Six-Pack and Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin' Heroz

Six-Pack and Dogwelder: Hard-Travelin' Heroz (2016-2017/ Collected 2017): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Russ Braun with Steve Dillon and John Kalisz: From the pages of Garth Ennis and John McCrea's late and much-lamented HITMAN come... Six-Pack and Dogwelder and the other heroes of Section 8! Well, and from the pages of the earlier SECTION 8 miniseries!

Garth Ennis' hatred for superheroes other than Superman is at its most evident when he chronicles Six-Pack and Section 8, heroes with powers that range from the disgusting to the non-existent. But Six-Pack idolizes Superman and wants to do the right thing. That he may be dreaming all of this while he dies drunk and homeless and freezing in an alley is also a possibility. Or not. For once, in the pages of Hitman, Six-Pack saved the universe from an invasion of demons with his idealistic heroism. No joke!

The title riffs on the unlikely, socially relevant Green Lantern/Green Arrow comics of the early 1970's. The first issue gets Ennis' critique of socially relevant comics out of the way before plunging into the greatest mystery of the DC Universe: who is Dogwelder and why is he compelled to weld dogs to people?

Garth Ennis and sharp, pungent artist Russ Braun take the piss on superheroes past and present, from Starfire to the Flash, from the Justice League to Hellblazer. Ennis wrote a memorable run of John Constantine Hellblazer in the 1990's. Here, he brings John back to piss on DC's attempt to make Constantine more mainstream and conventionally superheroic. It's funny stuff, though really only if you're in on the joke.

DC's supernatural, God's vengeance hero The Spectre makes a memorable appearance to jumpstart the quest to discover the true nature of Dogwelder. John Constantine shows up on a very Silver-Surferesque flying board to help out and complain about what the corporate powers of DC have done to him, now that they've put him in a space helmet and given him a raygun dubbed Hellblazer.

Dogwelder will of course turn out to be from a long line of Dogwelders. Heck, this Dogwelder is the second one we've seen, the first having been blowed up during that hitherto mentioned battle with universe-ending demons. Dogwelder is dead. Long live Dogwelder! 

This is a lot of fun, though you may need some foreknowledge of DC Comics and superheroes in general to truly appreciate all the jokes. As a bittersweet bonus, the reprinted covers for the series are some of the late, great Steve (illustrator of Ennis' Hellblazer, Preacher, and Punisher work, among many other memorable moments) Dillon's work. Recommended.

Magicpuncher: His punches have the power of magic!

Mmmm... Cloak of Levitation

Doctor Strange: The Last Days of Magic (2016): written by Jason Aaron, James Robinson, and Gerry Duggan; illustrated by Chris Bachalo, Mike Perkins, Leonard Romero, Danilo Beyruth, Kevin Nowlan, and many others: The five-issue build-up to The Last Days of Magic was pretty good. The Last Days of Magic itself, not so much. Chris Bachalo's artwork throughout the story is nice, magicky stuff, conjuring up images of Bachalo's work on Neil Gaiman's Death miniseries in the Sandman universe. 

And I understand what Marvel and Jason Aaron are attempting in the writing of Doctor Strange. Strange has often been a great series going back to his creation by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee in the early 1960's and continuing through such great writer/artist teams as Steve Engelhart/ Frank Brunner to Roger Stern/Marshall Rogers in the early 1980's and on to Brian K. Vaughn and Marcos Martin's terrific The Oath miniseries from a few years back.

But Doctor Strange has never been a popular character, which is why he keeps getting cancelled. Aaron writes Doctor Strange as much more fallible and self-doubting than previous efforts, making him almost into a Spider-man, with magic. It doesn't work for me because it doesn't link up with previous versions of Strange. Maybe it will be popular. But between that and the gigantic ret-cons Aaron works into the narrative, I found myself reading a Doctor Strange story that didn't seem to have Doctor Strange in it. 

