Shade received a solo series in late 2011,[6] written by Robinson and drawn by Cully Hamner, Darwyn Cooke, Javier Pulido, and others.

It deals with Shade and his descendants, flashing back to various points in his life as he travels the globe trying to find who is behind a plot to kill him.

The 'Shade' draws his alias from Dante Alighieri's epic poem The Divine Comedy, specifically its first book, Inferno, which describes the Nine Rings of Hell.

The Shade was retconned to be a 19th-century English man named Richard Swift who gains his powers from an unexplained mystical tragedy and sustains amnesia.

During his journeys, he meets a similar immortal born of the same incident and bearing his same powers, a dwarf by the name of Simon Culp, who becomes his mortal enemy.

Shade investigates the Spider's background and discovers he is both a criminal (using his role to get rid of the competition) and a Ludlow by birth.

Fate destroy the Wise Fools operation and throw the bubble into an empty dimension (where it continues to grow in power and size).

They often deal with different Starmen, including Jack's father Ted, as well as other characters from the Starman mythos, such as Brian Savage.

[16] Shade has an active part in an adventure of Jack's involving a demon hidden within a poster that can snatch innocent people and drag them into Hell.

Shade does not like Merritt, the human guardian of the poster, who has gained immortality for his protection of it, and was the inspiration for Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Shade assists him in his efforts, while influenced by the revelation that O'Dare is the reincarnated lawman Scalphunter, who happens to be an old friend.

Shade talks Ludlow out of pursuing his family's vendetta, burying a legacy of hate that has lasted more than 150 years.

At one point, Culp takes full control to talk to Jack, in the process making a mistake about the name of a Wilde story.

Around the time Jack returns from space in the "Stars, My Destination" story arc, Culp is able to assume full control over Shade's body for an extended period of time and imprison or neutralize most of Opal City's heroes in a bid to loot and destroy Opal - with seemingly no motive other than to destroy what Shade loves most.

Many of the supervillains helping Culp have been gathered by either Neron, the still-vengeful daughter of the Mist, or one of the last Ludlows in existence: the son of the false hero the Spider.

This is a turning point for Shade, as he now has freedom of choice, and is able to decide whether he wishes to remain a villain or become a true hero.

He is present at the final showdown with the Mist and leaves the building with Ralph Dibny, Jack and Theo Kyle Knight.

He informs Garrick that the insane supervillain Prometheus has ordered a series of attacks on various superheroes (including Batwoman, Barry Allen, Crimson Avenger, and Stargirl) to distract them from a sinister master plan.

[22] He and Jay arrive at the Watchtower just as Prometheus (who had disguised himself as Freddy Freeman and defeated the entire League) attempts to escape.

Though Jay is easily floored, the Shade proves difficult to defeat, and ultimately ends up stopping Donna Troy from killing the supervillain after he has been beaten into submission.

[25] Shortly after the events of "Blackest Night", the Shade is approached by Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, and he takes them to the Ghost Zone where they find the rotting corpse of Prometheus.

After entering the house, the JSA members find Obsidian and Doctor Fate standing over the Shade's comatose body.

[29] Realizing that Shade could turn the tide of the battle, Saint Walker sends the Atom and Starman inside his body to fight off the effects of Eclipso's brainwashing.

[30] The heroes narrowly manage to free the Shade's mind, and he turns against Eclipso and ultimately helps the Justice League defeat the villain once and for all.

Starman Annual #1 shows a possible future for Shade as the protector of a Utopian planet thousands of years from the present.

He can use it for many effects, both as an absence of light and a solid substance: he can summon and control "demons", project as shields and conjure areas of complete darkness, create all kinds of constructs out of shadows, transport himself and others through it over great distances, and can use it as a prison dimension.

Fate once remarked that even the Spectre would have serious difficulty dealing with the Shade, possibly due to the origin of his powers (the former realm of a divine entity on par with God).

Even with his heart torn out of his chest by Black Lantern David Knight, he remained alive and unable to die.