Warren Ellis Eats Babies

"Life is Short Part Three: Dance to the Music." Shade the Changing Man #57 by Peter Millgan, Mark Buckingham, and Rick Bryant.

Shade the Changing Man #15

I've been slowly rereading my all-time favorite comic book series, Shade the Changing Man. And while I've been enjoying it, remembering specific moments but still being surprised by others, it wasn't until this issue that I was reminded why I loved it so much. Because it was this issue that caused me to fall in love with this title the first time. The cover didn't mean much to me when I pulled it out of the musty, cat-clawed comic book box and set it on my file cabinet to sit for a week. But when I opened it up and looked at the first page, it all came back to me. Not the story, though. I wasn't entirely sure yet what the story was going to be about. But the feeling that first page evoked pulled me back to twenty years ago and I remembered instantly: it was this one. This issue. This is when I fell in love.

I'll admit I was surprised by the amount of Narration Boxing taking place in this comic. But as I pointed out in an earlier New 52 book I was reading (Superman #13, I believe), it turns out my problem isn't really with the Narration Boxing. It's with the way a writer handles it. Oh, and the way the writer writes, of course!

This is the first issue that really nails down the future look of the series by Bachalo and Pennington. The art is cleaner, sharper. The characters look like I remember them. Gone is the gritty realism and heavy ink. Now the characters are more expressive, a bit cartoony, and absolutely gorgeous.

This story is about Kathy. The mad, chaotic pop culture themes of previous issues are replaced by stories of humans lost, desperate, and alone. Lenny makes a brief but important appearance. She establishes herself as integral part of this group. She's a bridge between Kathy and Shade with a foot in both of their existences and probably the most grounded of the three characters. She doesn't like the role of most normal and responsible but she'll accept it when the people she cares about need her.

Kathy is struggling to cope with her life sans alcohol, parents, and possibly sanity.

The man Kathy has come to love resides in the body of the man who killed her parents. Shade has manipulated the body to not look like this psycho, this Troy Grenzer, but both Shade and Kathy know a small bit of Troy Grenzer has survived within Shade. And at times he's taken control. Earlier in the series, Kathy and Shade had sex for the first time. Only it wasn't Shade at all; it was Grenzer disguising himself as Shade.

Kathy doesn't know she was with Troy and not Shade. But Shade knows. And he feels hurt and betrayed. He can't help blaming Kathy. Lenny also knows but she basically forbade Shade from telling Kathy. But Shade, being the sensitive poet he is, can't keep it inside. Subconsciously, he's telling Kathy the truth with his Madness Vest. He's infiltrating her dreams and forcing her to deal with it. He really comes off as impotent and pathetic throughout this series. And he's the same too sensitive poet in The New 52 Reboot as well where we first see him spending night after night in seedy hotel rooms creating fake Kathy after fake Kathy in his guilt and loneliness.

Kathy meets an old man named Chester while in recovery. He's seventy years old and still doesn't know how he's supposed to live. He doesn't know how to help himself but he still tries to help Kathy avoid finding herself in the same place in fifty years.

While Kathy is dealing with putting her life back together while it's still falling apart, Shade is off dealing with The American Scream and his own stupidly hurt feelings.

And then the issue ends with Kathy and Shade (kind of! Subconscious Shade!) confronting the issue. Perhaps tearing their world down is the only way to fix things. Or perhaps this revelation will just cause more turmoil. You'll have to read Issue #16 to find out!

Justice League Dark #8

This cover put the phrase "Vampire Orgy" into my head. And there's only one thing to do when a phrase that good pops into your mind! Google Image Search!

Forget about the plot for a second. Here are some of the fantastic images "Vampire Orgy" generated!

Is it just me or does "an Outdoor BJ" just not in the same category as "Ass Eating", "Anal", and "Cum Swallowing"?

The next image link I followed was a picture of a Dungeon Crawl game and I was curious as to why it showed up with "Vampire Orgy" as a search term. It was a forum where a guy was doing a Let's Play of Dungeon Crawl and he was about to enter The Lair. One of the Vampire Orgy looking movies (or was it a show?) was called The Lair and had a bunch of muscled shirtless male vampires on the poster. Anyway, I spent the next hour reading his Let's Play until he abandoned his game. And then I read the next guy's Let's Play for the next hour.

Why is the internet made up of distractions?!