And at the point that Doctor Strange first thinks and then exclaims at the villain, "I'm literally punching you with magic!"... well, that was really enough to cure me of any desire to see what Aaron and Bachalo have up their sleeves for future issues of Strange. But if you always hated Doctor Strange as written by virtually everyone who has ever written Doctor Strange, maybe you'll like this revised version. For me, not recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Damnation's Flame (1993-94/reprinted 1999): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon, Peter Snejberg, Will Simpson, Glenn Fabry, and John Totleben: DC's scabrous, Liverpudlian Sorcerer Supreme John Constantine takes a nightmarish voyage through the shadow realms of the American Hell in this volume, which would now be collected in the Rake at the Gates of Hell collection (if you're looking to buy this story in a new printing). 

Garth Ennis is suitably pissy and cynical, especially once the horrifying ghosts of Abe Lincoln and JFK come into play. Ennis' long-time artistic collaborator Steve Dillon is in fine form, rendering all the horrors in his nuanced, straightforward, mostly realistic drawing style -- the clean-ness of Dillon's rendering was always a plus on Hellblazer and with Ennis also on Preacher. The horrors of Ennis' writing always needed to be undersold visually. Three nice standalone Constantine tales supplement the Damnation's Flame arc. In all, if one finds a used or remaindered copy anywhere, Damnation's Flame could almost work as an introduction to the Constantine experience. Highly recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: The Red Right Hand (2006-2007; collected 2007): written by Denise Mina; illustrated by Leonard Manco and Cristiano Cuchina: Novelist Denise Mina wrote 13 issues of John Constantine Hellblazer in 2006-2007. She wasn't generally well-received by Constantine fans, though I like her work. It was, however, somewhat misleading to collect her issues in two volumes (the previous volume was Empathy is the Enemy): the two volumes actually form one 12-issue, novelistic story, with one standalone fill-in issue in the middle of things. 

I like the 12-issue arc overall, but it's a John Constantine story that seems awfully padded. The concluding issues in this volume go in circles for about 60 pages before finally stumbling to an end. That the fate of the world hinges in a hilarious way on the outcome of a World Cup match involving England is probably the best moment in Mina's run. Lightly recommended.

Enigma (1993): written by Peter Milligan; illustrated by Duncan Fegredo: This wild, woolly, postmodern superhero tale from the first year of the DC Vertigo comics line's existence is a gem, albeit a somewhat padded one -- it's a tight six-issue story running at a somewhat attenuated eight issues. Duncan Fegredo's art is scratchy and scary and often intentionally confusing -- when the superhero fights comes, they're confusing and bloody, which is sort of the point. 

Peter Milligan writes an involving tale of childhood superhero fantasies and grown-up repression. And the final revelation of the narrator's identity is all sorts of funny. Enigma also seems prescient in that it deals frankly and non-stereotypically with homosexuality. In 1993! Kudos to line editor Karen Berger and DC for releasing such a book at the time. Recommended.

Four Views of Mount Constantine

In the beginning... John Constantine by Moore, Veitch and Totleben c. 1984.

Oh, occult investigator/magician/former punk-rock musician John Constantine. Invented by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Stephen Bissette and John Totleben in the pages of Swamp Thing in the mid-1980's, he's become an eminence grise at DC Comics. His first series ran an impressive 300 issues at what became DC's adult-horror imprint Vertigo, though Constantine started before Vertigo existed. That 300-issue run had an impressive array of writers come and go over the years, along with an army of artists. 

That DC cancelled Constantine's Vertigo title to bring him back into the mainstream DC Universe continues to gall me: the two non-Vertigo Constantine series have been at best pale reflections of Constantine at his best. He looks like Sting. He probably sounds a lot like John Lennon, as they both hail from Liverpool. He fights Heaven, Hell, and assorted supernatural and human forces in between!

John Constantine Hellblazer: Son of Man (1998-99/Collected 2004): written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by John Higgins: Early 1990's Constantine scribe Garth Ennis returns for an arc with gritty artist/colourist John Higgins. Higgins' characters are stocky and brutal, befitting the story. As with many Constantine stories, it begins at the Ravenscar psychiatric facility in which Constantine spent a couple of years recuperating after the disastrous magical events in Newcastle in the early 1980's. A South London crime boss springs the young, unstable Constantine because he needs a magician to bring his five-year-old son back to life. 16 years later, an older Constantine gets pulled back into the crime boss' story again. There are repercussions to raising the dead.

