Issue(s): Shroud #1, Shroud #2, Shroud #3, Shroud #4
Cover Date: Mar-Jun 94
Title: "The Deadly Past" / "Death sting!" / "Godess of death" / "Two million ways to die!"
Credits:
Mike Barr - Writer
M.C. Wyman - Penciler
Malcolm Jones III - Inker
Mark Powers - Editor

Review/plot:
The Shroud is a hero who never quite made it. After interloping his way though a good portion of Super-Villain Team-Up, he was supposed to get his own series, but it didn't happen (a couple chapters eventually surfaced in inventory books). Getting snubbed from the spotlight actually created an interesting set-up for him. He had all the trappings of a main character: a supporting cast in "Cat" and "Mouse", and an unusual scenario where he was a hero posing as a crimelord. So, as a guest star, he had a fair amount of depth (although i'll qualify that), and the "posing as a villain" scenario got taken further when he upgraded his ordinary crime organization for the more super continuity-oriented Night Shift. It's a complex history for a guy that has never been more than a guest star. On the other hand, the character - basically a Batman ripoff and "the other guy with Darkforce powers" - has never had much of a personality. So i don't know that any of his guest appearances ever caused a clamor for a solo series. But in 1994 we were on the tail end of Marvel's "everything and the kitchen sink" approach to publishing, so he finally got his chance. Of course, that was also his downfall, because regardless of the merits of these issues, now was not a good time to be launching a new book. So Shroud will go back into obscurity after this, and eventually (i am thinking of Mark Waid's Daredevil run) will wind up in a scenario that is almost meta-level commentary on the character as a hero who never made it.

Shroud's series was promoted with an appearance in Spectacular Spider-Man #207-208, which was also a (semi/aborted) Siege of Darkness tie-in. At that point he was already said to be on an "important" mission. But the first issue of this series refers to those issues as having occurred in the past.

This series opens with Shroud breaking up a gang war on a pier in New York. Shroud is back with Cat and Mouse, characters that we've never seen that much of.

The mission seems pretty small time, the sort of thing that street level New York super-heroes handle all the time, which makes you wonder (as Cat and Mouse do) why the normally LA-based Shroud has gotten involved. All we know is that the Shroud is acting on a mysterious tip, written on a papyrus scroll stamped with the Mark of Kali..

He grabs one of the gang bosses, King, and takes him to King's home, where the Shroud forces King into cooperation. What they don't know is that they are spied on by King's recently-married wife, Amara. Shroud then returns to his base with Cat and Mouse, and flashes back to Batman's his origin.

Shroud never had a giant bat fly through his window to inspire him, so he had to borrow the rest of his origin from Dr. Strange.

Then there's the part about getting blinded while being branded in the face with the Mark of Kali, of course. That's pretty unique (although John Byrne's expanded origin for Dr. Doom comes close).

The next day, a police officer, Inspector... Korngold (!), starts sniffing around the office of a Mr. Lassitter about the gang war. Lassitter subsequently calls in the Scorpion to go after King, who has money that Lassitter wants. Spider-Man, who was covering the gang war as Peter Parker, winds up bumping into Scorpion while following King.

Shroud also shows up.

Despite the disadvantage of Shroud's darkness (which Spider-Man can at least compensate for with his Spider-Sense), the Scorpion manages to gain the upper hand in the fight, burying Shroud and Spider-Man in rubble and leaving us with a cliffhanger that is almost admirable in how mundane it is by 1994 standards.

The escape from the cliffhanger, on the other hand, is batshit insane.

The coloring error on Shroud's ungloved hand is icing on the cake. Just in case you weren't confused enough about what was supposed to be happening.

Poor Scorpion didn't take the opportunity to escape, either.

Spider-Man tries to apprehend the Shroud along with the Scorpion. But Shroud escapes, taking Scorpion with him and noticing and destroying Spidey's Spider-Tracer, too.

Shroud uses virtual reality gear to get the Scorpion to tell him who hired him.

Shroud learns from King that Lassitter had a book with the Mark of Kali on it. Shroud visits Lassitter's office and bugs the place. Lassitter is later contacted by Kali cultists, and Shroud goes to their castle to investigate. He finds a man named Balinor.

