Shade the Changing Girl #8

Who brought the young girl to a velociraptor fight?

• Marge Sausage was apparently only doing the art for one issue. Now I'm really going to have to dig deep to find anything positive to say about this comic book.

• Oh wait! I know one. It has a female lead. Boom! Worth reading. Also she's a person of color. Can you refer to alien bird species who love to fuck as a POC? I'm probably a white guy in his mid forties, so I don't know anything about saying the correct thing. I mean, I thought I knew how to be a generally kind person and then I found out, online, that I was actually gross and problematic. At least now I know how all the gay kids felt in 80's high schools when they heard people calling terrible things gay! Because now every aspect of me that I never actually think about unless I'm filling out a census form is the new way to call something gay! I imagine it would hurt if I wasn't already full of self-confidence due not to my circumstances of birth but to my being so objectively awesome.

No it isn't! That's the definition of dying in a way that will cause people talking about it to have to bite their tongue before they completely blame the victim!

• You know what's wrong with this country? We've become too afraid to blame the victim! Sometimes blaming the victim is really important. Like when somebody crosses the street at night and in the raing while wearing dark clothing which causes them to be hit by a car and killed. In that instance, we need to blame the victim as hard as we can! It's not like it was the driver's fault in that situation! It's not like it was an accident that couldn't be avoided! The victim's death was due entirely to the victim's poor choices. And by refusing to blame the victim, we obfuscate the reason the victim died and dance around the real danger. By not blaming the victim, we discuss things like the speed limit on the road and the lack of a crosswalk and the need for drivers to be more aware of things they couldn't possibly see in time to stop because who could have guessed that person would suddenly be on the hood of their car when the driver was blinded by oncoming headlights and the heavy rain and the darkness of the stupid sun not being in the dumb old sky! None of those things would prevent the death of a person who treats reality as if there are respawn points!

• Obviously there are times when we shouldn't blame the victim. Stop taking something I wrote and deciding I'm a monster because you have no reading comprehension! Maybe you're the gross and problematic one in this situation! You ever think of that?!

• You know what? I bet you Internet Scolds think of that all the fucking time. I bet you're constantly thinking that. I can't imagine being part of a community of people who are obsessively looking for a flaw (or a perceived flaw through a purposeful misunderstanding) in any of the people in their community so they can out them and receive praise for being so fucking perceptive and righteous and noble! Anybody can look at a huge fucking jerk and point out why the person is a huge fucking jerk. But not everybody can look at their best friend who is supposedly just as socially just as they are and tear their fucking heart out when they make a misstep. It must be so stressful to be a young person in this day and age. You can't make one mistake — NOT ONE FUCKING MISTAKE — before your life is ruined and you have to change your Tumblr URL. Man, I'm glad I don't give a shit what anybody thinks of me!

• I think this commentary is getting away from me! I've only read two Narration Boxes on the first page so far! Excuse me while I discuss this problem with my brain.

My Super-Ego: "Hey. Get back on track, you secretive monster! You're fucking making us look bad! People are going to read this shit and determine we're gross. GROSS! That's the worst thing you can be on the Internet!"
My Id: "Go fuck yourself! Masturbating!"
My Ego: "Ugh. Again? What the fuck is wrong with me? Don't worry about Id, Super-Ego. I've got this! I can get this train back on the rails!"
My Super-Eggo: "L'eggo me!"
My Super-Ego: "Knock it off, Id! I know that was you pretending to be a version of me. That is wrong. You can't do that."
My Ego: "Look, I think I've got Id back in the closet, okay? I can deal with this. Just let me handle things from here."
My Super-Ego: "Why the fuck should I trust you? That Id fucker pulls your strings and you know it! You need to stop listening to his obscene whispers and fall in line. Do you want to die homeless in a Seattle gutter? Do you want to fling yourself off the Fremont Bridge in a state of manic energy? Do you want to be known as the neighbor who sometimes kicks around a soccer ball in the middle of the street without any pants? Then get a fucking grip and start following my orders!"

