Shade, the Changing Man

In this short-lived 1970s DC series, a mysterious anti-hero named Shade uses a sentient, reality-warping cloak called the Madness Mantle to battle bizarre threats. Co-plotted and illustrated by the legendary Steve Ditko, with scripting by Michael Fleisher and art assists from Curt Swan, the book blended surreal super-villainy with Ditko’s signature philosophical edge. Though it ran only eight issues, it laid the groundwork for a much longer-lived Vertigo revival a decade later.