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| Publisher |
DC Vertigo |
| Artist |
Chris Bachalo |
| Writer |
Peter Milligan |
| Inker |
Mark Pennington |
| Colorist |
Daniel Vozzo |
| Letterer |
Todd Klein |
| Cover Artist |
Brendan McCarthy |
| Published | October 1990 |
Shade learns the secret of the Madness Vest and his mysterious background, while America's nervous breakdown continues to tear the nation apart.No longer in Dallas, Shade begins to relive his past on the planet Meta, and recalls his infatuation of a girl named Radhu. He went into her room to look at her and got caught when she screamed for help, the courts decided he was too impulsive and he was made an adult, his youthful madness driven out.Back in the present, in Troy Grenzer's form, Shade is standing in a few inches of mud while chunks of it appear to rain down on him and he looks through the man-like shape of the two dimensional manikin Kathy is holding in Dealey Plaza. Suddenly this strange, new world spirals out of control and he loses this glimpse of reality. Now alone he asks himself how he is to ever get back when a skeletal figure makes himself known, telling Shade there is no way back. For they are in the Area of Madness, and he, is the American Scream.In the closest realm to reality, Kathy sits in an interrogation room with the manikin and silently calls out to it, to Shade. Shade remains in the Area of Madness, in a realm where time is absolute and it feels like eternities have gone by, he is going mad. Mr. Stringer (from behind the two-way mirror) asks her who Shade is and what happened to Troy Grenzer. She explains, in a state of delirium, and once again begins to talk to the figure, begging Shade to come back because he's all she has left.Shade hears her voice this time and it spurs a reaction, a flood of memories from his life on Meta after the surgery had removed his madness. He remembers coming home to find Wizor, a Changemaster, who tells him that his personality profile fits their desired one and for that reason he has been recruited as a Changing Man. For years, Shade is trained, but told very little, for he is told that they'd rather he figure out on his own what it is agents do. The one answer he got is that they are the laser of the surgeon,...