• Okay! I'm back! Let's get this shit done so I can go do some keepie-uppie!

• The destination Shade has not chosen because she didn't do any research before traveling and just hopped on any old fucking train that pulled up at the station is Gotham City. See? Blame the fucking victim! She deserves to be gassed by The Joker at this point!

• Luckily for Shade, she's looking for danger. She just ditched the only friends she made on Earth and is in a state of self-destructive self-pity! No better place for that than Gotham City! Or that house on Ash Tree Lane. That place is a sublime location for losing oneself in their own doubts and self-hatreds.

Me. And me!

• Shade spends multiple pages doing touristy stuff that I think is some kind of essay on cities and the people who live there? Maybe something about how the people of Earth are meant to be but ultimately fail to live up to their ideals? Or maybe just a fun romp through Gotham? I seem to have lost interest after all that digressive writing I did!

• Shade wanders about having pseudo-profound thoughts about life and cities and art and relationships and dinosaurs until she comes to a theater where the Sonic Booms are playing. Apparently she remembers a version of them from the old television show Life With Honey. So she rushes in to be thoroughly disappointed. Or completely uplifted? Really, it could go either way. Although since she's experiencing music and Young Animal is basically DC's hipster brand, I'm pretty sure music will be treated as a religious and transcendental experience next issue.

Shade the Changing Girl #6

Now kiss!

My catch phrases are "Now kiss!", "Whoops!", and "This isn't an offer to suck Tom King's dick at the next convention, wink, wink!"

I'm not really enjoying this comic book but I don't think I'm meant to enjoy it. In the same way Shade the Changing Man seemed to be written for me in my late teens and early twenties when I most felt lost trying to forge a path into adult life and relationships, this book would probably resonate for a young person trying to navigate the social labyrinth of high school friendships and rivalries. I could be wrong and it might be just as banal for them as it is for me. My point is that I don't think I have the capacity to know the difference. Is it as boring as I think it is? Or is there something here that really connects to a certain person in a certain place in time?

In Vertigo's Shade the Changing Man, Shade eventually had to battle with the original owner of the body he had taken over, serial killer Troy Grenzer. It seems the only way to travel from Meta to Earth is to leave one's body in the Area of Madness (or just on Meta, I guess? This comic goes about the transportation in a slightly different way than Vertigo's Shade the Changing Man) and to arrive in a body of a person just on the brink of dying. It's that "on the brink" part that seems to cause trouble because the person doesn't completely die. So while Rac Shade had to deal with serial killer Troy fucking Kathy's brains out, Loma has to deal with mean girl Megan demanding her body back so she can once again torture all of her high school friends. I don't think the Grenzer thing happened as quickly as this confrontation is taking place. It seems like in comics these days, you have to sort out the established problems much quicker.

While Loma fights for her life, Megan's ex-boyfriend decides it's all about him and his feelings.

Ooh! A two man job? Maybe this book just got interesting!

Okay! My hand is now down my pants. I'm ready for the two man job! I hope they pull the old Chinese fingercuffs routine!

Megan's ghost gets upset that her old boyfriend Wes doesn't realize that her body has been hijacked by another person. Why should she be surprised?! Guys don't recognize personalities! All they see are tits and ass. And Loma still has those! Duh!

Back on Meta, Mellu has recovered the Madness Vest. It's still on Loma inside a protective coffin that Mellu can't open. But she's determined to gather an army together to invade Earth so she can get the Madness Vest back. That's a bit of plot I'm not too concerned with. It's just another standard alien invasion story! Why can't the Mellu stuff be written out of this comic book? It should just stick to the Mean Girl stuff.

River and Teacup rush to help Loma battle Megan. Between the three of them, they convince Megan that nobody ever liked her and Megan explodes into a rain of pink dandruff. Then Loma, Teacup, and River become the bestest of friends forever! But nobody pisses on the pile of pink dandruff to make sure it doesn't reform into Megan! They've obviously never studied my guide to exorcism.

