14–26, and cover artist for issues #1–33. He returned to full art and writing for the American Flagg! Special one-shot in 1986. In 1987, a four-issue run was released, then the title was cancelled and relaunched as Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, which ran 12 issues. The first new project was a revamp of The Shadow in a four-issue miniseries for DC Comics in 1986. Rather than setting the series in its traditional 1930s milieu, Chaykin updated it to a contemporary setting and included his own style of extreme violence. In a 2012 interview, Chaykin stated "The reason I pulled him out of the period was because I thought it would be commercial suicide to do a period character at that point." The American Flagg! Special one-shot introduced Chaykin's Time², a two-volume graphic-novel series with a heavy dose of jazz, film noir and a fantasy version of New York City: Time²: The Epiphany () and Time²: The Satisfaction of Black Mariah ()). In 1987, Chaykin described plans for a third volume, saying, "It's probably going to be grossly different from the first two, because I'm taking things in another direction ... I want to do a story that is both very funny ... and at the same time very, very ugly. Really nasty and unpleasant. Because frankly, it's the place to do that sort of thing." Although Chaykin hoped it would be available in 1988, the third volume has yet to be finished or released. Chaykin has described Time² as the single work about which he is most proud. "To tell you the truth, my first interest would be to do another Time² because that was a very personal product for me," he said in 2008. "It's a fantasia of my family's story." Before returning to American Flagg!, Chaykin revamped another DC Comics character with Blackhawk, a three-issue miniseries about a team of heroic aviators, set in the 1930s. In 1987, DC proposed a system of labeling comics for violent or sexual content, Chaykin with Alan Moore and Frank Miller boycotted DC and refused to work for the company. In 1988, Chaykin created perhaps his most controversial title: Black Kiss, a 12-issue series published by Vortex Comics that contained his most explicit depictions of sex and violence, with a story of sex-obsessed vampires in Hollywood. Though Black Kiss shipped sealed in an "adults only" clear plastic bag, its content drew much