InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Honey Flash!"

catbirdseat (catbirdseat) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-10-08 15:24:00

Entry tags:

char: flash/jay garrick, char: starman/jack knight, char: the shade/richard swift, creator: bret blevins, creator: gene ha, creator: james robinson, title: starman

Shade History
In the post below by zechs27, someone asked for the Shade and Charles Dickens. And I thought Cry For Justice is also a good opportunity to post scans of another friendly meeting of Jay Garrick and the Shade.

From the Shade Miniseries (Vol. 1): Stumbling confused and amnesiac through a bad part of London - presumably disoriented by the event that gave him his shadow powers - Richard Swift is picked up by a member of the Ludlow family, who nurture him back to health.

Remember that garden, it will come back to haunt us later.

The Ludlows, however, turn out to be not so nice, but rather a family of psycho killers:

Driven into a corner, Richard Swift disovers his shadow powers, and slaughters the Ludlows:

And then returns to London, where he meets a friend from before he lost his memory:

This is from The Shade Miniseries (Vol.3)

1950: A descendant of the Ludlows in Keystone City (where the Shade is currently a Flash villain) intends to murder Jay and Joan and frame the Shade for it. Shade saves the day (and perhaps gives us a reason why Joan immediately offers him coffee):

From the final issue of the Starman v.2 series: Remember that garden from above? Well, this is the Shade's rose garden in Opal City. Looks familiar, doesn't it?

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	mullon 2009-10-08 04:30 pm UTC (link)
	I always had a slight problem with that part, because it made it sound like what Jay and Shade were doing was just a game, and the Shade commiting crimes is not a game and Jay shouldn't think of it as a game. (Reply to this) (Thread)

catbirdseat
2009-10-08 04:47 pm UTC (link)

I'm torn about this. The Shade's villain crush on the Flash is kind of awesome. I can definitely see Shade treating it as a game, and if this is set fairly early in his time in Keystone and he has gone easy on Jay so far (as the miniseries wants us to believe), maybe Jay wouldn't take it quite so seriously either. (Sidenote: what does and did Jay know about the Shade? Is it common knowledge that Shade is a ruthless and sometimes hired killer, or does Jay mostly view him as a partly-reformed thief, a la Catwoman?) Jay definitely would be appalled if he knew of the Shade's very bloody history.

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icon_uk
2009-10-08 07:44 pm UTC (link)

To further confuse things, in the midst of all this John Byrne wrote a Jay Garrick story set in the Golden Age which featured the Shade as being ready to kill Joan to suit his own ends. Robinson was actually able to use that in his eventual stories about Culp sharing Shade's body and usurping control from time to time, with Shade unawares of the fact, but it does put this scene in an odd sort of a place.

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	aaron_bourque 2009-10-08 07:12 pm UTC (link)
	On the other hand, a Flash villain who treats it like a diversion and doesn't do it out of anger or hatred of the Flash? Wasn't that the Rogues' m.o.? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

icon_uk
2009-10-08 07:40 pm UTC (link)

Well, yes, but most of that was retconned in after the fact when Wally took over. Pre-Crisis most of them WERE disturbed and loathed the Flash; the Top, Reverse-Flash, Abra-Kadabra and Golden Glider in particular, but Heatwave, Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang et al WERE still trying to kill him, no question.

It was after Barry was gone that the Rogues became more of a "Well golly, we weren't REALLY trying to kill him all that time, it was more of a game" group.

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catbirdseat
2009-10-08 07:53 pm UTC (link)

Much as I dislike the Rogues killing Bart, it probably wouldn't have shocked and outraged the hero community as much if they hadn't been perceived as less brutal than, say, Batman villains. Apparently that seemed like a line had been crossed. (Or maybe everyone just liked Bart really much). On the other hand, no one ever makes much of a fuss in the DCverse when bat-kids die.

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