Classic Comic Compendium: SHADE, THE CHANGING WOMAN and the sci-fi weirdness of growing up

Comics

Jan 21

Classic Comic Compendium: SHADE, THE CHANGING WOMAN and the sci-fi weirdness of growing up

A look at Young Animal's most deceptively straight-forward book.

By d. emerson eddy

At the end of the Milk Wars crossover, the universe was rejiggered a bit. While the primary ramifications of fitting Rita Farr back in was featured in Doom Patrol itself, when it resumed awhile later, it also played out more immediately across the rest of the DC’s Young Animal imprint. Mother Panic leapt forward into the future. Eternity Girl stepped into mainline reality. Cave Carson started that podcast.
Shade, The Changing Woman from Cecil Castellucci, Marley Zarcone, Jamie Coe, Ande Parks, Kelly Fitzpatrick, and Saida Temofonte continued the journey of Loma Shade begun in the earlier The Changing Girl series, moving forward a bit in time, and detailing some of the natural changes of friendships past high school. And the death of your original alien body. Just like all kids.
I joke, but it’s actually a fairly clever metaphor, even as it deals with some weird sci-fi and horror ideas. On its surface, you’ve got a runaway alien in Loma trying to save her new adoptive home from an alien invasion and the increasingly violent spirit of her new body’s original inhabitant. In doing so, though, we see how people grow apart as they grow up and change. And how dealing with that change, perhaps in inappropriate ways, leads to new understandings and reconciliation.
Also, finding out that your mentor is a disappointment. It’s interesting how this volume builds even more on the spectre of Rac Shade and his legacy, giving a further twisted conclusion to the old Vertigo Shade, The Changing Man series.
From the start of the original Changing Girl volume, Marley Zarcone’s art has been wonderful. There’s a roundness and simplicity to Zarcone’s characters that reminds me a bit of the established style for old Archie comics, reinforcing the early feel of teenage adventures, but with a weirdness and fluidity to page layouts that emphasizes the strange nature of an alien bird taking over a human body. Assisted through much of the series with inks from Ande Parks, maintaining the fine line in Zarcone’s finished art.
With a gorgeous primary and sometimes psychedelic colour palette from Kelly Fitzpatrick. It really helps with the sometimes trippy nature of the visuals and the old school dots approach. And some interesting narration boxes to match from Saida Temofonte. This volume features back-ups illustrated by Jamie Coe, playing with the fluid nature of time that’s established in the opening of this arc.
Of all of the books under the DC’s Young Animal imprint, Shade, The Changing Woman from Castellucci, Zarcone, Coe, Parks, Fitzpatrick, and Temofonte, and its earlier incarnation from mostly the same team, may have been the most deceptively straightforward. A coming-of-age tale peppered with bodily possession, madness, and interstellar warfare that ultimately deals with complex issues of identity, friendship, xenophobia, and dealing with change.
Classic Comic Compendium: SHADE, THE CHANGING WOMAN
Shade, The Changing Woman
Writer: Cecil Castellucci
Artists: Marley Zarcone & Jamie Coe
Inker: Ande Parks
Colourist: Kelly Fitzpatrick
Letterer: Saida Temofonte
Publisher: DC Comics – DC’s Young Animal
Release Date: March 7 – August 1 2018 (original issues)