Shadow Man (Michael LeRoi) is a fictional antihero who appears in comic books co-published by Valiant Comics and Acclaim Entertainment. The character debuted in Shadowman Volume 2 #1 (May 1997), and was created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Ashley Wood. He is the second character to hold the title of Shadowman after Jack Boniface and also stars in the Shadow Man video game franchise by Acclaim Entertainment.
Michael LeRoi, a 32-year old former English literature student-turned-gambler was tricked into servitude by an evil bokor after the massacre of his family. He is rescued by Mama Nettie, a powerful voodoo priestess, who knits the Mask of Shadows to his ribcage. This act gives him a vast array of Voodoo powers, transforming him into the "Lord of Deadside", Shadow Man.
Publication history
Acclaim Entertainment, which bought Valiant in 1996, started a new Shadowman series under the Acclaim Comics banner. Written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Ashley Wood, the second series set a much darker tone to the series and moved it away from sci-fi to a more Voodoo magic/mystical setting with horror elements.
Fictional character biography
Michael LeRoi was a former English literature student. He dropped out of his English Literature classes and started gambling, which exhausted his funds. Mike was then forced to work as a taxi driver in Chicago, keeping his failure from his family in New Orleans. During a night routine, Mike's passenger was kidnapped, leaving $20,000 in a briefcase. Mike took the money back to New Orleans to spend it with his family, using some of it to pay for his brother Luke's operation. Unfortunately, the gang that took his passenger tracked him down, threatening him and his family unless he pay them the money back. Desperate, Michael sought out a bokor to give him protection against the gang. The protection spell eases Mike's paranoia and he takes a job in Los Angeles. His family offers to drive him to the airport but are attacked en route by the gang, causing the car to swerve off of the I-10 bridge into Lake Pontchartrain, drowning his mother Ella-May, father John, and Luke. Due to the protection spell, Mike survives as it was never intended to protect his family. In the hospital, Mike is confronted by the bokor who insists on payment but Mike refuses, overcome with guilt from causing his family's death. In response, the bokor forcibly conscripts Mike to be his zombie slave under the pseudonym "Zero", erasing his memory and forcing him to act as a brutal hitman with nothing else to live for.
Five years later, Mike still operates as Zero, spending his downtime at a local bar called the Wild at Heart, owned by a man named Josey Small who is Mike's only friend. Following the murder of Jack Boniface at the hands of several demonically possessed corpses called the Deadmen, the powerful caplata Mama Nettie seeks out Mike and used her powers to implant the Mask of Shadows, a powerful voodoo artifact, in his chest. Mike used these powers to defeat the Deadmen, becoming Shadow Man. However, his distrust of Mama Nettie caused her to raise Jack Boniface from the dead to kill him. During this same time, he regained his memory with the help of a whore named Claudine, defeated the zombie Boniface, and discovered that the bokor who betrayed him was none other than Josey Small. Begrudgingly joining forces with Mama Nettie, Mike is able to successfully defeat Josey, who Nettie reanimates as a zombie to do their bidding. To Mike's dismay, Nettie takes possession of Claudine's body permanently and strikes a deal with him in order to pay back their debts to the Loa which he reluctantly agrees to.