Steve Ditko's Shade the Changing Man

Continuing the articles on the DC Explosion/Implosion. This is the one that I may find the hardest to write as my memory of it is more foggy on it then the others. I had to research this one a bit on the net. I had not even heard of this series till my cousin Steve told me about it. I didn't know where to get it but he did. One day he was comming out to see me and I asked him to get me a copy of it. He did and I loved the artwork. Ditko didn't hold back on the cover art. Just look at it. It is great. The photo of that issue above is from an ad on e-bay if you want to bid on it click on this http://cgi.ebay.com/Shade-the-Changing-Man-1-NM-9-4-Ditko-1977-No-Resv_W0QQitemZ6578758169QQcategoryZ12592QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Rac Shade was a policeman in a place called Meta in another dimension. The M Vest was a weapon that was considered too dangerous for anyone to use. Someone stole and came to our dimension. Here is where memory is foggy. I know that Shade followed the crook to our dimension and got the M-vest back but I forgot why he had to start using it. The powers of the M-vest were that it magnified your emotions. If you were getting mad enough to hit someone then the vest showed you growing into a huge angry man. The villan would be startled and even if you were weaker then him you wouild hit him and hopefully that would be the end of the fight.
Anyway I had a hard time getting into the story line. The only reason to read the series was to see Ditko's artwork. The series only lasted 8 issues. But that wasn't the end of Rac Shade. In his series he never teamed up with Superman or fought the Joker. He was not part of the regular DC continuity. Unlike Black Lightning who did team with Superman. However, they incorporated him into it after his cancelation. They started using him in other series like the Suicide Squad. Later he got his own series again done by Peter Milligan. I don't know anything about this series as I had even less interest in it then the first. Maybe if Ditko did it I would have read it. This series was more successful running about 70 to 80 issues and the first few were collected into a trade paperback. I am sure that Shade will show up again now that he has had a success under his belt. Hopefully it will be something I want to read.