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Andy’s Read Pile: Steve Ditko's Shade the Changing Man

It seems like the older I get the more I tend to gravitate towards the things that I enjoyed when I was a kid. Maybe it's the growing sense of denial as the years tick by and I find the creeping inevitability of my own morality staring me more and more in the face.

However, regardless of the reason, these are the day to bask in the glories of my misspent youth. Especially those things that I loved from a really early age.

That means more He-man, more Star Wars, and believe it or not, more Steve Ditko! Yes, you see, as I've talked about on the podcast more than a couple times, my first comic book was actually a Steve Ditko drawn reprint of Amazing Spider-man issue #6 where he fights the Lizard for the first time. In fact, most of my earliest memories of my favorite comic book character were actually all drawn by Steve Ditko, as I also had reprints of Spidey's first battles with Electro, the Scorpion, and that second chapter of the Master Planner saga entitled "Man on a Rampage".

All of these books left such an indelible mark on my subconscious that once I became a teenager, one of the first real books I can remember saving up money to buy was the hardcover Marvel Masterworks reprint of Amazing Spider-man issues #11 to 20, with those glorious first appearances of such baddies as Mysterio, Green Goblin, and countless others. I remember reading that trade so many times over the years, that it again, reinforced something deep down within me that Steve Ditko art should be eqauted with good things.

And thus a wave of calm washes over me every time I see his particular art work. It's like I'm coming home to a big bowl of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich after a hard day in the cold. It just makes you feel warm all over. As such, over the years, I've actually made it a point to find other works done by Steve Ditko in the comic related world just as I feel I owe it to the guy to check out some of his other works besides the obvious Petey Parker inspired ones. That's actually what led me to pick up the entire run of a somewhat obscure late 70s series he did for DC comics. It only ran for 8 issues before being cancelled as a result of the infamous "DC Implosion" that occurred due to the ongoing recession and poor sales among even the most popular books DC was printing at the time.

Still though, the covers definitely intrigued me with the high concept, otherworldly design that Steve had become famous for on such books as Doctor Strange. Plus, Steve also did all the plotting for this book as well as the art like he did with so many of his Marvel stories, so I thought it must be worth a read pile look! So without further ado, let's take a dive into the world of Shade, The Changing Man

10 Cent Synopsis:

The series deals with Rac Shade, a former secret agent from the alternate dimension known as Meta who was falsely convicted of treason by a mysterious group of conspirators. He escapes from his prison located in a Limbo-esque pocket dimension called the Zero-Zone to Earth where he finds a wondrous invention called the Miraco-Vest (M-Vest for short). The M-Vest seems to radiate a manipulative force field which Shade can use for both offense and defense while at the same time creating the mental illusion that its Shade own body is morphing along with the size or shape of the field. Thus enemies see him punching them with gigantic fists or kicking them with elephant sized legs.

Armed with the M-Vest, Shade begins his quest those from Meta that were responsible for the conspiracy to frame him as well as clear his good name. This puts him directly in the cross hairs of an evil organization of super criminals led by the robotic ball shaped being named Sude, The Master Decider, who not only wants the M-Vest for themselves, but wants to ensure Shade never lives to find out the truth. All the while, Shade is also being hunted by his former lover, Mellu, who personally wants to see him executed for his role in her parents becoming crippled as a result of the explosion.

Initial Thoughts:

Well, I gotta say that when I mentioned Ditko's Doctor Strange and how the trippy alternate universe type scenes seemed to be all over this book as well just from the covers, boy, I was not kidding. This is pretty much the exact same series from a visual experience as his run on Dr. Strange. The only difference is he replaced all the supernatural mysticism for fantasy style science fiction, but whatever fancy way you want to explain the exposition of the story, the substance of the story is still the same. I mean check out this selection from issue #4 in which Shade, Mellu, and the evil Dr. Sagan get transported into the dreaded Zone of Madness!

For anyone that's read Ditko's original Doctor Strange run you'll immediately notice that the psychedelic tendrils and eerie line of grotesque lines is pretty much the exact same place as Dormammu's Dark Dimension. You almost expect Nameless Ones to start running around on the page and some cloaked mustached man to begin yelling "I can defeat these with The Flames of Faltine!" In fact, speaking of Doctor Strange, there's even somewhat of a stand in for the character in a fella named Wizor, a bearded Meta ambassador to Earth who runs the Occult Research Center (O.R.C). out of a brownstone building in the heart of one of Earth's major cities.

Even the character of Mella, bears a pretty close resemblance to the Doctor Strange love interest of Clea, so it's hard not to feel that in someways, Shade is an extension of the work that Ditko wanted to finish in the Doctor Strange book proper, but was never given a chance to due to his creative differences with Stan Lee and Marvel. However, if there's one thing for certain, Shade definitely reinforces to me the fact that Ditko had a tremendous talent for design, especially when it came to the overall look of the villains.

Just like he wowed me with his iconic designs for such Spidey mainstays as Electro, Mysterio, and Kraven the Hunter, the Shade series gives us fascinating looks for some of his own one off baddies such as the burning inferno which is Khaos, the ghostly collection of sinister circles in Cloak, and the gaseous banshee like villainess Form.

Although all of them are definitely more abstract than the clean cut members of Spider-man's rogues gallery, the intensely elemental feel of all of Shade's baddies drives home their almost alien natures and adds to their overall sense of menace. It's almost as if Ditko dares you try to comprehend these baddies, twisting their appearance in such a way as to challenge your thinking in a very post modern type way. Like Shade himself, this is especially true in any of the scenes where these characters interact with anyone that looks "normal". You can see that the average everyday person is practically terrified with the overall weirdness of both Shade and/or any of his villains.

