Shadowman is the popular comic book character from Valiant Comics who first appeared in May of 1992. Shadowman continued strongly with sales of 300,000 books a month until 1996 when Acclaim Entertainment, which bought Valiant for $65 million, started a new series under the Acclaim Comics banner.
The second series (spelled Shadow Man) was equally as popular and featured the Shadowman from the wildly successful video game franchise which Acclaim produced. The second series stopped in 2002, when Acclaim shut down its comic book publishing division in anticipation of a bankruptcy filing after suffering heavy losses from video games such as BMX XXX and losing its sports game licenses. Valiant Entertainment are the current owners of the Valiant catalog (including Shadowman).
Shadowman has had his likeness transferred to many other mediums including trading cards, posters and a best selling video game franchise. The first Shadowman video game has sold more than two million units to date.
Shadowman was created by industry legends Jim Shooter (former Marvel Editor in Chief) and David Lapham.
ShadowMan V2
The reimagining of Shadowman in the Acclaim universe, also known as Shadowman V2 (or Volume 2) made some drastic changes to the Shadowman universe. The first four issues called “Deadside”, which were written by Garth Ennis (famous for his “Preacher” graphic novel) and drawn by Ashley Wood (artist of Metal Gear Solid Comics) set a much darker tone to the series and moved it away from sci-fi to a more Voodoo magic/mystical setting with horror elements. But that would change however, as other writers and artists progressed the story, somewhat disrupting the story line and the vision Ennis had for Shadowman, which was that of a zombie hitman. Therefore there are many inconsistencies between issues 1–4, issues 5–15 and issues 16–20, with the last issue ending in a cliffhanger.
Deadside story arc starts with an autopsy of mutilated body of Jack Boniface, who (as we later find out) was sadistically and somewhat humorously butchered by four dead men who have somehow escaped from Deadside. From this we know that Jack Boniface didn’t die from jumping off of a skyscraper like it was speculated in the last Shadowman issue in the original comic. Nettie too has been injured by the dead men, she was barely able to escape death, but was reduced to a skeleton, forced to stay alive by using voodoo. Nettie also stars as a much more menacing and manipulative character, not to mention her newfound distinguishing accent. As the story progresses we are introduced to Jaunty, an Irish skullheaded serpent wearing a top hat, who is Netties eyes and ears in Deadside. We are also introduced to Zero, a black man who works as a hitman for a local barman and struggles with the fact that he doesn’t remember his past; excluding five years after his awakening from a coma and running away from a hospital. All Zero has left after his awakening is a tattered teddy bear and a seemingly inborn knowledge of killing. Once the new characters have been introduced and old ones reintroduced. The story centers itself on Zero and his unwilling yet unavoidable fate to becoming the next and true Shadowman, as well as rediscovering his past and Nettie’s connection to him. Not to mention the four dead men on the loose wreaking havoc.
New to the series is the concept of Deadside, a place where everyone goes when one dies. which would be later fully explored in the video games. Deadside plays a big role since after becoming the Shadowman, Zero (or Michael LeRoi as we find out) when mortally wounded has the ability to return from the dead (Deadside) and therefore cannot be killed, unlike the Shadowmen before him.
The first issue of Volume 2 was released on March 1997 and ran for 20 issues before being succeeded by Volume 3, with final issue being released on October 1998.
Volume 3 sees Shadow Man going back to his roots of the first four issues but more so because of the release of the Shadow Man the game.
Volume 3 saw the release of only 6 issues, with the last issue being published on December of 1999.
To download issues 0-13 click below
To download issues 14-28 click below
To download issues 29-43 and Yearbook 1 click below
To download v2 issues 1-10 click below
To download v2 issues 11-20 click below
