Introducing: The Midnighter

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. “Who is this fake Batman?” Believe me. I used to think the same thing. That was until I purchased The Authority TPB’s (trade paper backs) and realized that The Midnighter was one of the coolest and deadly comic book characters ever created. I was not a huge fan of Image Comics. I felt that most of the stuff they put out was all flash and no substance. Sometimes there would be a character or two that stood out but the writers could not keep up with the talent of the artists employed. Then one day I discovered Frank Quitely. His art style is very distinctive and was perfect for the comic.

While I wont go into the story of all of the characters involved in The Authority right now I will mention that The Midnighter stood out because of his use of violence to fight. He is not a psychopath the way The Punisher is nor is he holding himself to a moral standard the way Batman does. He sees a problem and the only way he knows how to stop it is by hitting it until it stops moving. And he does. Like the time he used a massive drill to anally rape a super powered Thor knockoff that had sexually assaulted his boyfriend, Apollo. Oh, I didn’t mention that?

The Midnighter is as queer as a $3 bill. They do acknowledge and mention that he and Apollo (the equivalent of Batman and Superman dating) are dating but its not used as a plot device. Its just two superheroes that happen to be in love with one another. The Midnighter is very protective of Apollo and will wreck anyone that messes with him. The two of them play off each other perfectly, one being Night’s Bringer Of War and the other being The Sun King.

I haven’t even mentioned his powers. He is super durable, fast, has a bionic ass immune system (he beat AIDS in a few weeks), has two hearts, and can figure out how a fight will end before it even begins. There is one cool part where he tells a guy with a hostage that he knows how the fight will end and the guy twitches and gets his head smashed off. In a world where heroes come from other planets, shoot lasers, or carries machine guns on their shoulders. This crazy bastard usually just rips people in half with his bare hands. Which is why he rules.

Introducing: Shade The Changing Man

You think you’re emo, kid? You ain’t seen emo until you’ve picked up an issue of Shade The Changing Man. I first discovered Shade the same way I discovered a lot of my comic books. By going to 7/11 stores and buying chips and Slurpees. Hey, I was a little fat ass with extra cash because I ironed my brothers clothes for money. They sold these packs of four comics for $2.99. The downside was that you didn’t know what comics were in the center. I got at least twenty issues of Shade this way. This turned out to be one of the weirdest and awesome comic books I’ve ever read till this day. Not to mention the cool stories by Peter Mulligan and great art by Chris Bachalo who went on to draw Neil Gaimen’s Death, Generation X, Ultimate X Men, and Steampunk.

Shade was first drawn by Steve Ditko who is known for his distinctive style and for drawing ROM Spaceknight, The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Dr. Strange to mention a few. In it his full name was Rac Shade and he was a fugitive from a planet called Meta. He had the ability to use his M-Vest to create a monster looking version of himself. Shade is an agent that is framed for murder and he ends up living in a place called the Area Of Madness. That sounds awesome. This version of Shade is far different from what he would eventually become which if you know your comic books is not as strange as it seems.

Later after joining the Suicide Squad the character was redone for DC’s Vertigo line which included titles such as The Sandman, 100 Bullets, Hellblazer, A History Of Violence, and V For Vendetta. Those last three have become films. In the first story arc he falls in love with Kathy while trying to defeat The American Scream. While he is dating her is goes into super-emo mode and ends up making another version of himself named Hades that handles emotion better than he does. Meaning he doesn’t whine like a little bitch as much.

When Shade dies or leaves a body (which is how he survives) he ends up in the body of a recently murdered chick. Normally when he takes a body over he can morph it to look like himself but since the spirit cant rest he stays in woman form. He even has sex as a woman. Told you this was a weird ass comic. Eventually Shade figured out who killed her and then he is able to transform into himself. While all this is happening there is all kinds of drama with Kathy and her friend Lenny.

Later on after being killed angels make Shade come back. He ends up in the body of a guy in an asylum with spiky black hair who is batshit insane. Apparently there are people born empty just for things like this. Shade and Hades are mixed perfectly together which is bad for everyone since Shade no longer can control himself. At one point the rushes outside and has sex with the ground which causes a bunch of tiny versions of himself to spring up. After this awesome storyline and version of Shade Chris Bachalo left and it all went to shit. I stopped caring about the character until he resurfaced in DC’s 52 in Justice League Dark. Go back and see if you can find old issues of Shade. They are really fun and different. Plus each cover was a work of art.