‘Shadecraft #1’ (review)

Written by Joe Henderson
Art by Antonio Fabela, Lee Garbett
Published by Image Comics

Zadie Lu’s evening isn’t off to a great start.

Is there anything worse than being a teenager and kissing a friend who isn’t into you?

Oh. There definitely is.

There’s being a teenager, kissing your friend Josh, and then being attacked by moving shadows.

These shadows don’t just move.

They grow, twist, and twine a monstrous creature, engulfing Zadie and reducing her to shrieks on her front lawn.

She would chalk it up to an overwrought mind–but being stressed doesn’t usually leave claw marks in your jacket.

This encounter with the shadow monsters leaves Zadie understandably ratt next day. Zadie’s friend Kate refuses to believe her when she tells Kate about what she saw last night. Josh really just wants to avoid any kind of discussion about last night, monsters or no. Kate’s theory is that Zadie invented the shadow monster story to distract from the kissing ordeal. Neither of Zadie’s friends believe anything she has to say.

Her distress leaves her vulnerable to erratic behavior. When she tries to push Kate out of the way from an impending monster, their classmates are more than happy to capture Zadie’s outburst for internet posterity.

After discovering just how many variants there can be on “Crazy Zadie” thanks to that video, Zadie spends some time with her brother Ricky. He was in a car accident a year ago that left him in a coma. She tells him how miserable things have been, not just today, but every day since his accident. As much as she hated him being the perfect one before the accident, she hates him more now.

Her mother bursts in just as Zadie is about to leave Ricky’s room and tells Zadie off. Of course Zadie isn’t supposed to be in there. There is no getting things right for her today. Everything is too much. Zadie dashes past her parents, out the door, and into the solitude of the woods.

Those woods aren’t empty.

An impossibly huge shadow swirls and forms from the darkness around Zadie and moves to entangle her in its embrace. She fights with everything she has, but it isn’t until an unexpected protector manifests that Zadie stands a chance of survival.

Who is this protector? If they are who Zadie believes them to be, things are about to get a whole lot weirder.