The Shade
The charmingly amoral and seemingly immortal antihero from the much-lauded Starman comic returns in a miniseries that begins with a savage attempt on his life by the supervillain for hire Deathstroke. The Shade’s quest to learn who’s behind the attack takes him around the world, reuniting him with several of his descendants, before culminating in a cataclysmic battle with Egyptian gods held captive beneath the British Museum. As a bonus, the tale delves into the heretofore unrevealed mystic calamity in Victorian London that gave him the power to manipulate shadows to devastating effect. The story’s deliberate pace and provocative characterizations set it apart from standard superhero fare. The various chapters are drawn by some of comics’ foremost artists, including Darwyn Cooke, Jill Thompson, and Cully Hamner. Many fans of the Shade have likely moved on in the decade that’s elapsed since Starman’s celebrated run; even so, this revival of one of the DC universe’s most intriguing characters is arguably one of the best things the company’s published since it overhauled its superhero line two years ago. --Gordon Flagg