The Shade: I enjoy you Flash. I enjoy the crimes. I enjoy the color. I won’t delve into the details, but it’s distinctly possible I am no longer alive. I walk and talk and make exceptional quail mousee, but I’m not certain I live in the conventional sense.
But when I battle you, I enjoy your life and speed and humor. And for the briefest of moments I am truly living.
Jay Garrick: If you left Keystone now, we could remain friends.
The Shade: Unfortunately, I have no intention of leaving Keystone. Not until I’ve committed enough crimes to draw you from this silly self-imposed exile. You’re too good at what you do to stop.
Jay Garrick: If I do return, it will only be once in a while.
The Shade: If I can ruffle the feathers on your helmet enough to at least achieve that, I’ll be content.
Jay Garrick: Then the nexttime we meet, it will be as enemies.
The Shade: Yes. Isn’t it wonderful. However that’s still no reason we can’t part today as friends.
The Shade (Narration): And we did. And came the morrow we met in battle anew. But there was one moment…a lull in the fight, when our eyes met and we both smiled.
And then Jay punched me heard in the jaw. He was good at that.
Why did I fight those of super speed? I’m not sure that I even know that answer to that…
…I once mused that they represented the antithesis of my own languid self. I’m sure Jung would suggest that I, a thief, was trying to snatch the mantle from my own personal godhead Mercury, who was god of thieves and messengers.
Or it may simple have been because I thought Jay’s helmet charming.
