate the distinctive Ditko style to complain about. To modern sensibilities I am sure it looks old fashioned. Ditko's art leans strongly toward the cartoonish corner of Scott McCloud's representational triangle, but this the work of a master of anatomy and expressiveness, especially through gesture. The pages have lots of panels, each one packed with movement and detail.

On a final note, as you might guess from the title of this review, I think David Bowie would have made a very cool live-action Shade.