So back to Justice League Dark! At the end of Rise of the Vampires Part Two which was also called I, Vampire #7, Cain had drained the magic from Zatanna and the Madness from Shade. He used it to remove all of the weaknesses from his vampire army. Mary, Queen of Blood, had joined the good guys. Xanadu was still on Astral Vacation. And Constantine and Deadman were traveling to the Other Side to fetch Andrew Bennett.

Deadman needs a sense of humor.

Does Boston Brand feel embarrassed about his clothing and white make-up when he meets up with other ghosts? Are all ghosts in the DCU forced to wear what they were wearing when they died? I'll have to try to remember this query when I read the next Hawkman story with the Gentleman Ghost. Andrew Bennett is shirtless with just jeans. But he was wearing a sweatshirt when he was killed? Perhaps the way his vampire body dissolved into mist, it destroyed the shirt before he fully incorporealized. That's the technical term for becoming a ghost, right?

While I was musing, Constantine and Deadman found Andrew Bennett. He wasn't on an island since the island wasn't purgatory (bullshit) and Bennett is actually in purgatory. Speaking of the island from the television show LOST, I've got a question! Did they ever explain the "box" or the "room" which brought Locke's dad to the island after Locke's father was killed in a car crash? Sure sounds like a feature of Purgatory to me, you stupid lousy lying producers.

Anyway, Bennet decides he's had enough of living and doesn't want to go back. He doesn't care what Cain and Mary do to the world. And why should he? He's dead now! He's got different concerns! Constantine calls him selfish but I've got to side with Andrew Bennett on this one. He had his life. And like Death of the Endless says, "You get what everybody gets. A life." How come Bennett has the choice to come back? Seems pretty suspect. I'd like it better if he never actually died and somehow survived getting his head cut off.

Xanadu makes a deal with the Crystal Being to shift the balance of power away from Cain and over to somebody else. I thought maybe it was going to go to her since her companions were going to be very angry with her if it worked. But she wakes up and seems much to weak to wield everyone's power. Perhaps it's supposed to go to Andrew Bennett since he's supposed to be the big Good Vampire Hero the way Seely Booth Angel was a champion sniper vampire in his show.

Cain feels something change. And Shade the Changing Man breaks from reality completely.

I think those three four images are supposed to represent the whole of his life flashing before his eyes. The death of Troy Grenzer in the electric chair which is where Shade first came into our dimension, inhabiting the body of the serial killer. His short love affair with Kathy. Kathy disintegrating when Shade realized she was just an illusion created by the M-Vest. And the Enchantress.

Shade ends up transporting himself to the Area of Madness. With this being Milligan's last issue of Justice League Dark, I wonder if he's going to pull Shade from the group? Perhaps save him for some future stories. Jeff Lemire is coming in to helm this comic next month and I'm sure he'll have some of his own favorite characters he'll bring to the group.

The next page just about does it in for me. Kathy is there, in the Area of Madness, waiting for him. She's solid and real and everything. Everything. Know this: Peter Milligan's Shade the Changing Man was one of the greatest comic experiences I've had. It was the character I needed to be reading at that time of my life. It was a story I needed to read. And it's obvious it meant a lot to Milligan to tell it.

Shade senses the change in Writers, something beyond their understanding. And Milligan is pulling him from the team to save his story for himself.

Well, I wanted to read more stories with Constantine and Shade written by Peter Milligan. So it's probably time to pull those Hellblazer trades written by Milligan off the shelf and give them a read. I hear Shade makes an appearance! But for now, Shade is out of the group and I should probably be getting back to Gotham to see who gets all the power.

Zatanna, Xanadu, and Mary decide if this is the end, they might as well go out fighting. They attack Cain and are repelled in just about one panel. Maybe two. So Zatanna's "I don't want to wait for death to come, whenever that monster chooses to kills us. I'm going to face it," quickly becomes, "TEG SU TUO FO EREH!" Great conviction, Zatanna! And what the hell happened with Xanadu's power shift Astral project crap? Anything yet?

Failures! Or, in internetese, LOOSERS! Fuck me! I can't let that stand! Hey, Internet! It's LOSERS! Just one fucking 'O', got it?!

Deadman and Constantine come back from the afterlife without a hitch. Probably because Hades is busy trying to fuck Wonder Woman. Hey! Maybe that's why Andrew Bennett hasn't actually 'died' yet! Because Hades and all of his minions are busy with the wedding plans and getting Hades' Amazonian bride prepared!