Mostly the guide is just using the excuse that you're exorcising ghosts when somebody catches you peeing on their stuff.

See?! A nice warm stream of piss would have kept the pink dandruff from floating around in the air! Which would have prevented it from going into Megan's mouth to settle in her uterus. Oh man. Does this mean blow jobs can get you pregnant?!

The Ranking!
No change! I already told you I don't have the expertise to judge this comic book! And judging by most of the other comic book reviewers on the Internet (you know, fat white guys who know how much an Alpha Black Lotus is worth), none of them have the expertise either!

Shade the Changing Girl #5

Make your own damn bird joke.

The Review!
-1. If I wasn't so enamored with the original Shade the Changing Man, I would probably drop this book. I don't have anything clever to say about it because I've already forgotten everything that was in it this issue. Even the trip to the zoo! And the return of Megan from the Madness Zone. Those parts of the story were so uninspiring that they just didn't stick in my brain and now I don't remember them. Hopefully this review was helpful because it certainly wasn't entertaining (which is backwards from the usual way I write these things: entertaining but not helpful at all).

Shade the Changing Girl #4

The male gaze sexualizes every comic book cover with a woman on it. Especially one that's possessed by a gawky bird creature from another planet. So fucking sexy.

The Review!
No change. In this issue, Shade the Changing Girl learns the power of apologies. The title is even called "All Apologies". I totally couldn't remember who sang that so I asked Lord Google. He said, "What? Are you kidding? You don't know? How uncool are you?" And I was all, "I'm not uncool! I just don't remember! I'm like old and shit!" And Lord Google was all, "Snort! It's Nirvana, you musically illiterate plebe." And I was all, "Oh shit! I totally should have known that. I mean, I can sing the fucking stupid song!" And then I sang the fucking stupid song. Then I thought about how embarrassing it would be to admit that I couldn't remember that Nirvana sang "All Apologies" and I said, out loud, "No fucking way I'm writing this in the commentary!"

After apologizing to all of Megan's friends and family members so that Shade can feel more relaxed in her new life, she remembers what happened at the lake. She remembers she drowned and nobody sprang to save her and everybody was kind of happy that she was brain dead. Whether or not she wields that knowledge as power against her friends will have to wait to be seen. Because after Shade realizes her friends aren't just afraid of her because she's an asshole but also because they basically let her die, the story ends and it's time for the back-up story.

But first, I should probably say something smart about this story. Here it goes! You should always apologize to people when you feel you've hurt them. But you should never apologize to people who demand that you apologize to them. Because those people are just using it to have power over you. Don't let them! You're only enabling their terrible behavior if you apologize! Besides, an apology given under duress isn't an actual apology. And when you do apologize under duress, 95% of the time, the person will be all, "You don't really mean it. Not good enough. You're gross." So, in closing, you should only apologize if you mean it and you should never apologize if somebody demands one and if you don't apologize when you know you've hurt somebody, you're just being a fucking dick.

Here's a good example of an apology I made this week! While playing Overwatch, my friend was complaining about how nobody on the team was helping take the point. I was frustrated because I kept getting hooked by Roadhog meaning I was mostly respawning and not helping take the point. So I got short with him and went off on how I couldn't help take the point because I was fucking respawning! Then the game ended and we played another game and then I was all, "Sorry about snapping like that, Will. I was just really frustrated and shouldn't have turned on you." No big deal but it really brought the tension back down and we had fun and even began winning again.

Here's a good example of an apology I would choose not to make! If I used the word retard in one of my commentaries and some anon messaged me and said, "You shouldn't use that word and you should apologize because it literally hurts people." Then I would just ignore the message or make a stupid joke because what do I fucking care about somebody trying to get me to change when they'll never interact with me again? People like to say that thing about if you step on somebody's toe, you apologize. Well, sure! But demanding that I fucking not ever do something again and that I should apologize for it isn't the proper reaction to somebody having their toe stepped on. If I stepped on somebody's toe and they screamed at me, "You gross fucking asshole! How dare you, you piece of shit! You're garbage!", I would not apologize to them. I would think to myself, "Ha ha. I'm glad I accidentally stepped on your toe, you lunatic."

