History: (Shade, The Changing Man II #1) - Kathy was a bit of a wild child, having ran away with a biker gang as a teenager and gotten in trouble in high school for smoking dope. By the age of 20 she had her life together, going to college, and enjoying her romantic relationship with her friend Roger. Her relationship with her parents had gotten better over time, and she drove Roger to Louisiana to meet them. Her friends warned her that there was still racism in Louisiana and since she was white and he was black there could be trouble, but she ignored them. Kathy arrived at her parents house in time to witness serial killer Troy Grenzer finishing them off with a kitchen knife. Grenzer attacked her, and Roger leapt to her defense, beating on Grenzer. The local police responded, and assuming Roger had instigated the fight they shot him dead. Kathy's mind snapped, and she was in a mental institution until her money ran out. Grenzer was awaiting his execution, and Kathy decided to return to Louisiana to be present for it. For the past three years she had nightmares about Grenzer, and was having trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. Rac Shade of the Meta dimension was tasked with going to Earth to catch the American Scream, who'd escaped from the Area of Madness. His soul needed a body to inhabit, but would kill the former occupant, so he chose Grenzer, who was moments away from being electrocuted by the state. Shade's entry into our reality caused a burst of madness, and the prison was enveloped with a glow and bizarre illusory thing. Shade, having escaped the prison, begged Kathy to drive him away, and promised he was a visitor from another realm, and not Grenzer at all, although he felt the remains of his subconscious. Kathy's experience with hallucinations meant the madness that accompanied Shade didn't bother her much, but she still believed him to be Troy Grenzer, and planned on killing him. They drove out of Louisiana and staid at a small hotel, and after Kathy worked up some drunk courage she came at Shade with a knife. Shade still wasn't in control of the M-Vest, and summoned illusory versions of Kathy's parents and Grenzer, who went after her. Kathy fought back and stabbed the false Grenzer to death, which she found therapeutic. The hotel proprietors recognized "Troy" and called the police, but Shade manifested an anthropomorphic electric chair, and they fainted. Kathy had nothing better to do, and finally trusted Shade to an extent, so she staid on the run with him.

(Shade, The Changing Man II #2, 3) - Shade saw madness in the skies, and told Kathy to follow it. He hoped that when he reacclimated to using the M-Vest his memories would cease to be fuzzy, but until then he knew he had to pursue the American Scream. They drove to Dallas, and were stopped at a roadblock. Shade changed his face so he wouldn't be recognized, but he chose the visage of JFK. This confused the highway patrol, and Kathy drove through their barricade. Shade sensed the American Dream was manipulating someone obsessed with the JFK assassination, but he didn't know what that was, so Kathy explained the national tragedy to him. They reached Dealy Plaza, where a giant stone Kennedy Sphinx demanded to know who killed him, and ate those who failed to answer his riddle. Shade used his powers to save a woman and her child from the sphinx, and followed the madness to the book depository where Lee Harvey Oswald had his sniper nest, admitting he was just winging it. Duane Trilby, who was obsessed with writing the definitive book on the JFK assassination had been possessed by the American Scream. Shade and Kathy blacked out, and awoke as Kennedy and Jackie in the motorcade right before the assassination. Duane arrived, and forced Shade / JFK's head down, saving him. He told the Kennedy's he'd made it his life mission to solve his murder, which was really a distraction from him not understanding why his daughter Mary-Ann had to die of a heart defect. JFK told him they were going to the White House together, and make the most of his presidency. Shade finally came to his senses, and all three returned to the present day and themselves. Kathy was freaked out, and Shade was sorry to tell her she was part of the madness now too. The Kennedy sphinx swallowed Kathy when she couldn't answer his riddle, and Shade needed to pull Duane out of his madness and away from the American Scream. He appeared to him as Mary-Ann and showed him shadows of the past, of which there were mutiple branching possibilities. A government or mob hit was the most likely culprit, but there were many others who could or did kill Kennedy, but Shade needed him to realize one hand was behind all the outcomes. The American people were all guilty he said, because they had to kill their god-king to keep his legend pure. Shade ended the visions, to find that Kathy had escaped the sphinx by herself. Duane came unhinged when Shade refused to turn back into Mary-Ann, and shot him dead. He answered the Sphinx's riddle, dispelling the Scream's presence. Shade expected this outcome, and had switched mind and body with Duane, so with the Scream gone they resumed their own identities, and Duane was dead by his own hand and Shade alive. Federal agent Stringer had been pursuing Kathy and Shade since Shade's entry to our plane, and finally tracked the duo down.

(Shade, The Changing Man II #4) - Shade was drawn back to the Area of Madness, leaving behind a two-dimensional outline of his body. Stringer took Kathy into custody, and listened to her story about Shade. He chose to leave Kathy and the outline alone in the interrogation room and observe them. In the Area the American Scream said he'd destroy Shade's soul and mind until he was just a mouth, pelting him with a torrential storm and leaving him mired in mud while he fully remembered his past. The Scream showed him his decaying body, telling him that the Changemasters that sent Shade after him had betrayed him, and he'd be locked in the body of Tony Grenzer. Kathy entered the Area through Shade's outline, and he feeling of love snapped Shade out of his despair, enabling him to return to Earth. Kathy and Shade found themselves in Arizona, and took a hotel room. Kathy said she wanted to know everything about Shade because she foresaw them getting together, even though she admitted the prospect was insane. Shade managed to transform Troy's body to resemble his own, and created a proper Metan outfit to wear.

