";s:4:"text";s:4583:" Only a young pair of twins, absent from the excursion, survived. Within the poster, Shade agrees to sell his soul in exchange for the liberation of all the souls contained within (something that, unknown to Shade, Jack Knight and Matt O'Dare have also agreed to do), but the demon, unable to accept a selfless deal, releases all of them. During all of the Shade's escapades, he had been pursued quite actively by the Ludlows, whom he abated with little remorse, killing dozens of the family before meeting Marguerite Croft, a young lady, with whom he fell in love and established with in Paris during the thirties.
During the 1960s he briefly teamed up with Doctor Fate to take down what was apparently one of Culp's criminal ventures, a mystic organization of madmen, the Wise Fools, who wished to repeat the ritual that created him by apparently summoning a wild, uncontrolled bubble of shadow (actually Culp's shadow, separated from Shade by Culp). For decades thereafter, Swift lived a relatively normal life, one which changed when Rupert Ludlow, one of the surviving twins, appeared and ambushed him along with a band of hired killers, informing his of the murderous intent of the family and of its exponential growth. Shade survived the toxins, and was forced to kill Marguerite when she confessed that though she loved him, she would make more attempts on his life due to loyalty to her family. This was the time of the Golden Age of Heroes, and of them all he chose one as his adversary: Jay Garrick, the first Flash. Shade assists him in his efforts, partly influenced by the revelation O'Dare is, in fact, the reincarnated lawman Scalphunter, an old friend. Neron, angered by his rejection, swears vengeance against Shade. Another notable point during the series' run came when the Godwave struck the DC universe, depowering almost all superheroes.
Meanwhile, the rest of the group find out about Caitlin's Killer Frost powers. A bomb blast, falling on top of them, sent Culp into Shade's body. The gentleman who had picked him up gave him the name Piers Ludlow, and offered to help him reencounter his past. The following evening Swift met one of his true friends prior to the incident: the author Charles Dickens.
In a fight for possession of the poster, Matt O'Dare is dragged within and Shade follows.
Wally starts to have visions of him being Kid Flash so Barry tells him the truth about his powers in Flashpoint. This lasts until the wife of the last Ludlow by blood calls him to the city of Ludlow to talk her husband out of attempting an attack on him that would certainly cost him his life. Fate had exiled decades before, to cast a spell allowing him to trap Opal City in an impenetrable bubble of shadow and force a confrontation with the city's heroes.
The Shade (Richard Swift) is a comic book character developed in the 1940s for National Comics, first appearing in the pages of Flash Comics in a story titled "The Man Who Commanded the Night", scripted by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Hal Sharp. He also has a brief appearance in DC's Brave New World in 2006. Out of the O'Dares, he befriended the family's "black sheep", Matt O'Dare. Shade, as always, wishes peace for Opal, and also does not like Merritt, the human guardian of the poster, who has gained immortality for his protection of it, and consequently become the inspiration for Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. These excerpts are written as prose, as opposed to a more traditional comic style, with occasional illustrations, and as journal entries being written by the Shade himself at different points in his existence.
Much of the Shade's past is revealed through journal entries included in the Starman comics, including the flashback issues called "Tales of Times Past". Directed by J.J. Makaro.