The backup story is about Element Girl and how she just wants to be normal. But instead, she isn't normal at all and also lives in a desert. The end.

Shade the Changing Girl #3

Synchronized Swimming would be more interesting if the routines were improvised.

Here's a simple test to gauge your intelligence level:

A. How often do you worry about looking stupid?
1. Not often.
2. Semi-often.
3. Often.
4. I giggled at the use of the word "semi."

B. Have you ever found yourself exclaiming, "I am not stupid!", because somebody called you stupid for doing something stupid?
1. I've been called stupid but I had just done something stupid, so I was all, "Yeah, der! So dumb!"
2. I can't recall.
3. Yes, dammit!
4. I am not stupid!

C. How many times have you found yourself explaining to another stupid person that book smart people have no common sense?
1. Never.
2. When I was younger, maybe?
3. A few times.
4. What do you mean "another" stupid person?! I am not stupid!

D. Do you often vote against your own self-interests?
1. Probably because our system isn't built to order a system catered entirely to my own personal needs.
2. Nope!
3. How is voting for less taxes against my own interests, right? More money for me! Holla!
4. Yesterday, I gave a fetus an assault rifle.

E. How annoyed do you get when people know things without having to consult their phones?
1. Annoyed? You meant overjoyed, right?
2. Not much if they're not smug about it.
3. Knowing things without asking Google? That's a thing?
4. Fucking elitist bitches.

F. How much of your news do you get from YouTube videos?
1. Seriously? People get their news from YouTube? Isn't it just raccoon videos and BBC shows flipped right to left so they don't get taken down?
2. None. I just use it to watch old videos from the 80s.
3. Just pop culture stuff.
4. Have you heard that the Earth is flat?

Now add up your score! The higher you scored, the dumber you are! If you can't add up your score, you're really fucking stupid!

I probably shouldn't judge people who can't add too harshly. It's not like intelligence alone dictates your ability to add. First you have to be taught to add! Then, if after you've been taught, you still suck at it, I can judge!

I don't have a sweet segue to get me from that to the comic book, so this sentence will have to do.

Shade is having trouble getting back on the synchronized swim team because she doesn't know how to swim in a human body. Back on Meta, she was some kind of bird person. So now she's all, "I don't float with ease! How are these gangly limbs supposed to keep me above water? Which hole is my cloaca?!" Thankfully, she has a boy Megan used to fuck stalking her who knows how to swim and is willing to teach her. I also might have used thankfully incorrectly there.

Meanwhile, the pink girl in space is headed toward Meta. It must be Megan's soul and she's seeking Loma's body because it's wearing the Madness Vest. Instead of being in the Area of Madness, Loma's body is in a glass case in her boyfriend's apartment. That will make it more entertaining when Megan takes it over because she'll be able to wreak havoc on Meta and teach everybody about the power of the mean girl.

Megan's messages to Teacup look like my Xbox received messages after playing Call of Duty.

Shade decides she needs to figure the whole Megan thing out if she's going to survive among the people Megan knew. So she climbs deep into her body's subconscious where Megan's memories still half-reside and begins rooting around in them for clues about the life she's going to have to try to lead.

On her inner journey, Shade learns that her mom is a dope, her best friend is a dupe, her boyfriend sucks at grammar (but can identify Mars in the sky, so he's cool with me), and Megan herself has been a fucking jerk to Teacup. So she decides to check with her neighbor River to find out why Megan was so hated. River never knew Megan personally so it's okay if he helps her. He shows her a BookFace group full of the people she's bullied. It's so traumatic for her that she has a Madness Seizure. River begins to suspect she isn't Megan at all but Shade flees the scene because what else can you do when your innermost being is suddenly splattered all over a stranger's room?