And possibly because Hades was busy, and possibly because Xanadu got the Crystal Blue Guy to transfer some power from Cain to Andrew (?), and possibly because John and Boston pleaded with Bennett to rethink the staying dead bit, and possibly because, as Hippie John mentioned before, a vampire as old as Andrew Bennett cannot die unless he allows himself to die, Andrew Bennett is able to rematerialize to defeat Cain in I, Vampire #8.

I guess Mindwarp and his Seizure Soul weren't exactly crucial to this team after all.

Justice League Dark #8 Rating: +1 Rating. Totally biased rating because I loved the four pages centering around Shade. Anyway, that puts it just ahead of Frankenstein which is written by Jeff Lemire who is going to be taking over the writing duties of this comic anyhow.

I am a little bit concerned about the frequency with which DC is changing writers on all of these titles. Writers aren't really known for coming on to a project and trying to keep the story, plots and themes centered around the past writer's efforts. Every time a writer has changed in a series so far, it's been a complete restructuring of the book. Green Arrow: J.T. Krul turns Ollie into a total asshat with no whimsy or sense of humor and then Giffen comes along and makes it a much better read and yet a third writer comes along and keeps the quality up. Legion Lost: plot abandoned and character motivations changed immediately. Voodoo: huge twist, change of motivations, killed all recurring characters from previous story arc. Stormwatch: Well, that just went from the main story by Cornell to a two-part side story and is going to switch up again when Milligan comes on. Maybe Shade will join Stormwatch!

I'm just asking for a bit more consistency than shuffling writers two or three times a year.

I, Vampire #7

Aha! The team will forever hate Madame Xanadu because she and the crystal guy signed them all up for The Real World: Andrew Bennett.

Andrew Bennett was just killed by Tig immediately after which the first vampire ever, Cain, rose up in his place. But Batman has a plan!
 

Get the fuck out!

Now, I thought they were in the basement of the courthouse where the old jail cells were. But this doesn't look like an escape out of a basement. But who cares, right? Whatever the story needs! Like what does Batman fire his grappling hook at? Does he know the Court of Owl's city that well that he can just aim and shoot and his hook catches on to something? I wonder if he's ever popped Robin or Nightwing in the face with his Bat-Grapple as they were swinging by on their own rope? I guess if I'm just going to ignore the fact that Batman should be lost underground right now while also in New York watching the JLI get blown up as well as running around with the Justice League as well as fighing the Scarecrow as well as doing all of the other shit he's always got the time for, I can ignore the fact that his Bat-Grapples always successfully find something to grapple.

It's not an easy thing to ignore! But I'm going to do it! It's just that everything else is always treated so realistically. Like the vampires.

Cain immediately takes charge and begins ordering the vampires about. But Mary's got a bit of a problem with this newbie thinking he knows whats the what.

Aha. That's why he suddenly appeared when Bennett died. Some kind of binding thing. But hey while I'm on the subject of things that should have happened when Bennett died, shouldn't Mary have been destroyed as well? I'm nearly positive that was pointed out in a previous issue that I don't feel like digging out and researching.

Meanwhile, Andrew Bennett is in a white room which is nowhere speaking with someone that won't reveal what it is. He's not technically dead but he doesn't quite exist right now either. The Mystery Voice tells Andrew the history of Cain. He existed long before most other things existed. Maybe he was made from the same stuff that was in the water that the Untitled drank from over in Red Hood and the Outlaws! He basically willed himself into being and eventually wandered the Earth. While wandering the Earth, he met a girl who he bit. She became his vampire princess and they created an army of vampires. Eventually, he was imprisoned inside of Andrew Bennett after he was defeated by "an army of great mystical warriors."

Looks like Etrigan to me! So the Demon Knights defeated him.

Once Bennett died, Cain was released. Except Bennett isn't really dead. He's just in some kind of limbo waiting for Deadman and John Constantine to rescue him.

Meanwhile, on the Courthouse Rooftop (that was some Bat-Grapple to swing them out of the basement and onto the roof!), Justice League Dark have arrived to help Batman, Tig, and John. Well, Tig and John, anyway. Once Batman sees he has reinforcements, he takes off to help Robin and save his city. Xanadu is currently useless and Shade and Zatanna's powers are being siphoned away by Cain. So everyone is kind of in trouble when suddenly Mary, Queen of Blood, turns up to help them out. She's a little bit angry that her plan was usurped and her troops taken over by big magic Vampire King. It's a good enough reason as any to switch sides and play the good guy for a little while.