Ennis, the most grotesque and splattery of all Constantine writers, brings the grue here. Higgins is an able collaborator, though he's not the world's best drawer of babies. The regrets of a misspent youth jostle for prominence with the regrets of a misspent present. The climax is comically anti-climactic, as Ennis always enjoyed taking the piss out of all of his protagonists and antagonists. But boy, the one demon we see here is surprisingly talky, given what sort of demon it turns out to be. Recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Good Intentions (2000-2001/ Collected 2002): written by Brian Azzarello; illustrated by Marcelo Frusin: One of a very few Americans to write Constantine's book, Brian Azzarello takes the Hellblazing magician on a tour of rural America. Marcelo Frusin's art is maybe a shade too cartoony at points for the events it depicts. It also gets cheese-cakey at an unfortunate point involving Constantine's rescue of a woman who was being kidnapped so as to be raped and killed: maybe not the time for the hot underwear shots. Overall, the story is both weird and occasionally revolting. Constantine screws up, of course, but under the circumstances, almost anyone would. Infamous at the time for strongly implying a sex act between a drugged and drunken Constantine and a dog. I kid you not. Lightly recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Stations of the Cross (2004/Collected 2006): written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Leonard Manco, Marcelo Frusin, Chris Brunner, and Steve Dillon: Mike Carey's lengthy run as Constantine writer concludes here with an amnesiac Constantine beset by foes human and demoniac. Even without his memory, Constantine is dangerous to foes and allies alike. The climactic story, from the double-sized 200th issue, gives us Constantine at his most vulnerable. It's a fine finish to Carey's tenure. The art works throughout, and is especially dark and evocative during Constantine's voyage into the labyrinth below the church of a malign cult. Recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer:  The Roots of Coincidence (2008/Collected 2009): written by Andy Diggle; illustrated by Leonard Manco, Giuseppe Camuncoli, and Stefano Landini: This volume ends Andy Diggle's run as Constantine writer with a recontextualization of just who Constantine's greatest enemy was and is. Diggle draws effectively on Constantine's long comic-book history for this revelation. It works, though the mechanics of John's battle with his arch-nemesis never become crystal clear. It's a solid end to a solid run of comics, though the horror elements are mostly muted this time out and one of the lesser opponents, Mako, just doesn't have a name that strikes fear into me. Lightly recommended.

Come for the Giant Sloth, Stay for the Invunche

In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin (1977): Chatwin's relatively small output is a treasure trove of odd travels and idiosyncratic observations, many of those observations yoked over the decades to Chatwin's fascination with nomadic humans throughout history and prehistory. Indeed, in The Songlines, Chatwin meditates on the nomadic pre-humans of a million years ago or more.

In Patagonia made the very British Chatwin a star in a very specific firmament, that of travel writing. Chatwin himself said that In Patagonia was a "Cubist" approach to travel writing, as the book consists of 97 short chapters focused on very specific incidents and individuals from Chatwin's own encounters and from histories of the Patagonia region.

Oh. Patagonia. It's a somewhat inhospitable area at the southern extremity of South America, shared between Chile and Argentina. Chatwin travelled through the area in 1974, picking up local stories to go with his experiences, and sometimes fictionalizing both. Chatwin was a New Journalist in the style of Tom Wolfe or even Hunter S. Thompson: the factuality of his narrative cannot always be trusted, though the wit of the observations can.

The book's fairly loose structure comes from Chatwin's voyage to the origin point of a Chatwin family heirloom lost in his youth -- a swatch of Patagonian hide and hair taken from the remains of one of Patagonia's extinct specimens of megafauna, a giant sloth. 

Along with a lot of South America's other megafauna, the giant sloth met its end when a land-bridge with the northern Americas brought wave after wave of new apex predators to the continent. Smaller South American animals such as the porcupine and the armadillo successfully colonized North America, but their larger cousins were pretty much wiped out.

