By Denise Mina & Leonardo Manco Green (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-382-3
If a bloke came up to you in a pub and started telling you he felt things too intensely, you’d be pretty suspicious – nervous too, I’ll bet – and for all the right reasons. If you’re John Constantine those reasons include nasty black magic and the imminent destruction of humanity – as usual.
This empathy is crushing, overpowering and contagious. When the spiritually calloused magician gets a sobering dose of debilitating fellow-feeling, he returns to Glasgow with the overly emotional victim on the trail of a decidedly new kind of menace, but one that could spell the end of humanity, unless Constantine is prepared to make a supreme and wholly uncharacteristic sacrifice.
Novelist Denise Mina’s take on Hellblazer is both captivating and surprisingly fresh, and all without iconoclastically breaking the toy she’s been lent. Juggling human horrors such as abuse and isolation with ancient Christian cults, cosmic horrors from the outer dark, angry ghosts, hungry goblins and evangelical do-gooders she has crafted a subversively gripping thriller with a memorable punch and delightful charm. As ever Leonardo Manco’s moody illustration impresses by its subtle understatement.
A wonderful debut (originally published in issues #216-222 of the monthly comic-book), but the impatient might want to ensure that they have the sequel readily to hand before they start this compelling thriller…
© 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.