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SHADE THE THIRD, OR META-FICTION
#39 -- "Pond Life" -- and the events leading up to it fall strictly into two camps. The first one, the aggressive one, is that Shade's been making doubles again. Out of boredom, confined to his room in the Hotel, they debate points with each other and argue over who's the real and proper Shade. They discuss Kathy and Lenny's sex life ("..maybe this sex thing's a verb and not a noun...") long after the issue has died down in the lettercol. Shade disperses the clones when Kathy walks in on him but one hides under the bed. This is a familiar circumstance, reminding me immediately of the earlier Hades who walked out of Shade's head. Only Shade and Hades merged, and Shade was nastier as a result; what's this new Shade's evil twin going to be like? Hades was merely amoral but this new duplicate - who is never named, he's never differentiated and given full personhood - he's got more in common with Troy Grenzer from the old body. The duplicate imprisons a shrunk Shade in a pond-stuck air bubble (hey, it's how I deal with my exes) and replaces him right up until the deception is revealed. He tortures Kathy and Lenny, talks a lot about wanting children (already he knows, I think, that his hours are numbered -- he wants a legacy).
The reproduction and duplication theme is ongoing since the beginning of the Vertigo Years; Shade's solution to the Passionchild dilemma is to duplicate the kid and kill the dummy, while the real child runs off into the night, thus fucking over the angels. Similarly, Shade's "brother" stands in for him against his will. This follows through with the theme of change-as-replacement that dominates this section of the series, with Shade apparently replaced by a madder version of himself in a replacement body.
The second camp is the Miles Laimling affair, specifically Milligan's insertion of himself (or a parody of himself) into the text, without (initially) the cheap showiness of Morrison's ANIMAL MAN appearances. Miles is writing the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL, which of course parallels Shade's life (a trip through the psychological United States, adoptive parents, a search for self) and furthermore has absolute difficulty with characters - we've seen him shouting at empty chairs trying to get a bit of dialogue correct, and now we learn that he bases his characters off people. Only, this is why he's been brought to the Hotel by the Angels; Miles has a habit of outright stealing personality traits. He steals essential qualities from Lenny and Kathy, nearly prompting Lenny to suicide (because what is she going to do without wit or libido?).
Actually, Lenny being left without wit or libido is another iteration of the identity theme - what does she have left without these things which are, apparently, what we're supposed to walk away from her knowing? Like Shade's writer's block and the shifting of his focus away from Metan poetry and onto the Madness. The loss is more about a change of manner but it's forced, spontaneous, and abrupt. Lenny's dreary without the wit and tries to drown herself head-first in the pond only to find Shade, trapped in the air bubble.
Lenny & Shade have a less obvious relationship than either of them has with Kathy, and it continues to be a focus when I'm rereading. Lenny doesn't like the new Shade, who is often an asshole to her and occasionally calls her on her own bullshit (in much the same way Kathy does, which is one of the reasons their relationship has begun to break down), but Shade saving Lenny's life and showing surprising concern even amid his antagonism breaks through her barriers a little bit.
So Lenny gets Kathy and they start to work on the issue of freeing Shade only they're discovered, and Miles as well, and the three mortals are stuck in a locked room while Shade remains shrunken and the duplicate connives and prances. They figure out that Miles is doing what he's been doing and Lenny freaks out, mostly because going nearly two issues without saying anything passably amusing or biting has left her with only violence to resort to. Art must be destroyed to preserve humanity; the novel must be burned for people to get themselves back. Lenny gets her comfy old self back (this will be important shortly), Miles uses his strange ability to stop the duplicate, Shade is freed, and our bitter threesome can resume their sniping and affectionate hanging about.
Now, Pond Life is notable for really pumping up the Laimling metafiction; it's a self-aware comic book that speaks directly to the reader through the narrative captions without the cushy conceit of a narrative to caption. Laimling ends the whole affair by promising to go very far away and write a comic book about the ordeal, called Pond Life, under the anagrammatic pseudonym Milligan ... it's precious. Too precious and a little sloppy, I think, although in light of other people trying to replace their characters, well, it's sort of sweet that Milligan just really wants to hang out with his. Wouldn't you? Shade's self-absorbed, Kathy can't deal with change, Lenny's hard to get to emotionally but they're all wonderful and fun and biting, intelligent -- wouldn't you want to hang out with them?
(next up, THE ICONS-- Jim Morrison, Pandora, and John Constantine) |
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