Constantine: The Hellblazer Collection

Hellblazer Collection 

By various (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84023-979-4

When the movie was about to leap on us at any moment, DC were banging out huge amounts of Hellblazer material, which was of course only sensible. This collection continued the procedure created for the dire Catwoman movie by producing a bookshelf version of a recently released film adaptation padded out with a selection of reprints from the characters’ back catalogue.

I haven’t seen the movie yet, and after reading the frankly appalling adaptation reprinted here, I’m unlikely to. But in case you intend to, I’ll just say that Steven T. Seagle, Ron Randall and Jimmy Palmiotti have obviously done the very best they can, and if we’re all lucky they worked from an original script rather than a final cut of the movie. If they have, there’s an outside chance that the movie actually made some sense. By the bye, in case you haven’t heard, you shouldn’t have to suffer Keanu Reeves’ Scouse accent as Constantine’s a Yank here.

Filling out the book is “Hunger” from the first issue of the Hellblazer comic by Jamie Delano and John Ridgway, “Hold Me” from #27 by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean and “The Beginning of the End” by Garth Ennis and Will Simpson from #41. These are of course fine examples of the character at his best from some of the industry’s most talented creators, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that the stories are incomplete and if you wanted to find out how they ended, you’d have to get hold of the Original Sins and Dangerous Habits graphic collections which is, as you are also probably thinking, a bit of a cheek.

© 2005 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Hellblazer: All His Engines

Hellblazer: All His Engines

By Mike Carey & Leonardo Manco (Vertigo/DC Comics)
ISBN 1-84023-966-2

To coincide with the release of the Constantine movie, Vertigo pushed the boat out with an all-original hardcover featuring the current creative team and a wicked little tale of the ultimate chancer at his dodgy best.

It’s bad enough when the world is gripped by a mysterious sleeping plague. It gets worse when Contantine’s oldest – for which read longest surviving – friend Chas begs him to save his grand-daughter from said affliction. It becomes intolerable when a demon intent on housing Hell’s overspill population on earth tries to blackmail the scruffy sorcerer into doing his dirty work for him, but when a disenfranchised Death God sticks his oar in, the old Hellblazer has no choice but to get up, get out and get it sorted.

All of which, of course, he does with his usual grisly and spectacular panache. This is the character at his absolute best, in a tour de force from writer and artist at the very top of their game, making this one of those rare occasions when the ride is actually worth the price of admission. Take it from me, forget the movie and buy this instead. You’ll be so glad you did.

© 2005 DC Comics. All rights reserved.

Hellblazer: Black Flowers

Hellblazer: Black Flowers

By Mike Carey & various (Vertigo)
ISBN 1-84576-186-3

This Constantine collection (reprinting issues #181-186) sees Carey setting his own skewed stamp on the iconic street wizard with a collection of tales that gently move the series towards a spectacular climax to celebrate the comic’s then impending bi-centenary. Carey’s greatest strength is his meticulous forward planning and many seeds are planted here to compliment those already scattered in the previous volume Red Sepulchre.

First up is The Game of Cat and Mouse, illustrated by Jock, which sees Constantine running for so much more than his life from Spectral ‘messengers’ through the secret parts of London. Lee Bermejo provides chilling art for the eponymous Black Flowers as the wizard gathers allies and information whilst purging a sleepy hamlet of some unwelcome dead visitors who’ve broken out of the local insane asylum. Fan favourite Marcelo Frusin provides pictures for the final tale Third Worlds as Constantine and his companion go travelling, encountering some old acquaintances – most notably the Swamp Thing – whilst preparing themselves for the latest Armageddon Hammer to fall.

Hellblazer is consistently terrifying and hilarious by turn, and John Constantine is probably the best anti-hero ever written. Carey and friends are consistently creating a grim, chilling, engrossing and uproarious horror romp. The least you can do is consistently own these collections. A vote with your wallet just means they’ll keep on doing it, right?

© 2003 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Hellblazer: Red Sepulchre

Hellblazer: Red Sepulchre

By Mike Carey, Marcelo Frusin, Steve Dillon & Jimmy Palmiotti
ISBN 1-84576-068-9

The first post-movie Hellblazer collection should take the bad taste out of fans’ mouths as Mike (Lucifer) Carey takes over the writing and immediately re-establishes the essential post-punk Englishness and milieu of the character.

Arriving illegally back in Liverpool after his American adventures, the coolest sod in comics visits his sister to discover a necromantic blight affecting the block of flats she lives in. After tackling that particular evil (High on Life from Hellblazer # 175-176, illustrated by veteran Vertigoer Steve Dillon), he returns to London to track down his missing niece Gemma, who has become an unwitting pawn in a vicious bidding war for The Red Sepulchre, a mystical artefact of legendary and unquantifiable power (issues # 177-180).

This is a welcome return to vintage form for John Constantine. Rife with double-cross and manipulation, the magician inveigles and connives his way through all sorts of Hells, with his customary Game-Face grin and plot-within-plot strategy, seemingly taking hit after hit but always most assuredly in absolute control of the field.

Marcelo Frusin’s sparse storytelling and his fearfully disciplined drawing whips the reader from page to page like fat kids down a water-slide for a completely unvarnished thrill-ride, and Carey’s essential grasp of Constantine makes for some of the best urban horror since Garth Ennis’s run on the title. Long-time fans should also appreciate the wonderfully subtle foreshadowings hidden herein when later issues are collected. Here is quality stuff that starts strong and gets better, and new readers can safely jump on for a truly spooky time.

