Shade the Changing Man Vol. 1: The American Scream

Written by Peter Milligan
Art by Chris Bachalo and Mark Pennington

I loved Milligan and Bachalo's run on Shade, one of DC's titles that became a part of the Vertigo imprint at some point during its run, but I'd never picked up some of the earliest issues.  When I saw this trade for a good price, I figured it was a good chance to reacquaint myself with the book, and see what I'd missed.

Shade stands up pretty well, considering that it's twenty years old.  In this book, Milligan dusts off an old, bizarre Steve Ditko character, and bring him from his home dimension of Meta into modern-day (ie. early 90s) America.  Shade inhabits the body of Troy Grenzer, a serial killer who was set to be executed in Texas when Shade shows up.  He ends up traveling with Kathy George, the woman whose parents were Grenzer's last victims, as they follow the trail of the American Scream, an infestation of madness from the zone between Meta and Earth.

It's weird, but that's the point really.  There is a cool two-parter which has Shade dealing with the legacy of JFK's assassination, and another where the American Scream infests Hollywood, and the line is blurred between fact and movie fiction.

The plot is kept moving at a brisk pace, and there is a good chunk of exposition that modernizes Shade's back story.  The real draw of the book is the relationship between Shade and Kathy.  Here we have the body of the man that murdered her parents and ruined her life, but its inhabited by someone whose inherent goodness has attracted her.  She's pretty conflicted, and Milligan later builds on this to make her one of my favourite comics characters of all time.  Sadly, the other supporting character that I loved, Lenny, doesn't appear in this volume.

It's interesting to look at early Chris Bachalo work.  You can see the seeds of the superstar artist he has become today, and I would love to see him go back and draw some of these stories using his current style.  The books are pretty psychedelic, and it would look great.  I also like that the individual covers, by Brendan McCarthy, are included in the trade.

Now I want to dig out all my back issues and read through this series again.  Pick this up.