Shade the Changing Man 2: Ego Games

By the end of the first trade paperback (issues 1-6) Milligan and Bachalo have fleshed out the basics: Rac Shade, an overly sensitive young poet from the planet Meta has been tricked into joining some kind of revolutionary group that sends him to the planet Earth, where his spirit jumps into the body of serial killer Troy Grenzer at the exact moment of Grenzer’s execution. Shade manages to hook up with the grieving daughter of Grenzer’s last victims, Kathy George, and the two of them set about on a cross-country journey in search of something called “The American Scream”.

Coming Attractions

I’m not going to talk about the slate of DC announcements the past week, primarily because so much of the other commentators who have been speculating come across as idiots because since so much detail has still to be released that their ruminations are usually proven wrong seconds after they post them when DC releases another creative announcement. (See the flailing about the Batman titles yesterday afternoon when Grant Morrison wasn’t announced as one of the writers on the first flight of Bat-titles--people were claiming that Morrison had quit DC, only to have Morrison put out a statement saying that his Bat book would launch after September, and that he had another big project coming.)

Q: Which T.Rex songs reference Marvel characters?

A: THE BEST ONES.



0:57 - "I'm Dr. Strange / For you"



3:39 - "Silver Surfer and the ragged kid / Are all sad and rusted"


"Teenage Dream" will always belong to Norrin Radd. Or maybe Scott Pilgrim.

SHADE: "Welcome to the Madhouse"

There has been lots written about the “British Invasion” of the mid to late 1980s into the halls of (primarily) DC Comics. Following the success of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing and Watchmen, editor Karen Berger did a talent search in the UK for like-minded writers. (Most of this talent search seemed to involve poaching talent from 2000AD.) But while this has been covered in the numerous books and magazine articles written about the careers of Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman, Pete Milligan rarely gets mentioned as another British creator discovered from this effort.