Unctous Sodomites And Vain, Pampered Whores: The Shade #7 Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: And one last brief review of one of last week’s comics before the comic stores open…

Looking back over this past week’s reviews, it seems like there wasn’t very much I actually liked. Which is a bummer, but just the way things go sometimes; some weeks you get journeymen turning in inspired craftsmanship, others you get dillitanates who are fucking around in the medium for the sheer, lunatic thrill of it.

Thankfully, The Shade is no dillitante… and neither is writer James Robinson, who is continuing via The Shade miniseries to channel the closest to a Jack Knight Starman story that we are every likely to see again.

Robinson is just over halfway through this 12-issue miniseries with this issue, and yet amazingly, it is not a bad place to jump on if you haven’t been reading from the beginning. Yes, it is mid story – even mid ministory within the series, which recalls adventures from the title character’s past – but Robinson gives the reader a three page recap at the start of the book, in the middle of a fight, to bring us up to speed. Which is valuable, and the kind of thing that I like to see in comics – I prefer a book that I can pick up and follow without having to hunt up back issues or old trades – although I’ll admit that the sequence is dialogue-heavy exposition.

And while that exposition is tempered by being presented in a battle to the death, it is a little hard to swallow two superpowered people stomping the shit out of each other and retaining enough breath to say things like, ” Combining them with the Basilica here, as the final point in the pentagram… my bomb’s link between Barcelona and Hell’s pits will become adamantine.” Sure, it’s pretty to read, but if I had just been thrown into a wall, I would think I would say something more like, “Oof. Ow. Okay, time out.”

But still, it’s dialogue like that which is half the reason to buy this book. The Shade, after all, is a proper Victorian fop, and speaks as such. Which gives the dialogue and internal captions a richness and cadence you won’t find in most comic books. Sure, florid lines like, “When I say that alacrities such as this — us and our enemies fighting at the climax of this or that misadventure…” make Dr. Doom sound like Luther Campbell after a partial frontal lobotomy, but it gives the writing a cadence and feeling unlike you’ll find in most comics. For a word geek, it’s more interesting than most books.

And then there’s the story itself. The idea of an emmisary of hell using five 1970s fashion victims as the guts of a bomb to steal the souls of everyone in a city is pretty audacious, particularly considering that during that same time it took cocaine, porno theaters and fifteen years to do it to New York City. But it’s an interesting concept, and the climax hinges on a truly clever, Sherlock Holmesian deduction that turns the tables on the villains. Sure, the final confrontation is two dudes with superpowers whacking at each other, but there’s a cleverness and intelligence behind the battle that you don’t generally see outside of well-written Batman comics that choose to focus on the World’s Greatest Detective angle.

Javier Pulido’s art is servicable, but frankly, not to my general tastes when it comes to this partcular issue. A great many of his panels show the characters in silhouette – an appropriate choice for a comic about a guy with shadow powers, I guess, but when it’s four or five straight panels, it feels a little overdone. His stuff is implistic, yet busy; his faces are drawn with what looks like a simple line that he then inked a bunch of “detail” around. Still, Pulido’ forced here to draw everything from shadow constructs to actual demons, and it all stylistically hangs together… I just didn’t find that style all to my taste.

The Shade isn’t going to be for everyone; the dialogue is florid and denser than most comics, and the story hinges on a clever hook that might seem precious to most straight-ahead superhero comics readers. But those are the qualities that make it something unique, and which I enjoyed immensely. If you find a copy still on the shelf when you swing by the comic store today, give it a shot.