The Shade #4

The fourth and final chapter of DC's 1997 The Shade miniseries — spun directly out of Starman — closes with a cover that is all atmospheric restraint: the enigmatic, top-hatted Shade reclines against a gnarled autumn tree, cigarette in hand, surveying a harvest field bathed in amber and flame-orange grasses, while a battered scarecrow and a second top hat rest in the foreground. Tony Harris's painted cover work gives the whole scene a brooding, elegiac mood that perfectly suits a story titled "Harvest's End." Writer James Robinson and artist Michael Zulli bring their run on this shadowy Victorian antihero to a close in fittingly moody style.