Balinor was Shroud's mentor when he was being trained at the Kali cult. Balinor tells Shroud that the current Kali leader, High Lama Yannroth, is corrupt and is mixed up with the Lassitter's criminal organization. Yannroth provides assassins to Lassitter.

When Shroud returns to King's house, he's attacked by gunmen. It turns out that King's wife is CIA. She's investigating King's criminal activities, and as far as she knows, Shroud is a criminal. After Shroud defeats the gunmen, Amara and Shroud agree to cooperate.

Scorpion later escapes Shroud's custody, beating Shroud in a fight on the way out. Shroud claims that he lost the Scorpion, but didn't lose to him, but this looks like a loss to me:

And that's fine. Shroud should lose to the Scorpion, in my opinion.

Scorpion subsequently returns to Lassitter and tells him that Shroud and King are working together. While Scorpion is still there, Lassitter is visited by Yannroth and an operative whose name is Kali, same as the name of the cult.

Lassitter then sets up a meeting with King, luring Shroud into a trap.

Fighting Kali, Shroud realizes that he knows her by the name Dalindra.

Shroud escapes, losing his cloak in the process. So when he returns home (where Mouse has just finished dyeing her hair, apparently), he has to rely on conveniently placed shadows to hide his face.

This always happens when Shroud loses his mask, and he does have darkness powers, but it always looks weird.

Cat and Mouse reverse-engineer Spider's Spider-Tracer to call in some help for Shroud ("we can't exactly call Avengers Mansion"; i guess with Hawkeye having disappeared and the West Coast team disbanded, that's not wrong).

Meanwhile, Shroud confronts Balinor, because Dalindra is his daughter and Shroud was told that she was dead. Balinor now admits that she was corrupted by Yannroth, and also that Shroud was kicked out of the Cult of Kali because his enhanced senses would have allowed him to see the corruption that was already going on in the cult.

Shroud heads back to King's house. Lassitter is interrogating King as to the location of the money. King doesn't actually know where the money is (Shroud hid it). Shroud contacts Amara, telling her to get King to give Lassitter a location which Shroud will use as a trap. This results in a convergence of characters at the Kali temple.

After all the build-up, it's not much of an end fight. And Shroud tells Spider-Man that he's not really a villain, convincing Spidey not to listen to the papers.

Amara similarly lets Shroud go.

As for Dalindra, Shroud lets her go, too, and he promises Balinor that he'll later seek her out and help her overcome her corruption. Seems like the set-up for something to be used in an ongoing series, but we'll never see any more of Dalindra, because you didn't write.

By the standards of 1994, this wasn't terrible. It fails in a lot of ways: it still fails to develop Shroud as a character and Cat and Mouse are still ciphers. It relies too much on Spider-Man. I'd say that extends to using Scorpion as a villain, but if the alternative is delving more into Shroud's Kali background, i'll take the Spidey villain (Dalindra, despite being an Elektra clone, might have worked as an ongoing semi-villain). The plot is also just too involved when it comes to the non-powered antagonists: two crime gangs, a third criminal overlord, the CIA, and a cult, all involved in byzantine details which matter very little to the basic plot. The story barely uses the fact that Shroud himself pretends to operate as a villain, and with Cat and Mouse being so bland you will find yourself missing Night Shift. But despite those faults, the fact is that the story is done with classic 80s storytelling, so it's a kind of relief from mid-1990s splash panels and Image-ified art. But it's still too mediocre to stand out.

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: See above regarding Shroud seemingly already being on an "important" mission in Spectacular Spider-Man #207-208. The main clue about Spider-Man's placement is while he's looking at a picture of his parents. It implies without actually saying that it takes place after Spider-Man has learned the truth about his "parents", after Amazing Spider-Man #386-388 and probably the subsequent "Pursuit" Spidey crossover.

References:

• Shroud's origin was first detailed in Super-Villain Team-Up #7.
  
• Spider-Man was hoping that Shroud went back to LA after Spectacular Spider-Man #207-208.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A