Shade, the Changing Man

Shade, the Changing Man
The original Shade version by Steve Ditko.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Shade the Changing Man #1 (June 1977)
Created by	Steve Ditko
In-story information
Alter ego	Rac Shade
Team affiliations	Suicide Squad Justice League Dark
Notable aliases	Mad Mod Poet God
Abilities	The M-Vest creates a strong forcefield that repels weaponry, allows a degree of flight and distorts Shade's appearance dependent on the viewer's mental state or his own.

Shade, the Changing Man
The third iteration of Milligan's Shade (center), with Kathy (left) and Lenny. Taken from Shade the Changing Man #50; art by Brian Bolland.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics, Vertigo
First appearance	Shade the Changing Man #1 (July 1990)
Created by	Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo
In-story information
Alter ego	Rac Shade
Abilities	Can use his Madness Vest to warp reality to his will.

Shade, the Changing Man is a fictional comic book character created by Steve Ditko for DC Comics in 1977. The character was later adapted by Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo in one of the first Vertigo titles.

Both versions of Shade are distinct from the Shade, another DC Comics character.

Shade, the Changing Man told the story of a fugitive from the militant planet Meta in another dimension. Shade (whose full name is Rac Shade) was powered by a stolen "M-vest" (or Miraco-Vest, named for its inventor) which protected him with a force field and enabled him to project the illusion of becoming a large grotesque version of himself. The character was the first Ditko had created, or helped to create, for a mainstream publisher for many years. Prior to rejoining DC Comics, Ditko had worked on characters such as his Mr. A. title. Shade was very much a return to mainstream superheroics, although Shade indicated no particular connection with the DC Universe (although the letters columns stated that there is no reason it could not be shown to be there). Michael Fleisher scripted the series based on Ditko's plotting and art.

His series ran for eight bi-monthly issues in 1978 before its sudden cancellation in the wake of the "DC Implosion", a contraction of DC's line that saw a third of their books axed right before the September releases. A ninth extra-length issue, featuring the debut of a new Ditko character called The Odd Man, was produced, but was published only as a part of DC's Cancelled Comic Cavalcade in 1978. A revised version of the Odd Man story appeared in Detective Comics #487 (Dec. 1979-Jan. 1980). Both stories were published in The Steve Ditko Omnibus Vol. 1 (2011), a hardcover collection of Ditko's DC work.