Following this animal colonization comes wave after wave of human colonization and extinction, from prehistory to the early 20th century. Chatwin touches upon tales of natives and Europeans and more Europeans, of Americans, of Welsh settlers, of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, of worker's revolts, of South Africans, and so on, and so forth. All these nomads, settling and being unsettled.

Regardless of its truthiness, In Patagonia is a fine work, humane and searching. There's even a hook for horror fans: the section of the book devoted to the Chilitoe legend of the malign male witches of the Brujeria tickled then-comic-book-Swamp-Thing-writer Alan Moore's fancy in the early 1980's. He included the Brujeria, and their hideously and intentionally deformed servant the Invunche, in Swamp Thing's American Gothic storyline. And now NBC's Constantine series, based on another Alan Moore horror hero, has offered us much-altered versions of the Invunche and its masters. Pop will eat itself, indeed, and everything else. Highly recommended.

Constantine in Hell

John Constantine Hellblazer: The Gift: written by Michael Carey; illustrated by Leonardo Manco, Fraser Irving, Tim Bradstreet, and others (2004-2005; collected 2007): Mike Carey's fine run on what was DC-Vertigo's flagship title for various stretches of its 300-issue run comes to a mournful close. It's a volume that really needs to be read immediately after the previous collection, Reasons to be Cheerful, as the two collect what is really one long arc. 

Pissed-off, post-punk, Liverpudlian magician John Constantine finds himself in the crosshairs of an entire demonic family, three of whom are his children by a particularly sinister form of magical rape (!!!). And they're the grandchildren of his longest-running demonic foe, Nergal, who's been messing things up for Constantine since the early 1980's Newcastle incident that sent John to the Ravenscar psychiatric facility for several months.

But Nergal needs help against his daughter and grand-children to regain his kingdom in Hell. And John needs Nergal's help before all of John's remaining friends and relatives end up murdered by John's demonic hellspawn.

The whole thing is marvelously written and illustrated, though I occasionally wish that Leonardo Manco would let go a bit in his visuals, especially in those occasionally photo-referenced urban backgrounds. But his character work is exquisite, and in that 300-issue-run, I'd rank him below only John Ridgway and Steve Dillon as long-time artistic chroniclers of the Hellblazer.

Mike Carey's swan song on the title is as gritty and imaginative as ever, with the politics of Hell never so tellingly and squalidly depicted, nor John's anguish. Really a fine end to a fine run, and hopefully DC will collect this and Reasons to be Cheerful in one volume when they reach that point in the re-reprinting of Constantine. Highly recommended.

Horror Comics Old and New

John Constantine Hellblazer: Reasons to be Cheerful: written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Leonardo Manco, Giuseppe Camuncoli and Lorenzo Ruggiero (2004-2005; collected 2007): Excellent but frustratingly short collection of Constantine stories really ends halfway through an arc. This is something DC used to do a lot with its adult-oriented Vertigo collections, I'd assume in order to squeeze as much money as possible out of the trade paperback reprint market. They're now re-collecting Constantine's Vertigo title in lengthier collections from the start of the comic. I'd assume this arc and the subsequent The Gift will appear in one reasonably priced volume some time in about 2016.

Carey's an excellent writer, and really the second-last great writer of Constantine's now-cancelled Vertigo Universe title. The art by Leonard Manco and others is solid and moody, and the horrors suitably horrific. Of course, Constantine is Odysseus-like in his on-going ability to get everyone associated with him killed. As the main arc partially collected here deal with a threat to Constantine's relatives, friends, acquaintances, and people and things he only met once, a high death toll is assured. Who will survive and what will be left of them? Recommended, but you should probably wait for a new, more complete collection.