Hee hee. The naked woman is judging the woman in lingerie. Notice the men aren't complaining about either one's outfits?

Mary manages to tear apart all of the vampires on the rooftop and save everyone's life for a moment. But Cain has very nearly taken all of their power and is beginning to look unstoppable. Maybe I should stop reading now so I don't have to see everyone die, right? It would be merciful on my part. Because surely Deadman and Constantine aren't going to be successful! They need to find the one weird pocket of nowhere that Bennett has ended up in? How are they going to manage that? Does John Constantine have a pubic hair of Andrew Bennett squirreled away in his bag of disgusting people parts? Oh! It's possible! He did meet up with him in that one issue!

By the time this issue ends, nobody comes along to save them. Everything looks bleak and Mary's pouting about the Primordial Evil taking the spotlight away from her.

No, you wouldn't have scored with Batman. You're more Nightwing's type.

I, Vampire #7 Rating: No change. Good comic but now I'm starting to dislike Andrew Bennett being killed since he hasn't really been killed but he doesn't really exist but he's nowhere but he's somewhere and some thing is speaking to him but can't tell him certain things but can blab a whole bunch of other shit. Not a big fan of that and so no climbing the ranks.

Justice League Dark #7

Has Zatanna's costume always been lingerie? Didn't she used to wear a top hat?

Justice League Dark has finally become a proper team. Well, as proper as they're ever going to get. At the beginning of this issue, John Constantine is already trying to walk out because they're going to fight a few vampires. They're going to fight some vampires because Madame Xanadu had a vision of the ending of I, Vampire Issue Six and now she thinks the world needs their help to stop the daddy of all vampires, Edward Cain!

Nearly all issues of all comics ever are still on sale somewhere! But forget that. Look how cute Zatanna is here! *swoon*

Shade and his M-Vest transport everyone to Gotham City. They're all lucky they didn't end up on Meta. Or Apokolips! I wonder if Shade's time with the Suicide Squad is still part of the DCU's history? Gotham, at the moment, is being overrun by vampires. Hasn't this happened before?
One more time: Why the hell does anybody live in Gotham?!

Since all of Batgirl's villains seem to be metaphors about her life, what do the vampires represent? Painful menstruation? Anemia from an iron poor diet?

Deadman and Constantine keep Batgirl from being bitten. She recognizes them as 'Zatanna's team' and Constantine seems a bit miffed by that. SRSLY! I thought it was Madame Xanadu's team!

Is there anything Batman doesn't know about? They just fucking agreed to form and he's gossiping about them to the Bat-Family.

The last few vampires have to be taken out with Constantine's axe since Shade can't seem to control his Vest and the others seem to be losing their magical ability. Once they're dead, Batgirl takes her leave since Batman 'ordered' her across town. Maybe the Night of the Owls is starting right after the Twilight of the Vampires is dealt with.

Meanwhile, Batman, Hippie John, and Tig get one panel to themselves. John blames Tig for what's happening since, apparently, Andrew Bennett was the only thing keeping evil at bay! Hopefully that will be explained in the next I, Vampire when we see that Bennett is somehow still alive.

Shouldn't you have seen this coming in time? Maybe you should summon Etrigan!

The first half of Xanadu's plan is for Deadman and Constantine to travel to the afterlife and retrieve Andrew Bennett. Oh yeah, that's a great plan. The second half of her plan is to take an astral vacation. While she's gone, Shade manages to teleport himself, Zatanna, and Madame Xanadu's husk on to the rooftop where Batman, John, and Tig are fighting vampires. That wasn't part of the plan but it's probably been the most successful move yet. Any move that gets you closer to Batman is a good one.

Xanadu's Astral Vacation Destination: The Astral Zone of the Crystal One.

I have no clue who this crystal guy is. Or how he's going to help Xanadu which will make her Dark team hate her. Maybe he's going to link their spirits so that they must continually associate with each other across the rest of their journey along the paths of reincarnation. It's Peter Milligan so it'll probably be something like that.

Justice League Dark #7 Rating: +1 Ranking. These characters and this comic deserve to be ahead of Frankenstein, Agent of Shade. But I'm not sure this comic can rise much further up the ranks until it really sets out on its own. That means getting past this crossover with Andrew Bennett. I can't wait until Milligan really begins to cut loose with this crew.

Justice League Dark #6

Xanadu brought them together. Destiny had no hand in it!