(Shade, The Changing Man II #5, 6) - Shade and Kathy ran out of money, and Shade asked her what to do next. She said they could get a job or they could starve. They made their way to Hollywood, where American Scream was distorting reality to create films about the stars and producers of Hollywood Monsters, revealing their deepest, darkest secrets. The Scream killed the director of the film, and turned him into one of the monsters in the movie. He pursued two moviegoers to their daughter's house, and Shade arrived in time to prevent anymore killing, aside from ending the director's half-life. Shade and Kathy returned to their lodgings only to find that the American Scream had turned the interior into an elaborate movie set. Kathy told Shade she'd go mad if she didn't get a drink in her. In the midst of the Busby Berkely set the Scream summoned a number of ordinary citizens, who fell into the set's waters and were devoured by the shark from Jaws. Shade and Kathy were sucked into the exploitation film Biker Trash before being forced to reenact scenes from the action flick Lethal Acting. Kathy was strapped into a chair in an empty theatre and forced to watch her parents being murdered until Shade saved her. She told Shade that when she was in the Kennedy sphinx she'd met Duane's daughter, and knew she was a spirit and not part of the madness because she'd given Kathy her stuffed toy which still existed once she was out of the sphinx. She told Shade she suspected the M-Vest could contact the spirit world, and her experience was proof that there was life after death. Shade knew she wanted to see her parents again, but tried to dissuade her from the idea. Their conversation was cut short by a tidal wave, and at Kathy's suggestion Shade used the M-Vest to rewrite Scream's script, even as he submerged all of Hollywood into multi-layered movies. Their plan worked, beating back the madness, and Shade located the video camera the Scream had possessed to terrorize Tinsel Town. He smashed it to bits, and reality returned to normal.

(Shade, The Changing Man II #7) - Shade used the M-Vest to create money, and played a card hustler until he gained some physical money. Kathy used the money to get drunk, but Shade said he couldn't risk losing his senses, and was worried about her drinking. Kathy told him not to lecture her, and assured him she didn't have a problem. In their sleep the madness stream brought them to NYC. The Scream latched onto a prisoner named Greely who volunteered burying the nameless on Hart Island. He saw himself as ending up as one of the nameless, and the Scream made his plea for the humans treated like refuse into a garbage storm that consumed Manhattan. The garbage turned everyone it touched into homeless and forgotten vagrants and junkies, using the potential within them to fall, and showing them what might have been. Kathy was transformed into an alcoholic living in the slums of Alphabet City. The Scream created a garbage golem, and Shade entered it to reach Greely's cell. From there he went to Hart Island, and the grave of the nameless man Greely had buried. He saw his whole history, from a hopeful young man looking to make a name for himself in the city to his slide into alcoholism. His name was Gregory Stephenson, and once Shade gave Greely that knowledge the Scream lost his power over him, and NYC was restored to relative normalcy. Kathy was still in the slums, and Shade went searching for her, but the madness stream swept him away from the city to pursue Scream.

(Shade, The Changing Man II #8, 9) - Kathy suffered from severe withdrawal, and went looking for her old friends in the city for help, but every one of them had moved away. Her last shot was Ray Sterling, a student from her art school days that had the hots for her. He was gone too, but the eccentric artist Lenny had taken his apartment, and invited Kathy in for drinks. After polishing off a bottle they went to the liquor store and came upon the Pan-Weirdness Church of America, who saw the madness spreading across the country as divine. Shade pulled himself away from San Francisco, briefly manifesting to Kathy and Lenny, but then disappearing. Lenny robbed a taxi driver at gunpoint, telling Kathy she needed something to do with her free time. The American Scream had given powers to aging hippy Arnold Major, and he convinced Shade that America needed to spiritually die and be reborn as a nation of love. Shade's subconscious was transformed into a giant fetus, and appeared in Lenny's apartment. The fetus told Kathy he loved her, even if his conscious mind didn't realize it, and asked her to help him pull away from Arnold Major be calling to him. Shade saw cracks in Major's work, and when he upset Major he was attacked by werewolf boy scouts. Major tried to merge himself to Shade and Scream, and succeeded to a degree. Shade entered the All the Girls Really Like Me Commune, where the members were dissatisfied with Major. Major said he was a jealous god, and blinded the complainers. Pink Heaven began to unravel, but Major refused to admit that the Scream was manipulating him for his own ends. The Pan-Weirdness Church broke into Lenny's apartment and proclaimed Shade the fetus as the Anti-Weird and prepared to burn him alive. Lenny and Kathy fought off the cultists while Shade, seeing Major on a crucifix, finally made him see that his vision of love was really one of ego, causing his worlds to crumble. Shade emerged from his fetus self, and Kathy demanded the cultists leave. Kathy decided to spend the night with Shade, but as passion dulled his reason yhe manifested the dying Major, turning off Kathy. Lenny reported that the government had performed a surgical strike on the center of San Francisco, destroying Major and his communes.

(Shade, the Changing Man II #42) -

(Hellblazer I #269) - Kathy, Shade and Lenny met the magician John Constantine. Kathy and John shared a single kiss, and John would not forget her, but the kiss planted seeds of jealousy in Shade.

(Hellblazer I #259) - Kathy's soul was consigned to Hell, and in a dirty nightclub bathroom Troy told her about killing her parents over and over again. John Constantine was in Hell trying to free the soul of his ex Phoebe, and Kathy said John couldn't help her just yet.

Comments: Created by Peter Milligan & Chris Bachalo

Kathy George received a profile in Who's Who in the DC Universe #15.

Kathy George had a cameo in Hellblazer I #271.

All characters mentioned or pictured are ™  and © DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please visit The Official DC Comics Site at: http://www.batman.com