The EC Comics Library: Shock SuspenStories Volume 2:  written by Al Feldstein and Ray Bradbury; illustrated by Johnny Craig, Wally Wood, Joe Orlando, Jack Kamen, Reed Crandall, George Evans and others (1952-53; collected 2007): Shock SuspenStories was the Whitman's Sampler of EC Comics during that comic-book company's brief, brilliant run as the best comic-book company in the United States in the early 1950's. Stories reflected the breadth of EC's comics line, from social agit-prop stories (known as "preachies") to science fiction, horror, and suspense.

If one wants to see EC in all its glory, Gemstone's over-sized SuspenStories collections are the way to go. Grotesque horror stories with terrible puns in the title include "Beauty and the Beach" (illustrated by Jack Kamen), in which two jealous husbands enact ridiculous yet appropriate vengeance on their sunbath-loving wives, and "Seep No More", a riff on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-tale Heart."

There are also two excellent adaptations of Ray Bradbury stories here -- "The Small Assassin" and "The October Game", both suitably under-stated and horrifying in their implications. Notable "preachies", which were pretty much always illustrated by the great Wally Wood, include "Fall Guy," a gimmicky story with a visual bit riffed upon in Watchmen; "Came the Dawn!", a loopy ax-murderer tale with the sexiest woman Wood ever drew for EC; and "...So Shall Ye Reap!", a justifiably much-lauded tale with dual, unreliable narrations.

Also included is artist Reed Crandall's terrifically grotesque "Carrion Death," a story of murder and vengeance meted out by the natural world. We also get not one, not two, but three stories about Martians -- and only two of those Martian races hostile -- and for unintentional laughs the bizarre and ridiculous anti-drug "preachie" "The Monkey," in which recreational marijuana usage inevitably leads to murder, as it so often does. In all, highly recommended.

Cigarette Burned

Tales from the Crypt Archives Volume 2: written by Al Feldstein; illustrated by Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels, Joe Orlando, and others (1951-52; reprinted 2010): Another collection of horror stories ranging from good to great, from the days before the Comics Code Authority lobotomized American comic books.

It amazes me how fresh and enjoyable most of the stories in this volume remain. EC had the finest comic-book artists in America for much of its too-short existence. The stories, written for the most part by editor Al Feldstein, occasionally get a bit rote (the vengeance of the dead was always an EC horror staple, along with some truly atrocious puns), but many are clever short stories in their own right.

But the art, of course, is the thing. Wally Wood is a bit out of his depth here -- he was always best on science fiction and non-supernatural thrillers, and the two covers he assays are weirdly non-horrific. But when you've got 'Ghastly' Graham Ingels, Jack Davis, Jack Kamen, and Joe Orlando on the beat, everything's going to be fine. Davis, also a long-time Mad artist, is droll and blackly comic. Orlando and Kamen are fine, moody artists.

And Ingels remains one of the greatest horror artists to ever draw comic books. Many of his monsters are disturbingly malformed. He's the granddaddy of so many modern horror artists, from Bernie Wrightson through Steve Bissette and Rick Veitch. His grotesques anticipate both the distorted spaghetti monsters of films such as John Carpenter's The Thing and the human monsters of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Hills Have Eyes. Highly recommended.

John Constantine Hellblazer: Death & Cigarettes: written by Peter Milligan; illustrated by Simon Bisley, Guiseppe Camuncoli, and Stefano Landini (2012-2013; Collected 2013): 300 issues of Vertigo's John Constantine Hellblazer come to an end in this volume, so that Constantine can continue his adventures, in somewhat altered and youthfulized form, over in a title set in DC's mainstream superhero universe.

Created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch in Swamp Thing in the early 1980's as a sort of punk-attitude occult investigator from rust-belt Northern England, Constantine has had a long, varied, and distinguished career both in other people's comics and in his 25 years of his own title. He's even survived a completely screwy Keanu Reeves movie. And he's getting his own TV series this fall.

For me, the heights of John Constantine Hellblazer were reached early, with Jamie Delano writing the first 40 issues or so. Ably complemented by artists that included John Ridgway (understated and sinister), Sean Phillips and, in Delano's then-finale on the series, cover-artist Dave McKean doing an entire issue, Delano created a dense, kitchen-sink milieu of horror for Constantine.

