Shadowman (2018) #1 Review

Writer: Andy Diggle
Artist: Stephen Segovia
Colorist: Ulises Arreola
Letterer: Simon Bowland
Publisher: Valiant

I have known about Shadowman from a casual perspective since the late 90s, and yet I have never read a Shadowman comic book. When I saw that this series was getting rebooted by Valiant again, I was intrigued to check out this whole universe that I have never visited. I grew up in New Orleans and knowing that Shadowman stories take place there, I was even more excited to see how they portrayed my hometown.

Upon first glance, the cover for this first issue of the 2018 Shadowman is amazing. It is minimal and realistic, which makes it quite creepy. I also checked out the covers for the next couple of unreleased issues and they are really great as well. I have a feeling I will continue to love all of the covers for this series as long as it goes.

Being a new Shadowman reader, I was a little concerned that I may possibly be lost trying to figure out characters and storylines. Andy Diggle calmed those worries by writing a first issue of a rebooted series that eases you into a complicated story. There were things I wasn’t sure about, such as the cult Alyssa mentioned, the “shadow loa” that Jack says bound itself to him, and Nicodemo Darque who turned Jack into his murdering puppet. What Diggle did so well though, is that despite not knowing the details of these things, he eased them into the writing that made it easy to comprehend with context. I also don’t for sure know a few things in this issue, but I’m not at all confused while reading it. Instead, I’m interested and excited to watch the story unfold.

Stephen Segavia has captured the New Orleans aesthetic really well and is also an incredible action illustrator. Any kind of fighting or action-type panels were beautifully done and added to the excitement while reading it. Along with Segavia, Ulises Arreloa’s color work on these action scenes specifically is absolutely amazing. Between the voodoo symbols that Alyssa draws in the air and Damballah Wedo, these two have created artwork that is extremely fun to look at.

This entire first issue of Shadowman (2018) is exploding with excitement without an ounce of dullness to hold it back. It is full of beauty which makes the darkness of the story both alluring and refreshing. There isn’t much more that this team could have done to reintroduce this complicated character into the current comic book world.