© 2005 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Hellblazer: Staring at the Wall

Hellblazer: Staring at the Wall 

By Mike Carey, Marcelo Frusin & Doug Alexander Gregory

(Vertigo)  ISBN 1-84576-233-9

This collection of the adventures of the world’s cockiest mystical bad-ass (from Hellblazer issues #187-193) sees an on-his-uppers John Constantine gathering what feeble allies he can muster as the un-nameable supernatural horror that has been waiting to devour humanity since the dawn of time (and for the previous two volumes) finally gets its snout in the door.

The chills begin with his niece Gemma having her own grisly adventure as the dupe of an old acquaintance of her uncle, who lures her to a seemingly deserted Scottish Island to complete a old mission and a new magical machine in Bred in the Bone, illustrated by Doug Alexander Gregory, before she eventually, and reluctantly joins Constantine in London for the main event, drawn with creepy and economical effectiveness by regular artist Marcelo Frusin.

Carey’s writing smoulders with a steady and overwhelming oppressiveness as his rag-tag band of desperate and self-serving mystics are forced to combine their talents in a desperate and inevitably futile attempt to thwart a truly unstoppable opponent who (which? what?) not only out-powers them, but has also achieved the inconceivable by out-foxing the arch-trickster Constantine.

How the wily con-man defeats a Thing that has won it all, and what the genuinely terrible cost is, provides a masterful horror tour-de-force that is compelling and eminently satisfying. Mike Carey’s tenure on this series is going to be one that will always rank as the highest of high points.

© 2003, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

Hellblazer: Haunted, & Setting Sun

Hellblazer: Haunted 

HELLBLAZER: HAUNTED
ISBN 1-84023-362-1-

Hellblazer: Setting Sun

HELLBLAZER: SETTING SUN
ISBN 1-84023-923-9

By Warren Ellis & various (Vertigo)

Warren Ellis is an iconoclastic writer and very much a “big draw” at the moment and his short run on this venerable, not to say inconsistent, horror standby was long overdue for collection. It can’t have hurt to see the tag “major motion picture” finally applied to the guy either – Constantine that is, not Ellis.

Of the film I shall say nothing, but these two slim volumes, reprinting issues #134 – 143, show the character at his best. By turns sardonic and pathetic, vicious and vulnerable, John Constantine is perhaps comics’ most human hero, and in Haunted he returns to London to find one of his few fond memories destroyed and desecrated by an upstart wizard who has a nasty line in Sex Magic. A brand new cast of “old friends” come and go in a bloody welter before the world is put to rights, Constantine-fashion. The art is by the splendid, and always impressive, John Higgins.

Setting Sun is a series of single issue stories that highlight different aspects of a very, very complex character. Locked, illustrated by Frank Terhan, gives new meaning to the phrase ‘locked room mystery’, as well as initiating a new relationship for Constantine and the police, whilst The Crib, drawn by Tim Bradstreet, looks at a different kind of magic.

Javier Pulido handles the art on Setting Sun, a grisly exorcism tale. James Romberger draws a bittersweet romantic recollection, Hellblazer –style in One Last Love Song, and Telling Tales concludes the fear-fest, as Marcelo Frusin depicts a tense night’s drinking for Constantine and a new, if temporary, friend. For fans, these must represent Hellblazer at its gruesome best, but as an introduction to new readers brought in by the magic of celluloid, they are an invaluable insight into how the character should be played.

Both volumes © 1999, 2004 DC Comics

Hellblazer: Highwater

Hellblazer: Highwater

By Brian Azzarello, Marcelo Frusin, Guiseppe Camuncoli and Cameron Stuart

(Vertigo)  ISBN 1-84023-861-5

Highwater completes an epic comic strip road-trip across America by the trickster magician and thorough-going bastard John Constantine, as scripted by Brian Azzarello and previously seen in issues #164-174 of the monthly comic. For the beginnings of this US adventure the interested reader should seek out the trade paperbacks Hard Time (ISBN 1-84023-255-2), Good Intentions (ISBN 1-84023-433-4) and Freezes Over (ISBN 1-84023-531-4).

Here, the Scouser from Hell settles some old and justifiable scores with American Nazis, religious zealots, morally bankrupt billionaires and the USA’s covert government agencies, and still finds time for smoking, drinking and high-octane – not to mention often disturbingly graphic – sexual debauchery. It also depicts some of the nastiest violence seen in the series to date, from the likes of long-time 100 Bullets associate Marcelo Frusin, as well as Guiseppe Carmuncoli and Cameron Stewart, so be warned.

Hellblazer has consistently surprised everyone with its adaptability and longevity, and John Constantine is well on the way to becoming an iconic comics character. This volume, however, might not best serve as a first introduction to the old sod.

© 2001, 2002 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

Hellblazer: Papa Midnite

Hellblazer: Papa Midnite 

By Mat Johnson, Tony Akins & Dan Green

(Vertigo) ISBN 1-84576-265-7

Papa Midnite was a character first seen in the premier issue of John Constantine’s own comic, but it was really the movie that sealed the deal on this solo outing for the Voodoo lord. Despite all that, however, this is vintage Hellblazer material, as a ghostly visitation leads to a trip down memory lane and we discover the deeply disturbing early life of the slave and his equally gifted sister, Luna.

As ownerless slaves they scrounge out an existence in 18th century Manhattan, surviving on wits, bravado and a smattering of magic learned from their mother. Always seeking the main chance, they become agents provocateur in a slave uprising, the repercussions of which still challenge Papa Midnite three centuries later. The resulting climax of three centuries worth of bad karma and blood debts provides a good, old fashioned supernatural revenge thriller pay-off.

Although no masterpiece, this is a solid addition to the Hellblazer canon, so followers of the franchise and horror fans in general should applaud another mystic anti-hero strutting his street-wise stuff in our grim and gritty modern world. He’d probably look better on screen, too.

© 2003, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.