Most of the humour in the title came from Constantine's sarcastic reaction to the horrors he faced. We were always meant to view Constantine through the lens of his own self-evaluation as a cursed punk, but we were also forced to conclude that he was indeed a very, very dark knight standing between humanity and the inimical forces of heaven and hell alike.

So we fast-forward here, to the end. I was gratified to discover that the Internet had as many problems figuring out just what the Hell the last three pages of the last issue mean. The whole thing ends on a note of ambiguity that may be entirely intended or may be sloppy story-telling. I have no idea.

Writer Peter Milligan gives us a 60-ish Constantine gifted with a super-hot 40-years-younger wife, a suddenly retconned-into-existence nephew who looks exactly like him, and a not-particularly imposing group of supernatural menaces to usher him out of his title. The art's generally so dark as to verge on inexplicable. Also, as some Internet wag noted, the main artists here seem to have forgotten that Constantine was visually modelled on Sting circa 1983, and not on Gary Busey circa 2013. The years have not been kind.

Stuff happens. There are a lot of sex scenes. Constantine's niece, once a capable presence when written by others, shows up as a traumatized shell of her former appearances. What's technically a demonic rape is played strictly for laughs. Did Constantine and his universe deserve better than this? Yeah. But we'll always have Newcastle. Spend your money on the John Constantine Hellblazer collections written by Delano, Garth Ennis, Andy Diggle, or Mike Carey instead. Not recommended.

Rocketeers, Hellblazers, and Super-sons

John Constantine Hellblazer: Empathy is the Enemy: written by Denise Mina; illustrated by Leonardo Manco and others (2006): Scottish novelist Denise Mina did a year-long stint or so on Hellblazer, Vertigo's then-longest-running title about occult investigator/pissed-off magician John Constantine and his endless mission to protect humanity from Heaven and Hell alike. And she really nails Constantine's character in this tale of sinister not-quite-Christianity simmering off the coast of Scotland.

The only down side? This is only the first part of a year-long story, and ends on something of a cliffhanger. Leonardo Manco's art is suitably moody and impressionistic, though his lay-outs sometimes become a bit confusing. That may not be his fault, as non-comic-book writers often have trouble early on in their comic-writing careers describing sensible lay-outs. Nonetheless, enjoyable and sharply observed horror, with just enough of Constantine's acerbic cynicism. Recommended.

Superman and Batman: The Saga of the Super-sons: written by Bob Haney with Denny O'Neil; illustrated by Dick Dillin, Curt Swan, Ernie Chan, Rich Buckler, Kieron Dwyer, and others (1974-1980, 1999; collected 2013): Once upon a time in the 1970's, DC Comics posited an alternate timeline in which Superman and Batman had teen-aged sons who themselves had started haltingly into the family business of crime-fighting. And lo, it was groovy.

I mean, really groovy. Writer Bob Haney never got a grip on the speech patterns of youth culture, but that never stopped him from trying here or on Teen Titans. The art by Justice League of America mainstay Dick Dillin was solid, as it always was from him, with some able fill-ins by Curt Swan and Ernie Chan. Superman and Batman Jr. just wanted to find their own way in life. So they set out across America. And then they didn't. And then they set out across America again.

Well, the whole picaresque, Easy Rider bit does stop and start a bit. Nonetheless, there are some solid stories here, and they are, generally, 'fun,' which is more than I can say for most modern comic books. If nothing else, this is the series in which, inexplicably and jarringly, Superman starts referring to everyone as "fellers" for a couple of issues. Getting in touch with his rural past, I guess.

DC caught the continuity bug late in the 1970's, leading to a nonsensical story which eliminates the Super-sons from 'existence' in fairly brutal fashion. A 1999 story restores them to their rightful writer, Haney, and suggests that they're still out there somewhere, as this year's Grant Morrison-penned universe-hopping series apparently will also establish. Groovy indeed. Recommended.

