Shade the Changing Man #24

Grade: NM.9.4

Issue Number: 24
Release Date: N/A
Writer:
Artist:

Shade and his alter ego find themselves in separate bodies, complicating their love lives, but offering a possible clue to the nature of the mysteriously sentient road. "Off the Road" part 4.Hades, Shade, Kathy and Lenny all stand around for a minute...taking in the idea that Hades and Shade are now separate bodies. But it doesn't take long for Hades to decide he's leaving, and when Shade tries to stop him, the two come to blows...hurting themselves with each strike at the other. Things are interrupted when the House of Cars starts to come violently to life and Shade starts to meld into the road. Hades doesn't seem to care but Lenny says he's going to help them get Shade back whether he wants to or not, and squeezes his testicles until Shade returns to human form, lying on the ground, clutching his groin.Shade's description on what it feels like to be a road is very, very boring. But Lenny starts to get quite analytical of the whole situation (it's that time of the month) and makes several theories...the most significant being that Shade's unconscious created the road and its trying to stop him from finding whatever's in that ditch. But she believes it's only stopping him and if she and Hades were to go seek out what's in the ditch, when Hades sees it, the road will stop holding them prisoner as Shade will have seen it too. As it's their only chance, they go forward with the plan.Kathy and Shade are alone together for the first time in a while and the two kiss...causing Hades' lips to tingle elsewhere, he and Lenny having escaped the road. They cause a man to pull over but Hades, afraid of what's in the ditch, knocks the man unconscious and tries to steal his vehicle before Lenny pulls a gun out on him...and shoots him in the arm. From this point on, Hades is much weaker and Lenny is easily able to drive him to their destination (which he guides her to against his own better judgment). Lenny explains that she thinks he saw the Devil and reinforces her theory when they arrive on the scene and find it barricaded by cops due to the effects The Madness is having on the place, creating a bizarre cluster of various things blocking the ditch that Lenny describes as flies (Lord of the Flies = The Devil)...