The Shade #6 – Review

By: James Robinson (writer), Javier Pulido (artist), Hilary Sycamore (colorist)

The Story: There seems to be some bad blood between you two…

The Review: Every now and then I’m reminded with a start just how many British writers there are in the comics business.  It’s not something you think of often, since they spend all their time writing American characters in American settings with an American audience in mind anyway.  Ultimately, too, the distinction is somewhat irrelevant as the variety of writing styles among the Brits and Yankees is so broad that you can’t really tell them apart by text alone.

I say all this because The Shade may be one of those rare exceptions, a title that reads with an inescapably British flavor.  Yes, yes, the title character is of English origin, and his proud Victorian foppery gives him away long before he even begins to speak, but that’s not it—not entirely.

Compare with Paul Cornell’s Knight and Squire; in that series, the pride of British culture was on full display, but a very modern, sarcastic, bombastic type of culture, where even as the characters engage in that famous understatement, they reveal the heat of their feelings nonetheless.  Not so here.  Shade comes from an earlier, much more reserved period, so no matter what the situation, his voice rings with a light, even airy timbre that is at once amusing, perceptive, and intelligent, never clearly showing emotion.  For example, to the raging Inquisitor, he remarks, “How very uncivil, sir.  How very rude.  Why, I’ll have you know…some of my best friends are sodomites.”  Only timing and context hint at the threat veiled within the joke.

Another quality that reveals the Britishness of the writing is how easy and enjoyable it is to read even the exposition.  At my grad school commencement, we had a very petite London lady deliver a speech, and I remember the entire audience was held spellbound by her rich choice of vocabulary, her sparkling accent, her class, and most of all, the even rhythm of her dialogue.  You can feel that same effect in the script here.  Robinson manages to fill whole pages of nothing but talking heads and still make it gripping, largely because of the almost poetical turn of his writing: “Commissioner Cervantes’ father.  Tough, tight-fisted detective.  ‘Quixote’ was the nickname everyone called him.  He fought crime from the 1940s through the next couple of decades.  Devastating right hook.  Died of cancer in ’68.”  In a few sentences, Robinson gives a compelling impression of a man whom you never see, yet gets you interested in him anyway.

So it goes with the plot.  With tantalizing pith yet obvious import, Robinson continues to brush away layers of mystery surrounding the Inquisitor, only for us to encounter even more questions beneath.  Perhaps the most significant clues come from the villain’s private musings: “La Sangre.  Famed ‘lady’ of this city—no.  No…my lady.  I will do it, I swear…I will save you yet.”  The ambiguity in his words leans strongly towards a much more complex relationship with the redheaded vampire than mere loathing for her evil nature—a secret attraction, perhaps?  If so, Shade has good reason to go “spectacular” next issue in defense of his “daughter’s” virtue.

DC must find something for Pulido to do after this mini ends its run; I’m not afraid to say: they’d be fools if they don’t—fools, I say!  How many other artists can make you fall in love with a country’s architecture in a comic?  Obviously, Pulido has a very avant-garde, pop art style that’s just refreshing to see, but he puts incredible detail into his work.  My favorite scene has to be the Shade and Bengali-Spanish hero Montpelier battling the Inquisitor’s acolytes atop the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi’s masterwork (after over a century of labor), tendrils of Shade’s power launching a thug into the night, backlit by a full, pale yellow moon (tastefully colored by Sycamore).

Conclusion: I can fill a book with all the things I’d like to say about this issue, nearly all of it praise, but I’ll make do by telling you it is absolutely worth a read, a beautiful piece of work both in script and art.

Grade: A-

– Minhquan Nguyen

Some Musings: – The long enmity between Sangre and the Inquisitor involves them duking it out in various lavish locales, including on top a blimp, on stage in the middle of some production in progress, against a snowy mountainside (a burning car in the background), and riding upon the backs of bulls during the Pamplona run.  I need to see this series, like, now.