Rocketeer Adventures 2: written and illustrated by a cast of dozens (2012): IDW's anthology of short pieces featuring Dave Stevens' 1930's hero The Rocketeer is all kinds of fun. And if you don't like one story, there are plenty of others to look at instead. It's an approach that a lot of characters could use more of, which is I guess why DC has been trying it with digital-first anthology comics devoted to Batman, Superman, and soon Wonder Woman. I suppose the only problem is that some of the 'pin-ups' leave you wishing the artists had had time to do whole stories (especially Mike Mignola's lovely, creepy illustration). A third series soon, please! Recommended.

Some Endings and Beginnings

John Constantine Hellblazer Volume 5: Dangerous Habits: written by Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis; illustrated by Will Simpson, Steve Pugh, Sean Phillips, Dave McKean, and others (1991; collected 2013): Brit Jamie Delano was the first full-time writer for occult detective/punk mage John Constantine, a character created by Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch over in the pages of Saga of the Swamp Thing in the mid-1980's. Constantine got his own adult-oriented book in the late 1980's, with Delano tapped to write it.

Delano wrote 40 issues and a few annuals and miniseries entries before passing the baton to the up-and-coming Irish comics writer Garth Ennis. This volume collects Delano's last handful of regular Constantine issues and Ennis's first six-issue arc.

Constantine, hardest of the occult hardasses, is in something of a downward spiral in Delano's final issues. The psychic cost of fighting evil -- and inevitably getting one's friends and lovers killed during the battle -- has taken its toll. Delano probes Constantine's childhood in a striking horror tale, "Dead Boy's Heart," before turning to the incandescent wrap-up to 'his' Constantine.

What a wrap-up! Issue 40 of Hellblazer contained rare interior artwork by Dave McKean (probably still best-known today for his covers for Neil Gaiman's Sandman). I think it's one of the artistic highpoints for nominally mainstream comic books during the 1980's, dense and detailed to go along with a dense, detailed prose look at Constantine's life and works. This could have served as a fitting end to the series had it been cancelled, but Ennis came aboard with issue 41.

Under the circumstances, Ennis wisely went with the tactic of briefly mentioning the events of issue 40 and then never, ever mentioning them again. DC's decision to put Ennis on the book was something of a stroke of genius. He and Delano are both gifted horror writers, but of almost completely different stylistic modes. Where Delano is baroque and intellectual, Ennis is visceral and bleakly comic in a punk sort of way. To some extent, splatterpunk had come to Hellblazer.

Delano did benefit from some lovely, horrifying artwork at the end of his run, other than McKean. Steve Pugh's grotesques worked perfectly for the Grand Guignol two-parter he illustrated, while the cooler Sean Phillips meshed perfectly with Delano's writing on their issues together. Ennis wasn't quite so lucky early on -- Will Simpson, who pencils Ennis's first six issues, is not a gifted artist when it comes to horror, though he rises to the occasion at points.

Anyway, the first five volumes of the re-edited and re-compiled Hellblazer are marvelous, though why this series didn't get the hardcover treatment the second time around is a puzzle. Unless DC is about to scrap this reprint series and start another one in hardcover. Which, given the mercurial nature of DC's publishing habits these days, is entirely possible. Hidey ho! Highly recommended.

　

The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Ship That Sank Twice: written by Mike Carey; illustrated by Peter Gross and a host of others (2013): Brilliant companion piece to the equally brilliant, ongoing comic-book series The Unwritten delves deeper into the backstory of the series while also offering the reader a dead-on pastiche of Young Adult fantasy novels.

Indeed, the world Carey, Gross, and other artists conjure up for the first volume of the imaginary Tommy Taylor series is filled with more wonder and interest in 60 pages or so than the entire Harry Potter series. And it comments on the sinister implications of a separate race of magic users walking among the powerless mundane. A great work on its own, and a great and rich expansion of the series, which has about 12 issues left to run in its storyline. Highly recommended.

 

Tainted Love with the King of the Vampires

John Constantine: Hellblazer: Tainted Love: written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon (1993; collected 1998): Writer Garth Ennis made his name at DC with his violent, moody work on DC's horror flagship title John Constantine: Hellblazer prior to creating the popular and influential Preacher series with artist Steve Dillon.