Last issue completed the June Moone story arc. Xanadu separated June from The Enchantress so that The Enchantress would wind up destroying the world if the Magic Justice League didn't form. Well, Deadman, Zatanna, Constantine, Shade, and the Seizure Guy came together and solved the problem. But they decided not to stay together and it made Xanadu cry. I'm guessing some other disaster will bring them together again until it sticks. Maybe that disaster will begin this issue!

Constantine has set the city of London ablaze because of some scam he was trying to pull with a bunch of bankers. He tried to summon a demon that would make them rich like that episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the kid from Home Improvement who was going to sacrifice Cassandra, the girl who knew she was going to die, to summon a demon that would make them rich! But Constantine didn't have a Buffy around to kill the demons and now London is burning.

Deadman and Zatanna are hanging around not helping. They seem to be their for "I Told You So"s and lectures.

Well, excuse the bloody fuck out of John! Ew. Bloody fuck.

During whatever this chaos is that Constantine created, Zatanna has cast a backwards spell that is stuck in some kind of infinite loop and creating skinless zombie things that have been chasing her in-between her lecturing Constantine. They finally catch up with her and shove a whole bunch of fingers into her mouth so that she can't say any spells. They might stick her fingers in her other orifices as well. Why not? You can never be too safe! I'm pretty sure I once knew a witch that could cast spells with her vagina. At the very least, she could hypnotize with it.

Shade is off somewhere trying to recreate Kathy George with his M-Vest and his memory. At some point, I'm going to reread Shade the Changing Man so I can remember what happened to Kathy. It's possible she was dead throughout the entire run of Shade the Changing Man, killed by Troy Grenzer (Was that his name? I can't believe I remember his name if that's his name!) at the very beginning and only kept alive by Shade's M-Vest. It's been a long time since I reread that series. Long overdue. Oh, and how is Shade's recreation of Kathy going?

Yeah. Not so well.

It turns out these are just the nightmares of the Magic Justice League members. Constantine losing control. Zatanna being chased by something she set loose long ago. Shade's loneliness and desperate need. And Deadman has been having hallucinations that he's killed Dove. He believes the problem with his mind stems from his trying to possess the dangerous mind of John Constantine. The four of them end up running into each other at Madame Xanadu's place in search of some help. Sounds like a certain fortune teller might be causing these nightmares to drive the mages back to her side.

I wonder how she knows so much? Oh yeah! She's a manipulative barn owl! And by barn owl, I mean cunt. But I didn't want to sound misogynistic.

The monster woman that was supposed to be Kathy George that was also supposed to be a dream attacks them at that moment. See? You can see her root-like hairs in the lower right of the scanned panel. She's angry and sad that Shade has left her without giving her a proper name. And Shade doesn't know how to fight back because this creature still represents the woman he loves. Zatanna's backwards magic fails so Deadman takes control of Shade and attacks it. The creature, unable to destroy the M-vest which created it, destroys itself instead. And Xanadu's apartment.

After the battle, Xanadu continues her explanation.

Seriously, guys? You're going to listen to a woman that was fucking Etrigan?

Zatanna has worked with the Justice League before, so she's used to being a part of a team. And Deadman is kind of forced to work with other people all of the time. Madame Xanadu is working with another team right now in Demon Knights although that's about 1000 years in the past. I guess if you count Kathy, Lenny, Pandora, and, um, Pygmalion? (Forgive me if I, once again, have gotten these Shade the Changing Man characters names all wrong) as teammates, then Shade has also worked with a team. Constantine does whatever he feels he has to do, so I figure he'd at least be curious enough to see where all of this goes. The only problem is each one of them is used to being the only magic-user of the group. At least they all attack problems in various ways, so the group is actually quite diverse (like the Challengers of the Unknown! Ha ha!). I'll buy the premise that they'll all decide to form a group simply because I want to read this comic where they work as a team!

After this informative little meeting, Xanadu collapses with a vision.

House of Secrets Cain?! He's a vampire! Yeah, yeah. I bet he's not the House of Secrets Cain but I bet they try to make him the Biblical Cain anyway which would make him the House of Secrets Cain! And I guess I need to switch over to read I, Vampire now!

Justice League Dark #6 Rating: No change. This story was mostly an epilogue to the last five issues. Getting this team together was never going to have an easily believed reason but Milligan has done a good job of at least making them drag their feet while agreeing to the team. And I want to read a comic book with Shade and Constantine together, so I'll swallow any reason to get them together! Even if that reason were made of semen and the tears of kittens! Which it may have been.