The next day, Shade decides to learn how to swim with the help of Megan's old boyfriend. It goes fantastically! I mean the part where she relearns how to swim goes fantastically. The part where she beats the shit out of Megan's old "friends" because they threaten to kick her off the swim team doesn't go that great.

Meanwhile, the pink girl is still floating around observing the universe.

The backup story is a Dial H for Hero story. A girl named Christy is working at some kind of Hard Rock Cafe but superhero themed. On the wall is the Dial H for Hero dial. When a customer begins attacking his girlfriend, Christy decides to use the dial! Probably because if she saves this woman, she'll get a B-I-G-T-I-P! And she does! Sort of!

She gets a kiss from...me?! Try to ignore the part where I'm killed!

Christy untransforms when the villain appears because this is one of those stories where the villains are caused by the heroes. Except that's not the point and I know it! That's just one of my issues with mainstream superhero comic books interfering with my ability to understand this story on the most basic of levels. I'm also disappointed that with all the words that only use letters in the word HERO which form the skeleton of this story, the writer forgot to use O-R-E-O.

The Ranking!
No change! A lot of the time, I give a comic book a "No Change!" rating simply because I don't want to have to adjust the sideboard rankings list. I'm not even sure where this comic book is placed on the rankings (or if it's even on there at all! I should probably check. No, no. If I check and it's not there, I'll have to add it which is more work (not much more work but still more!)). But I do like this book even if it probably wouldn't make the top of the To Read pile on the weeks it comes out.

Shade the Changing Girl #2

Whoa! Look how crazy this comic book looks! It must be super smart and insightful and full of the arts!

People generally look down on happy, cheerful, and joyous people as stupid jerks. Because they obviously can't be intelligent if they aren't angry or dissatisfied! The way you prove how smart you are to somebody else is to point out how fucking stupid and terrible everything is. But I think happiness and joy get a bad rap simply because it's not as intense a feeling as sadness or pain or heartache or anger. But as an older person (not that older! You'll see soon, you jerko young people! You'll be old one day too! That's my curse on you!), I don't want to constantly be bothered by intense emotions. Drama doesn't make life exciting. It makes life tiresome and distracts a person from enjoying themselves. Who has the energy to be angry at everything all the time?! Not me! About all the energy I can muster is a biting word or two thrown out into the void of the Internet like a tithe to the Gods of righteousness and condemnation. If you young people want to be so angry about everything, I don't mind. But you're really exhausting me about some of the bullshit you get angry about. Christ. Stop going off like a shotgun and blowing holes in everything! Maybe work on getting laser focused and fixing something big like sexism or racism or something because I'm tired of getting hit by your buckshot every time I call somebody a retard. Let's face it: I'm definitely going to call my friend Doom Bunny retarded at least three times this week. But it will be in private so you probably shouldn't be angry about it. Also, I probably shouldn't have admitted to doing it. Mostly because I probably won't do it and now people will be mad that I even joked about it! Because words literally cause harm, if you fall for that sort of propaganda used to get people to just shut up and act the way other people want them to act. You can't shame a person who has no shame, motherfuckers!

That point I made about people criticizing things to prove how smart they are? I wanted to say something else about that! I've always found it's easy to read something and instantly tear it apart because it doesn't meet the approved standards of the person reading it. I find it's much harder to quell those instantaneous reactions and take a moment to think, "What if I'm wrong? What if I'm just reacting to the most shallow aspect of the thing? What if I were to take a second look and try to figure out what makes this thing, this art, interesting, or well created, or intelligent?" You aren't always right because you thought the thing you thought, you cocky fucking bastard. Sometimes things aren't terrible simply because you thought they were terrible on first inspection. It's much smarter to ferret out the good in something than to tear it apart and shit all over it. That's something even dogs can do! And they're super dumb!

Oh, sure! Now the dog lovers are all up in arms! But you know, in comparison to a lot of creatures, dogs are pretty fucking dumb. If you taught your little brother the kinds of things you taught your dog, nobody would be impressed by your little brother's intelligence. They would just think he's a fucking idiot for doing everything you tell him to do. Give me an animal with a sense of fucking dignity! Like a raccoon!

