By Simon Oliver & Goran Sudzuka (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-84856-140-3
It’s tough being a sidekick – especially when your guv’ner is the sardonic, ultra-cool laughing magician and arch-trickster John Constantine, and you’re just an over-the-hill granddad who drives a black cab in a London you recognise less and less every day. Your glory days are long gone – if there ever were any – and all you can look forward too is the big match, a few jars and not too much ear-ache from the dragon you married.
Chas Chandler (not the pop star) is probably Constantine’s oldest mate, at least this side of the grave, and his stolid, sensible “hit it don’t hex it†attitude has saved the street sorcerer from disaster on more than one occasion. His brushes with the unknown are mercifully limited but always terrifying (see for example “In Another Part of Hell†in Hellblazer: Rare Cuts) and he’s more than happy to keep it that way.
For such a man loyalty is sacrosanct and family worth dying – or killing – for.
Whilst his prospective son-in-law and a friend are researching “The Knowledge†one of them is involved in an accident that releases a spiteful demonic presence last seen during the Great Plague. This hateful spirit has nasty plans for London and quickly starts to enact them.
With Constantine pathetically unavailable Chas is forced to take action himself, aided by a few plucky cabbies and an extraordinarily tempting American lady he found in the back of his cab. Luckily this bloke at the pub, last guardian of the Secret History of Licensed Hackney Carriage Drivers, is on hand to explain the true meaning of The Knowledge: the mystic origin of the 320 routes all cabbies must learn before they qualify, and how the twenty-five thousand street names, esoteric stops and countless places of interest visited by tourists have kept our great metropolis safe and secure for four centuries…
More dramatic than terrifying, this is a cracking magical mystery (originally released as a 5 issue miniseries) with pitifully human heroes giving their all for just the right reasons; a delightful treat for jaded readers who might be in need of light refreshment before plunging back into the bleak and sordid cauldron of extreme, urban horror, but a terrific tale with which to break in prospective new fans.
© 2008, 2009 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.