Michael Le Roi: Because all that's next is Deadside.
Jack Boniface nearly died one night—attacked by something out of a nightmare. By fateful chance, he escaped. But since that terrifying experience, something has changed. Now, when darkness falls, a feeling comes over him, the urge to cast out the evil that would defile the night. The city of New Orleans has always had a history of wild nightlife and superstition, but now it holds the whisper of a man who prowls the night, savagely attacking those who corrupt it. Demons in the dark, beware the vigilante known as... Shadowman.
The Acclaim series, which was used as the basis for the company's Shadowman video game, begins as something of a Soft Reboot of the original, with Jack Boniface being brutally killed by a group of Deadsiders who come to Earth and the Shadowman role being passed on to a hitman, Michael LeRoi, a.k.a. "Zero". The 2012 reboot, however, uses Jack Boniface as the Shadowman again.
The original Shadowman series was written by Jim Shooter and Steve Englehart. The first four issues of the Acclaim version were written by Garth Ennis, who was then replaced by Jamie Delano. After this book was ended after 20 issues, another book written by Dan Abnett was launched in 1999; it published six issues and had six more planned, but Acclaim's financial troubles resulted in the entire comic line being shut down. Acclaim also ran a miniseries written by Paul Jenkins called Shadowman Presents: Deadside, which published three issues of the planned four; the script for the fourth was later included in a trade paperback.
The rebooted Valiant Entertainment has run a number of Shadowman books of its own. The first, which started in 2012 and ran for 17 issues (including a #0 issue), introduced the new company's iteration of Jack Boniface, similar to the original version. This book was written by Justin Jordan (later replaced by Peter Milligan) and Patrick Zircher, with Zircher also doing the artwork. Another volume of this Shadowman, this time written by Andy Diggle, was launched in 2018 and ran for 11 issues. In 2022, another Shadowman volume started. Written by Cullen Bunn, it ran for eight issues, with the story leading into Book of Shadow, a limited series focusing on Shadowman and some of Valiant's other supernatural heroes.
In 2023, it was announced that Shadowman would once again star in a video game, this time a melee combat-based action horror game starring the Valiant Entertainment incarnation of Jack Boniface. Titled Shadowman: Darque Legacy, the game is due for release in 2024.
Tropes:
- Deus Sex Machina: Shadowman's ally Mama Nettie needed a regular dose of Vitamin S-E-X from the Shadowman to maintain her youth.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: As stated above, Jack Boniface, then the original Shadowman, is Killed Offscreen by a group of escaped Deadsiders in the first issues of the Acclaim book, though Mama Nettie later uses voodoo magic to bring him back for a limited time (as seen in the Unity 2000 series, the Jack Boniface of the original continuity did not meet this fate).
- Evil Counterpart: Master Darque for Shadowman.
- Fan Disservice: Evil sorcerer Master Darque sure was naked a lot. He shouldn't have been. He really shouldn't.
- Necromancer: Master Darque has the ability to manipulate, morph and bind souls into grotesque soul eaters. His magic was mainly necrotic but he became a disciple of the Universal Center of Learning and Knowledge called Lyceum. When he learned everything he could from his masters he graduated by killing everyone in Lyceum.
- Legacy Character: The Shadowman role has been passed from person to person over the years, with the first one having been Maxim St. James, a gambler in the 1800s.
- Only One Afterlife: Everyone who dies ends up in Deadside—basically, hell—where they gradually lose their identities and become mindless zombies. The sole exception is the titular protagonist, due to the power of the Mask of Shadows.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Shadowman's explicitly a zombie through voodoo, though only at night, or in Deadside. Otherwise, he's a living human.
- Trumplica: In 4001 A.D.: Shadowman, there is Drub Tarley, a golden-haired blowhard who takes over the post-apocalyptic city of Gethsemane by stoking resentments about their peace treaty with nearby Sanctuary, wherein every year, three young people from Gethsemane must present themselves to Sanctuary in order to be sacrificed to maintain the mystical powers that protect both cities from the wasteland that surrounds them.
- Vain Sorceress: Subverted. When the hundreds of years old voodoo housekeeper Nettie (who normally looks about 70 or so) is super-charged by a potent increase in magic in the world, she reflexively reverts to the young (and devastatingly beautiful) appearance she had when she was in her 20s. The subversion stems from the fact that she reveals she was ALWAYS capable of making this change, but never wanted to - in fact, she's incredibly annoyed by her youth and just wants to go back to being old.