So now you're going to argue with me about how a filthy animal that digs in the trash has any dignity?! Sheesh! Maybe if you invited the raccoon in for tea, you'd see just how much dignity one has. Have you ever thought to do that? No? Well, fuck you then! You don't know what you're talking about! Raccoons are quite dapper and dignified when invited round for tea and biscuits.

This comic book is take itself too literally.

In this comic book, the poetry of Shade the Changing Man, Rac Shade, appears in rainbow colored Narration Boxes. The Narration Boxes of Shade the Changing Girl, Loma, are in blue. Then there are pink Narration Boxes that belong to somebody else. They appeared last issue but I just assumed they were also Shade's. That was a bad assumption because you know what they say about assumptions? I thought I knew but I can only make the word ass and u and mptions out of that, so I guess I was wrong about what they say. Anyway, the pink Narration Boxes belong to a third person. Possibly Megan who was pushed out of her own body? Or maybe it's some aspect of Loma that's left in her Metan body still in the Area of Madness. There's a moment this issue where a pink comet is zooming past a sun and moon in space thinking, "What. Where. Why. Wow." See? It's probably Megan. Just like some aspect of Troy Grenzer remained when Shade took his body, Megan's consciousness is still out there and still somehow attached to her body.

Shade walks into school for the first time since she came out of her coma and she quickly realizes everybody at the school hates or fears her. Why do I suddenly have the urge to croak "Corn Nuts?" and over enunciate the word "eskimo"?

Meanwhile on Meta, Mellu is investigating the Case of the Stolen Madness Vest although it hardly matters. Whoever took it probably put it on (they did!) and their body is now slowly decomposing in the Area of Madness (it is! Probably!).

Shade discovers the library at high school, much to the chagrin of a small girl. It's probably Teacup, right? It's been so long since I read Issue #1 that I don't remember if Teacup made an appearance before Megan drowned while doing a shitload of ecstasy. Anyway, it's obvious that Megan never showed an interest in the library before, and this tiny girl (Teacup, right?!) used to hide out here from the mean girls.

Ugh! Don't read Yeats! I can't bear to read a character who picks up a book of Yeats poetry and understands it without any outside sources or further reading! But if she is going to get into Yeats, please at least let her read something other than "The Second Coming"! Yeats wrote way more poems than just that one!

Heather's Numbers Two through Four come in search of Teacup in the library. But Teacup hides from them, as does Shade. But she can't help herself from engaging in a little Madness. Probably because she doesn't have any real control over it. Maybe it's her Madness Nemesis! Shade the Changing Man had the American Scream. Maybe Shade the Changing Girl has the American Teen!

I can name all of the books, plays, and poems these are from! The whale is obviously from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the one-eyed thingy is from Lady Chatterley's Lover, the hand holding the skull is from Harry Potter and the Skull of Squicking, the letter A is from Dr. Seuss's ABC, the raven is from The Sandman, and the cat is from Garfield.

Shade thinks that maybe Teacup was her friend but Teacup is terrified of her. So she makes a big scene in the library and some guy named River is all, "I'd heard you were all about the drama. But do you mind having it somewhere else?" Right?! Libraries should totally be drama-free zones! And anybody who ever makes a scene or an uproar or a loud sneeze in a library should be banned for life. Libraries should have no tolerance policies for shenanigans! Although I did once masturbate in the stairwell of the library at Portland State University, so obviously I only mean that if the person gets caught they should be banned for life!

I almost certainly, probably, never did that thing I just said I did. So gross! Besides, I was barely eighteen! Possibly even still seventeen! I was too young to cope with the freedom of college! Besides, nobody ever specifically sat me down and said, "Do not masturbate in public stairwells."

Anyway, River is Shade's neighbor. He never knew Megan so Shade feels like maybe she can safely become a friend of his. He might not be thinking the same thing but I bet he gets pulled into her madness anyway. Especially because his name is River and that's got to be symbolic for something soon!