They constantly make you rethink your perspective, and that naturally makes you uneasy. I mean look at the design of Sude, the main bad guy for pretty much the first 6 issues. Although he's supposed to be just a robotic overlord, the massive teethy grin coupled with the gumball shaped body fierce pupil-less eyes makes for a rather odd combination, which should look rather silly. But Ditko combines all these somewhat conflicting design choices in such a way that it actually invokes more of sinister ancient idol like quality to it, changing what should be laughable into something very strikingly bizarre.

Yeah, from start to finish, this is some really terrific artwork by Ditko even if he's just apeing some of his own earlier works. It's synthesized real well in this series into an overall hodge podge of the best of what he does. Sort of like a Greatest Hits album. Not exactly original but satisfying none the less.

Fun Facts:

I'm sure there are many out there that are reading today's article which are surprised that I'm talking about this particular version of Shade, the Changing Man. This is mainly because I feel although this version was drawn by the comic book legend, Steve Ditko, it's not the version of the character most comic book fans are familiar with.

Most are actually more familiar with the Vertigo revamp series which shares the same name famously done by the team of writer Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo on art. This particular series was one of the first Vertigo series ever created as part of the "British Invasion" to DC which included Grant Morrison's Animal Man and Doom Patrol and Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Since it's 6 year run from 1990 to 1996, this series has gone on to be named one of the innovative works of that era, cementing Peter Milligan's status as an incredible comic book writer through it's dead pan and often poignant critiques of American Culture.

In fact, the more recent Young Animals imprint entitled "Shade the Changing Girl" which started back in 2016 and made an appearance in another of my read pile books "Milk Wars" is much more of a spiritual successor to this series than it ever was to the original Steve Ditko arc.

Peter Milligan did take some concepts from the Ditko run such as the M-Vest and the fact that he comes from another dimension. However, most of them were reimagined such M-Vest's ability to manipulate reality through madness and Shade becoming stuck in other people's bodies (most famously the character of Troy Grenzer, a convicted serial killer).

These changes did allow Peter to explore an insane amount of pretty divisive issues over the course of the series including included racial discrimination, transgenderism, gun violence, and capital punishment. However, most of all, the series is best known for posing interesting open ended questions to the audience as to "What exactly does it mean to be Human?" and allowing the readers to draw their own conclusions.

It's a series I'd like to tackle on an upcoming podcast of Last Comic Shop for sure, so if you agree that you'd like to listen to us discuss this series more in depth, please let me know in the comments!

Final Grade:

Although I might have spent an entire section of this blog gushing about how much I enjoyed Steve Ditko's art in this particular series, that doesn't mean I'm going to give it the highest marks overall. I'm not going to sugar coat the fact that this series really seemed aimless at times and was somewhat of a slog to read at first. Sure there's this overall mystery about who framed Shade to begin with and tons of human looking characters are introduced pretty quickly to fill in the gaps in that particular narrative.

Plus, there's somewhat interesting exposition about the nature of this "Zone of Madness" as well as the internal power struggles between the bad guys for "top rat" as it were. However, largely most of the characters in this book just tend to drift in and just as quickly out of the story, making a mark for an issue or two before being completely disposed of. In fact, although I spent a good deal of my time taking about how great the visual design is of all the villains, I could have equally spend just as much time saying how little any of them really mattered to the story.

They are just flavor of the month punching bags for the most part: nameless, backstory-less baddies for Shade to jump in, punch for a few seconds and before disappearing to make way for whatever villain is up next in the following issue.

For example, early on you are made to believe that Shade's arch enemy is this guy named Lt. Emp who is moonlighting as a Earth crime boss named Kempo, because he was his former superior and has evidence helpful to clearing Shade's name. But he appears for an issue and a half with no explanation of why he wants to be a crime boss, why he was bad in the first place, and is then dispatched by Shade in quick order before he can add much more to the story.

We then repeat this same cycle with the rest of the villains I named, each one somewhat more forgettable than the last. And it's not just the villains, but pretty much everything in this internal mythology. You don't get to know where Shade got the M-Vest or what the M-Vest actually even is until issue #7, by which time you really don't care. Mella's characterization is completely off from issue to issue, showing way too much emotional reaction to the slightest things and swinging back and forth in sort of a insanely bipolar fashion. I mean, this is her reaction after she eventually captures Shade, after he saves her from a life of being a screaming vegetable after she's exposed to the Zone of Madness.

Asphyxiate him with gas and cremate him in his vest?!? Okay, lady. I realize you are pissed at him for missing your birthday the previous year, but he just saved your life. Spare him some of your bloodthirsty nastiness.

Anyways, all of these inconsistencies in tone, pacing and story I really place at the feet of the dialogue writer, Michael Fleisher, who is definitely no Stan Lee when it comes to taking the output Steve Ditko plotted out and turning it into a worthwhile story. Then again though, like Ditko, Stan Lee is a once in a lifetime talent, so it's not surprising that this series isn't anywhere near as well written as those first 33 issues of Amazing Spider-man.

Still though, the Ditko art is wonderful and by issue 4 or so when they cut all the nonsense with the Earth based gangster garbage and focused on the relationship of Shade and Mella, as well as the internal political intrigue over the capture of Shade within the Meta dimension, it becomes a decent enough read. It's a shame though that this series wasn't given another 6 or 7 issues to really wrap up many of the loose ends that it generated over the course of trying to explain the conspiracy against Shade by all those high ranking officials who framed him for these high crimes.

It stops just as it's getting interesting! Oh well, I guess the cancelling this book was the only crime worth talking about anyways in the end.

Andy's Read Pile Grade: 2.85 out of 4

#shade the changing man #steve ditko #dc comics #70s #doctor strange #vertigo #comic book reviews #shade the changing girl #young animals

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