The Shade
1838 - Richard Swift awakens, immortal but without any memories, after the Longon Incident, a mysterious mystic tragedy that killed 104 people in Whitechapel. He is chased by the monster-hunting family the Ludlows and several of them are kills when he reflexively uses his new powers, starting a generational feud.
1875 - Richard Swift's endless travels take him to the Americas, and to Opal City. He befriends Sheriff Brian Savage, helping him defend the territory, and finally settles down.
1883 - Richard Swift protects Opal City from the Ludlows when they track him there, and is forced to leave to protect it's people.
1933 - Richard Swift meets Marguerite Croft in Paris in a whirlwind romance. She poisons him, revealing that she is a Ludlow, and though she loves him she is bound by loyalty to her family to kill him. Forced to kill the woman he loved, he slips into a deep depression, becoming an international assassin.
1937 - Richard Swift arrives in Keystone City to kill the owner of a bank. He is stopped by Jay Garrick.
1939 - Richard Swift returns to England at the onset of World War II to defend his home country.
44 years ago - Richard Swift and John Zatara spar over the aquisition of a particular artifact. Swift is successful, but they maintain a begrudging respect.
39 years ago - Richard Swift returns to Opal City. He first confronts Ted Knight.
36 years ago - Richard Swift advises John Zatara as he begins his travels in europe to find the secrets of the Homo Magi.
25 years ago - Richard Swift recognizes Ted Knight's nervous breakdown for what it is, and chooses to end their conflict, becoming a silent presence in the city.
6 years ago - Richard Swift first interacts with Jack Knight as he becomes the new Starman. They begin as adversaries, but when Jack comes to him for help ending the Mist's influence on Solomon Grundy, they arrive at an understanding, sharing the city.
5 years ago - Richard Swift's cane is stolen by Nathan Prince for it's Nth metal, and recovered by Jack Knight.
3 years ago - Richard Swift helps evacuate the Opal City as Ted Knight sacrifices himself to battle the Mist.
There are quite a few major DC baddies that have gone on to have a redemptive arc of one kind or another, most of them Batman villains. Even with all those other characters, the Shade stands out, because he never really HAD a redemptive arc. It was more like the rest of the world just sort of... caught up to him. He's pretty much entirely the invention of one writer working in their own particular playground, but he's a very cool creation, and we basically just need to transpose him right into our timeline with very little changed.
The Shade's Comic HistoryThe Shade is technically a Golden Age villain, despite almost never appearing in it. His single appearance was in Flash Comics #33 in 1942, a criminal that used a machine to bathe the city in darkness so his men could rob it blind. Flash handled the situation without much trouble... and that was it.
We didn't see him again until the Silver Age, notably showing up in Flash #123 in 1961, "The Flash of Two Worlds", the comic that first introduced the whole concept and made it possible for Golden Age and Silver Age characters to interact. Since Barry Allen had transitioned over to the world of Jay Garrick, we met a trio of Silver Age villains; the Thinker, the Fiddler, and the Shade, although of the three of them The Shade saw a pretty dramatic costume update, and notably was now able to create darkness with just his cane, rather than a bulky machine back at his headquarters. The division between the Earth 1 and Earth 2 was firmly established after this issue, but that didn't stop Earth 2 villains like the Shade from regularly crossing over to interact with Earth 1 heroes like Barry's Flash, both in the regular Flash series and over in the Justice League where he would often be one of the members of the Earth 2 Injustice Society. The overall result is a Golden Age baddie who basically has all of his appearances in the Silver Age. This version of the Shade is probably best recognized by modern audiences for his appearances in the DCAU as one of the founding members of the Injustice Gang. |
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Shade post Crisis re-imagining happened in the pages of James Robinson's 1995 Starman series, where he introduced his original character Jack Knight, the son of the original Starman. Richard Swift was part of the series from the very beginning. He was now an incredibly long-lived, unaging magical entity whose connection to Opal City, the setting of the series, was just as strong as the heroes. He was clearly a comic book villain, but his motivations were often more about keeping his home safe than anything malicious. As the series went on, even as he regularly interected with the other criminals and baddies, he could arguably be considered almost an ally to the heroes.
Starman was a really great series that focused on building up connections with the past, digging into the legacy of the various Starman characters from continuity, as well as other lesser-known elements of DC's history. Swift gave the story a unique perspective; he had actually been there through that history. Over time we learned more about his history, his long-time generational feud with the Ludlow family, and even giving him his own nemesis, Simon Culp, a little person that would possess Swift, often responsible for his more villanous behavior. The Shade would continue to be a pesudo ally to the DC heroes even after the Starman series concluded with Jack Knight's retirement. James Robinson actually did a 12 issue miniseries featuring the Shade's story that came out shortly after the New 52. |
Our Shade StoryWhile there is a certain comic book charm to the pre-crisis version of the Shade, I don't think we need to work too hard to explain why we're focusing on the long-lived magical entity from the Robinson series. It isn't our intention to try to create a direct one-to-one replica of that series, but rather to use it as a guide, and with Swift that means going way way back into our timeline and following him as he travels the world, building his early connection with Opal City, continually battling the Ludlows, and has his heart broken. We do make him interact with Jay Garrick once, but given how limited his actual Golden Age activity was, most of his activity is interacting with the All-Star Squadron member Ted Knight in the years before he has his mental breakdown. This all sets him up a pseudo ally to Jack Knight. Our timeline probably depicts him as a little more altruistic, but thats mostly because when it comes to the major events of Opal City, that is the part he tends to play.
We don't want to dwell on this too hard, but I would like to at least briefly just mention an idea about he dresses. Someone could (and probably has) write a book about depictions of immortals in popular media and how they interact with fashion. Speaking as a 40+-year-old person, I can already say that I care way less about what clothes are fashionable and more about what I think looks good to ME, so you just have to imagine that someone 200+ years old would feel the same way. So I do think that it makes perfect sense that he would have an archaic sense of style, but I also think it should feel timelessly classy, because he IS choosing to wear it. His role in the story of Jack Knight is a really cool one, but he also get to be a long-standing fixture in our DC timeline as a whole. |
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