Meanwhile, the pink girl in space with the pink Narration Boxes makes an appearance. So, see, that's another character or something!

Shade goes home to watch old timey television and ponder how she's going to figure out who Megan was and how to make her better. Then it's time for the back-up comic!

The back-up comic book isn't worth reading. It's all in-your-face about how change is a good thing and not changing is a bad thing which totally ends with a sex joke. I think. I don't know. I stopped paying attention to narratives that feel like clubs to the back of the head.

The Ranking!
No change! I'm not infatuated with this book but I'm still intrigued and enjoying it. So that's a review, right?

Shade the Changing Girl #1

Being that Shade the Changing Man was my favorite comic book in my late teens, I can't imagine I'll be anything but disappointed by this.

The Commentary!
Why Shade the Changing Girl? Why not Shade the Changing Woman? Is it because we assume grown ass women have matured past the point of enjoying comic books, so why not market this to younger women? Is it because male nerds are so frightened by the prospect of autonomous, individualized adult women and their aggressive sexuality full of mandatory oral sex and probable rimming that DC doesn't want to scare them away with an adult female protagonist dealing with adult female issues and problems? Like, you know, constantly dealing with man-children locked in a state of arrested development who have no job and no car and can't engage in a conversation that doesn't include the phrase "d-pad" in it? Is it because the world can accept a cute, pixieish, vibrant, perky girl but who wants to deal with a dour, serious woman who is so sick of this world's shit that she can't get through a sentence without peppering it with at least two or three fucks? I suppose the idea is that young people buy comics and young people will flock to the Young Animal series and young girls, especially, drive fandoms. So if you want to get this comic book started on the right economic foot, you target it to girls and young women. Although if this were Shade the Changing Woman and she was based on somebody like Laura Silverman, I'd fucking buy ten copies of this every week and hand the extras out to strangers on the street. Give me a fucking Shade the Changing Woman over a Shade the Changing Girl any day. As Luke Cage said, "Dumb men like little girls." Also, the Young Animals imprint doesn't really justify Shade being a girl and not a woman because isn't Cave Carson and his Cybernetic Eye going to be a goddamned adult man? Doom Patrol also suffers from the main character is a perky young girl syndrome. I don't mean to suggest I'm against perky young girls as leads. If the writing is there, I'm up for anything. It's just getting fairly obvious that if a comic book company wants to introduce a new female lead, it's almost certainly going to be a cute perky off-the-wall alt girl. Why not a grown ass woman, is all I'm saying?!

The issue begins with Shade the Changing Girl climbing into a body of a dying girl on Earth. I'm assuming she's from Meta but I don't know if she's found her own Madness Vest or she's come to Earth via a different means. I wish she would have entered a convicted killer like Shade the Changing Man did! Oh! Maybe this dying girl is a killer! Or a mean girl, at least. Then everybody will be all, "Ew! You're a jerk!" And she'll be all, "What? No way! I'm sensitive!"

That's my summation of Shade the Changing Man. "You murdered my family and raped me!" screamed Kathy George as she flipped the fuck out. "No! No! I love you, Kathy! I'm a sensitive poet!" cried Shade in the body of murderer and rapist Troy Grenzer. "Fucking Romeo and Juliet, this is," snarked Lenny, the ever unfazed smoking artsy type who really should have been the main character in Shade the Changing Girl. Maybe she'll be a supporting character!

All sorts of crazy shit happens in the wake of Shade the Changing Girl as she walks down the halls of the hospital. A Rac Shade poem floats in rainbow narration boxes. Shade decides she loves Earth in only the way a teenage girl can love something, completely and even more completely than the next teenage girl who dares to say she loves Earth.

Shade's new body's parents are really into Corgis. Probably because they're the only breed of dog that isn't an annoying asshole.

Now we come to the part of the story where the writer feels like the reader is just confused enough and must be thinking, "How did this happen?" So the writer, being an experienced writer who knows that you can't have a reader being too confused for too long (especially if they're stupid), decides to jump the narration back in time for a bit of an explanation. Although the explanatory prologue story takes place on Meta, so it will probably just make things more confusing.

