Shade The Changing Man – Everything is Real – Travis M. Holyfield

8 panels. Put together, these panels essentially create a splash page. SHADE stands at the back of an O.R.C. meeting hall. His back is to us, and we are looking past him down the hall. DOCTOR Z.Z. is at the end of the hall, delivering a sermon to a crowd of eager parishioners seated in long wooden pews. The hall itself is unornamented, plain except for some Metan imagery at the podium where Z.Z. stands.

Again, the idea with each panel is that we are scanning down Shade's body, starting with his left shoulder in panel 1 and then continuing right and downwards until we reach his right fist in panel 8. The rest of the panel is taken up with the surrounding layout of the O.R.C. center.

Panel 1: Shade's left shoulder.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: You have come here because you want to know The Truth! You have come here because you know that THEY are keeping The Truth FROM YOU!

Panel 2: Shade's right shoulder.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: You are here because you see over two dozen celebrities, actors, actresses, musicians! You see a United States Congressman, and you know that THEY know The Truth!

Panel 3: Shade's left upper arm.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: The Truth that our beloved founder Wizor died to bring this world! 

Panel 4: Shade's right upper arm.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: The Truth that we here at the Occult Research Center protect and cherish, and that we invite you to be a part of!

Panel 5: Shade's left forearm.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: And The Truth, my friends is that IT IS ALL TRUE!

Panel 6: Shade's right forearm.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: Everything you have ever dreamed, everything you have ever believed, is TRUE, and it is REAL, and it is THERE FOR YOU TO TAKE!

Panel 7: Shade's left hand.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: Join the O.R.C., give yourself over to our trust, and we will pull back the secret skin of the multiverse! We will show you Meta and BEYOND!

Panel 8: Shade's right fist now begins to crackle and distort with the strange energies of his M-Vest.

DOCTOR Z.Z.: FOLLOW US! And no one in this world or any other will ever stand in your way again!

Shade The Changing Man – Buried on Sunday – MK Stangeland Jr.

(7 Panels)

Panel 1: SOLOMON GRUNDY is walking through a swamp.

Panel 2: SOLOMON GRUNDY continues to walk, but his body is showing signs of transformation – his face looks twisted and blurred and his limbs are slenderizing.

Panel 3: SOLOMON GRUNDY – has come to a stop and is looking at himself, but he’s not exactly SOLOMON GRUNDY anymore. He’s now more of a ‘SHADE GRUNDY’.

His face resembles that of SHADE, and while he’s less bulky than GRUNDY normally is, he’s still got SOLOMON GRUNDY’s basic posture.

Since the dialogue from both comes out of the same ‘person’, there should be some kind of indicator as to who is actually saying the lines. Possibly a difference in their speech balloons or a little face of whoever’s speaking next to what they’re saying.

GRUNDY: Grundy feel weird. Not like self.

SHADE: Did I just say that?

Panel 4: SHADE GRUNDY is paralyzed in position as SHADE tries to keep moving forwards while GRUNDY simply wants to stand there in confusion.

GRUNDY: Grundy is very confused right now.

SHADE: Oh $#*^, I did say that.

Panel 6: SHADE GRUNDY starts to move forwards as SHADE conjures up enough willpower to at least start them moving forwards.

GRUNDY: WHY IS GRUNDY DOING THAT?!

SHADE: This has to be the worst…

Panel 7: SHADE GRUNDY falls over face forwards into the swamp as SHADE fails to keep moving fast enough to actually catch his footing before the body simply topples over from lack of balance.

SHADE GRUNDY: AAAH!

(END PAGE)

Shade, the Changing Man - Ever After - Grant McLaughlin

This page is somewhat reliant on you knowing how Peter Milligan's run ended, in that its main visual is what that series ended on - Shade, Kathy George, and the door and stoop outside Kathy George's house.  Let's go with a classic 9 panel grid.

While the entire page takes place in the same location, the important thing to note is that there is a leap in time between each panel.  It should perhaps be subtle at first, but Kathy and Shade should be older in every panel - hair thinning, wrinkles emerging, postures stooping, and all that jazz.

1 - We're outside Kathy's door.  It's nighttime.  It's the same 3/4 angle from issue #70.  Heck, it can even be the same night.  Shade runs out from the door, covering his head as Kathy throws her diary out the door after him.

CAPTION (SHADE): Of course, nothing ever works out quite the way you plan it.

2 - On that same stoop, Shade and Kathy hold each other close, the diary in Shade's hands (as if he's picked it up).

CAPTION (SHADE): But we'd always pick up the pieces

3 - Kathy pushing Shade away, the diary falling from his grasp.

CAPTION (SHADE): Only for them to fall apart all over again

4 - Kathy stands in the doorway, looking down at Shade, who is sitting on his rump as if he's just landed.  Kathy's expression has softened and she puts out a hand to help Shade up.

CAPTION (SHADE): We kept going around in circles.

5 - Rotate the view slightly to look more directly at the doorway.  Shade knocks Kathy's hand away, and they being yelling at each other - you could even have those little sound lines to indicate the volume.

CAPTION (SHADE): It was maddening.

6 - Focus on Shade sitting alone on the stoop the diary beside him.  He is crying.  The panel should be angled so as to not be able to see the top of the closed doorway.

CAPTION (SHADE): I thought I could find the answer to fix everything, blind to the actual problem.

7 - Kathy has come back outside.  She stands behind Shade, her hand on his shoulder.  Shade has managed to stop his tears, although Kathy's expression is not visible as it is off-panel.

CAPTION (SHADE): I shouldn't be surprised that Kathy helped me see.

8 - Shade looks over his shoulder up towards Kathy, a hopeful look on his face.  We've changed angles again to have Shade facing the reader and to have Kathy with her back to them, her expression unseen.

