10 Great Comics You Didn't Understand The First Time
7. Shade: The Changing Man
Created by the prolific Steve Ditko in 1978, Shade: the Changing Man was cut off shortly into its first run during a wave of DC comics cancellations. The character made a few sparse appearances in other titles, most notably Suicide Squad, but was finally given a second shot at his own series in 1990 and was so successful and different from other comics that in 1993 it became the flagship series of DC's Vertigo Imprint.
The second series, written by Peter Milligan, saw Shade, a multi-dimensional alien artist, being sent to Prime Earth to stop the American Scream, an elemental being that incited madness and looked like a bizarro Uncle Sam. As Shade chased the American Scream across the country, he took on a number of forms, identities, orientations, and genders.
The comic's message - that the American dream had given way to social madness and the only thing that could save it was a deconstruction of traditional gender and societal roles - might seem obvious, but most readers found it was actually pretty difficult to discern the first time around.
The art, drawn largely by Chris Bachalo, was as psychedelic and disjointed as comics have ever been and was purposefully distracting from the narrative. It didn't help that Shade's emotionless personality and poetic philosophies kept his opinions of his own symbolism shrouded.