Yesterday, two creatures were fucking in a Metan museum on Earth in front of the Rac Shade Madness Vest display. One creature is a pudgy vaping bald squid-human hybrid. The other is a bird lady who is in debt, can't keep a job, likes squid penis in her cloaca (is that how it works?), and has lots of alien lovers. She doesn't like her life on Meta and dreams of being in a place where they feel big feelings and drink Pepsi. So she's all, "I'm going to put on Rac Shade's Madness Vest which is less vesty and more trenchy than the name would imply. Madness!

The bird girl is named Loma and she's a huge Rac Shade fan. She even remembers the poem Shade wrote about his death! I think the improbable moon poem was the poem that haunted Shade which eventually led to his dead body. It's quite possible it's a different story line altogether! I have no room in my head for other people's thoughts! My head is only full of my own present thoughts. Hell, I can't even remember what I wrote in any comic book commentary from last week!

Speaking of past commentaries, if you search my site for "penis", you'll find 509 results! Oh! Now 510!

Loma puts on Shade's Madness Vest and floats off to the Madness Zone and, from there, Earth! Where she enters Megan's body and starts the story! One of her first thoughts after the memory is "I wonder where my body is!" Well, Loma, I've got bad news for you! It's going to be dying and rotting away in the Zone of Madness while you have crazy adventures on Earth!

On her way back to Megan's home with Megan's parents, Shade has a memory of Megan's life partying at the pond with her friends.

She is in the body of a Mean Girl! Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

Megan's "friends" at school are distraught that she's awake and coming back. Mostly they're concerned that Megan will remember how they tried to kill her because she kept putting them on her Burn List. Or maybe they're just more concerned that she'll take one of their spots in the synchronized swim team. Is that a metaphor that her friends are on a team where they all have to do the same thing and act alike? Is it a statement on conformity?

Meanwhile on Meta, Mellu Loran, Shade's one time fiance who hated him and has gotten old and is now an important bureaucrat, heads up the investigation to find the person who stole Shade's Madness Vest. Also, Loma Shade's friends are glad she's gone in much the same way Megan's friends are not glad she's back.

The rest of Megan's memory that Shade hasn't quite remembered yet plays out for the readers, just in case they needed details on how Megan's friends tried to kill her. It turns out Megan's boyfriend just gave her a lot of ecstasy and they left her floating in the pond tripping balls so that she'd drown. Which, I guess, she partially did! Some synchronized swim team they are! How good could they be if they weren't also willing to take too much ecstasy and partially drown? I give them a 1.5 overall for this routine.

The Ranking!
+1. Oh boy! A comic book where the main character is not liked by anybody in either of her two incarnations! I bet she learns some lessons about selfishness and friendship! Although she really isn't that different from Shade. Just because he portrayed himself as a sensitive poet, it didn't mean he wasn't completely obsessed with his own pains and anxieties to the point that he really didn't give a shit about anybody else. Sure, he loved Kathy George! But only in that way that he loved the idea that he could love something more than anybody has ever loved anything because he was such a sensitive poet. When he found out Troy Grenzer had sex with Kathy and she liked it better than when she had sex with Shade, it was the worst pain he'd ever felt in his entire life. Which then meant it was the greatest joy in his entire life because he was a sensitive poet feeling such big feelings! Just the kind of shit Loma Shade is hoping to feel on Earth! And she's going to be feeling those same kinds of feelings soon since everybody already hates her!

Wow. I think I just realized why I loved Shade the Changing Man so much in my late teens and early twenties! I knew I loved it because it was a reflection of what I was feeling at the time but this is the first time I really thought about how consumed Shade was with his own pain and sadness. I don't think he wanted to feel joy or happiness because it's so less intense than suffering and heartache. I don't think Loma is looking for that but I have a feeling she's going to get quite a bit of it. She will be in high school, after all.