CAPTION (SHADE): I'd done so much to find a place where I was content.

9 - Shade and Kathy sit together on the stoop.  Kathy places her head on Shade's shoulder as they hold hands, smiling.  Please remember that they have been aging the entire page and are now a pair of veritable geriatrics for this final panel.

CAPTION (SHADE): When I should have been looking for one where we both were.

Shade, the Changing Man - The Madding Crowd, Part 5 - R.A. Wonsowski

Previously...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

PAGE 10:
We are back in the monitor-lit lab beneath MetaPharma. Some of it, however, has been trashed after a fight between DR. SKOLOS and SHADE...

Panel 1- A furious SHADE has DR. SKOLOS pinned to the wall by the throat with his madness-distorted hand. A nearby video screen is cracked, but still displaying fluorescent Aramaic script. A second closed-circuit TV shows JACK RYDER cartwheeling off of padded cell walls in the fashion of the Creeper. SKOLOS flashes his rictus grin at the raging SHADE.

SHADE: Dammit, Skolos, I'm not asking again! Where's Kathy?!

SKOLOS: Rrghn...she's in the... Area...of Madness...

Panel 2- SHADE's madness-fist fades, dropping SKOLOS to the floor. SKOLOS rubs his neck where he was strangled, his grin a little bit wider. SHADE is confused, sadly bewildered.

SHADE: What?

SKOLOS: Heh. You idiot. All that time, connected to it by the Vest. And you never knew...

Panel 3- SKOLOS laughs and points at a working video feed, showing a dessicated corpse in a white T-shirt and black jeans. Black hair wisps and flakes of skin are blowing in an unseen breeze. The body floats in the brown air above a mud flatland. SHADE is devastated by the sight of Kathy's body, dead in the Area of Madness.

SKOLOS: You call us "necrologists". Students of Death.

SKOLOS: But you, Shade...You were the true pioneer! The first NECRONAUT!

Panel 4- Our view moves in, as the video picture moves out: Kathy's corpse is distant, but the focus is a fleshless floating skeleton wearing only the Ditko-designed Madness Vest. SKOLOS is laughing, bearing shark teeth in his mouth.

SKOLOS: Your Metan corpse has lain there for how long? You ignorant tourist!

SKOLOS: The Area is the Next World! The Afterlife!

Panel 5- SKOLOS backhands SHADE across the face with his fist with one hand, digging into a pocket with the other. SKOLOS's face should be in the shadows only his fanged smile gleaming, and his feet should be planted apart, a combative stance.

SKOLOS: There is no Heaven! No Hell! No Entropy or Order!

SKOLOS: Only Madness!

Panel 6- Close-up: SKOLOS's face. The face is demonic, the goatee Dali-esque and exaggerated, the shark-toothed Glasgow smile, the fiery eyes, and darker on the right (panel left) 2/3 of his face. In front of his eye, between his thumb and forefinger, a black diamond, a sliver of the Heart of Darkness, sparks...

SKOLOS: God is an absent parent, necronaut. Kathy's dead.

SKOLOS: And so are you.

... To be continued...

Why Shade, the Changing Man?

You mean, besides being another Ditko creation and being a character in my ongoing saga?

Shade by Mike Allred

Because Shade is, in my opinion, the greatest love story in modern comics. Better than Lois and Clark. Better than Peter and MJ. Only matched in maturity by Sue and Reed, Shade, in both Ditko's and later writer Peter Milligan's hands, is the "Ditkosian" philosophy applied to the romantic ideal.

Steve Ditko's Shade

Rac Shade is a secret agent with a poet's soul for an extradimensional world called Meta. Meta and Earth are separated by a membrane called an M-Zone. The most dangerous part of crossing between is the Area of Madness. When he was accused of treason by his fiancée, Mellu, he stole a prototype "M-vest" and escaped between worlds. The vest distorts both the wearer and reality, and is attuned to the madness brought on by emotions strong enough to warp one's perspective.

...err...

Shade's circumstances took a turn for the worse when his body died in the Area of Madness. With the M-Vest linked to his metaphysical self, he punched a hole in the dimensional membrane, and inhabited the body of freshly deceased serial killer Troy Grenzer. The execution-gone-wrong was witnessed by a young woman named Kathy George, whose parents were murdered by Grenzer. Together they go on a sick, slick road trip across the Altered States of America.

Love, Vertigo-Style...

What follows in Milligan's run on the character is a study of selfless love versus selfish love. Shade, who bebops from body to body as he goes, is defined only by his romantic, poetic nature. Kathy is broken and confused, spiraling in and out of alcoholism, and Shade believes that if he sacrifices himself over and over again, or if he could somehow change her, she would come to love him. As the saying goes, insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result.

...and it does get insane.

The problem is that Shade doesn't know who he is either. He is literally "without Self" and is surprised and hurt time after time when Kathy doesn't reciprocate his romantic ideal. The love is empty, so that when she dies giving birth to Shade's baby, he resents the child and removes his heart, locking it in a box, and hiding it in the Madness stream.

Pfft...who needs it?

It's only after discovering himself and accepts his own broken heart, that he decides to go backwards in time, and try to stop Grenzer from murdering Kathy's parents in the first place. By restarting her reality, she could live a normal, happy life, and he can let her go. Like Sting sang, if you love somebody...

Yes, they made a cartoon version.

That realization, that you are what you are, and that loving someone means saying "Yes" to everything you look up to in them, is central to Shade. His need to sacrifice all at Kathy's altar is not out of love, but pity. He wants to be what she wants him to be, and it's not until he is who he is meant to be that his heart is given meaning.

Before you can love someone else, you have to love yourself first.

I always was a comic book fan, but Shade the Changing Man is the first series that I truly loved.