Jack Boniface is playing saxophone for a packed jazz bar deep in the heart of New Orleans one night. A successful musician and hopeless romantic, Jack dreams of a record deal, but until then is happy to realize that a beautiful woman named Lydia has been coming to the bar every night to watch him play. That night they leave the bar together. They go to her residence, where Jack consumes a drugged drink and falls unconscious, believing this is his last moment on Earth. In the morning he wakes to find Lydia gone, and a strange mark on his neck. Later that night, Jack stalks the streets, compelled by an urge to hunt Lydia down and take revenge. He finds a discarded carnival mask on the street and, inexplicably drawn to it, picks it up. Jack hears the cries of a woman being assaulted in a back alley. He confronts the attacker, and finds that he has superhuman strength and speed, with which he is able to frighten the attacker into fleeing. Jack’s housekeeper Nettie, a voodoo practitioner, senses the change in Jack. She explains that something evil in the night ripped open the doorway to his soul. Now, whenever shadows fall, his soul comes out, takes over, and goes hunting. She tells him, "In voodoo talk, ‘shadow’ means soul. You the Shadowman." Nettie feels the presence of a loa, or spirit, named Bosou Koblamin in Jack. Bosou has become Jack’s maît-tête, the loa who stands for him. Nettie tells him that although ignorant people think Bosou is evil, in truth Bousou embodies a rage against evil, and is not possessing Jack, but helping him. Nettie, feeling that Jack's newborn nighttime identity of Shadowman is part of his destiny, makes Jack an outfit for this new identity, which bears the image of his soul stepping out and three spikes of light piercing the darkness—just like Bosou’s three horns. Putting on the mask, Jack roams the streets and confronts violent criminals. Dead bodies start piling up in New Orleans but these dead bodies have been reanimated and are found running, ranting, and raving with blood pouring from their orifices before they collapse and die. The public dubs them "Bloodrunners". Jack looks into the deaths with his friend Marty, who double crosses him and takes Jack to a fearsome albino necromancer named Master Darque, the man behind the Bloodrunners. Darque turns the Bloodrunners on Jack, but Shadowman takes over and he escapes, though not before Darque is able to take some of Jack's hair. Darque uses it to resurrect one of the fallen men as a zombie and send him after Jack. As Jack's newfound supernatural abilities grow with each passing night, he begins to wonder where he ends and Shadowman begins. Although a confident fighter by night, during the day, he is filed with doubt. Master Darque is able to bring Jack under his control, but with the help of the loa, Jack overcomes Darque’s power. Although Darque still claims the lives and energy of hundreds of people, giving him enough power to last for years, he now has found a nemesis in Shadowman [source: Wikipedia] I used to love reading comics as a kid enjoying many of the Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and Richie Rich variety, but it wasn't til I was in college that I first became interested in superhero comics. At the time I was an avid baseball card collector, acquiring many 1950s Topps cards with stars such as Mantle and Mays. When I finally read a superhero comic, it was Wolverine...what a great story, I was hooked. I amassed a rather large collection at the time, delving into other titles like Harbinger and X-O Manowar until the comic industry began to saturate the market with too many variants and I eventually lost interest. Flash forward to 2015..... I ended up buying a Wolverine 1988 series issue #1 graded CGC 9.8. I hadn’t really thought about it much up to that point, but the collecting bug was rekindled. I dug out my collection that had been stored away and decided to start submitting my back issues. I looked online to fill gaps in my various collections and thousands of dollars later I’ve acquired quite a few comics and am trying to avoid collecting too many series at a time! My favorites at this point are the Wolverine 1988 series, Alias 2005 and Harbinger’s 1992 series. I have collected a few odds and ends in between and will eventually fill out my Rai 1992, Shadowman 1992, Psylocke Mini Series 2010 and the various X-23 and NYX series and will consider other series once I have the bulk of these filled up. I also like to collect covers I find appealing (see Incredible Hulk 340) and 1st appearances here and there. It’s all a labor of love!