This Nineties re-imagining of the seventies Steve Ditko character of the same name was written by Peter Milligan as one of the debut titles on the newly-launched Vertigo line of DC Comics. Milligan's style trends towards surreal existentialism, which proves to be a great foundation for a story about an inter-dimensional traveler shackled to a symbiotic madness vest. This graphic novel collects the first six issues of the seventy-issue run, completing the initial origin story arc of the series. Shade was one of the more innovative titles to come out during the post-modern comics phase of the nineties, and well worth a look. ( )

Rac Shade is an alien from another dimension sent to earth to stop a creature of total insanity that's escaped from the Area of Madness and is running riot across the USA - The American Scream. On arrival, Shade finds himself stuck, Sam Beckett style, inside the body of death row serial killer Troy Grenzer. Teamed up with Kathy, the daughter of Grenzer's last victim, and on the run from the authorities, Shade must follow the madness stream all across America, from Dealey Plaza in Texas where a giant JFK head wants to know who shot it to New York where the litter problem is getting out of hand to Haight Ashbury where the hippy dream has gone seriously wrong. British writer Milligan brings an outsider's twisted perspective to the land of the free, and it's fascinating to watch Bachalo's art evolve towards his current style as the series progresses.

Read the full review at my blog. ( )

It's a very sad thing that the trade ends with issue 6, meaning only ten percent of this remarkable comic is available to most readers. I was lucky enough to find a complete set of scans online, and only being able to read the first six would be like smelling an apple pie you wouldn't get to taste. Bachalo and Milligan really hit their stride as the series goes along, even though Morrison and Gaiman get all the press, Shade is a smarter book by far. ( )

By PETER MILLIGAN and (distant second) Peter Bachalo. Sheeesh. He can't even give that girl the same face from one panel to the next. Although this does give rise to intriguing thoughts, in the way you're suddenly like, "Whoa, it's Peter Milligan and it's 1990 and look at what he's DOING!" What would Shakespeare have made of Gotti? Waugh of the Austrian Succession (like, contemporaneously, not as history)? Chaucer of Genji Monogatari or Wilde of the glam rock era? It's not quite the same, of course. but it's similar. ( )