Picking up where the Fear and Loathing storylineleft off, Tainted Love takes John Constantine about as low as he can go, homeless onto the streets of London where old enemies and new come to believe he can finally be finished off.

Constantine is in terrible emotional and physical trauma for much of this collection, in which we discover that his real super power is the ability to fight supernatural evil even while falling-down drunk. Will he pull out of it before the seemingly eternal King of the Vampires or Satan himself finally get their revenge on him? And what's going on with the archangel Gabriel? And how's former lover Kit doing back in Belfast? All will be revealed. Well, some anyway. Highly recommended.

　

Fear and Loathing in Heaven and Hell

John Constantine: Hellblazer: Fear and Loathing: written by Garth Ennis; illustrated by Steve Dillon (1992-93; collected 1997): Writer Garth Ennis made his name at DC with his violent, moody work on DC's horror flagship title John Constantine: Hellblazer prior to creating the popular and influential Preacher series with artist Steve Dillon.

Ennis is one of those writers who seems to have arrived fully formed, primarily because his early development took place in British comics that weren't readily available in North America in the early 1990's. By 1992, Ennis really was pretty much fully formed -- for good and ill (mostly good), his voice is as distinctive here as it is today.

As only the fourth person to write John Constantine (after co-creator Alan Moore and Rick Veitch in Swamp Thing and, on Constantine's own book, Jamie Delano for the first 40 issues), Ennis quickly put his stamp on the character, upping the violence and writing in a more direct, less poetic style than Moore and Delano. Constantine now seemed more of an aged punk and less of a dandyish mod -- he was straight out of Liverpool.

Ennis' peculiar and fairly rare (at least in the early 1990's) synthesis of ultraviolent splatterpunk with a detailed and increasingly harrowing portrayal of the supernatural still packs a punch in the stories collected in Fear and Loathing. The world is an awful one whether the violence is being perpetrated by monsters human or supernatural -- and even the highest of angels can be a monster in Constantine's world. Constantine works ceaselessly to thwart the plans of Heaven and Hell alike, because both Heaven and Hell seek control over the fragile, fallen human world.

In this collection, Constantine's personal life -- his rewarding relationship with Kit -- comes under fire even as he attempts to stop a British Neo-Nazi group from gaining favour with the archangel Gabriel. Constantine also celebrates his 40th birthday with a party involving most of DC's supernatural characters -- Hellblazer was still nominally part of the mainstream DC universe at this point, despite the fact that thematically this made absolutely no sense.

So we get such supernatural stalwarts as Zatanna, Swamp Thing, and the Phantom Stranger involved in a surprise birthday bash for the 40-year-old Liverpudlian (or Scouser). That issue is one of the few blessedly free of tension, and involves instead some of Ennis's funniest (and earliest) scenes taking the piss out of mainstream superhero characters. But damnation, as always, looms. Highly recommended.

Hell House of Lords

John Constantine Hellblazer: Original Sins (Revised Edition), written by Jamie Delano and Rick Veitch, illustrated by John Ridgway, Rick Veitch, Tom Mandrake, Alfredo Alcala, Brett Ewins and Jim McCarthy (1988-89; collected 2011): Liverpudlian occult investigator and magician John Constantine's first solo adventures (he'd been introduced in Swamp Thing by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch, Steve Bissette and others in the mid-1980's) get a new collection here, with two stories from Swamp Thing added to the volume.

Writer Jamie Delano really made the character his, giving Constantine an even more jaded and cynical bent. But Constantine, a dangerous man who gets his companions killed, a lot, nonetheless fights the malign schemes of Heaven and Hell alike. And protecting humanity requires a lot of booze and a lot of cigarettes.

And a lot of politics. Thatcher's Great Britain and Reagan's America are the primary settings for Delano's initial 40-issue run on the title, and both places are drenched in blood and intimately and intricately tied to the apocalyptic plans of Heaven and Hell. Good times, good times!

Delano had a real flair for twisted updatings of traditional supernatural threats. His demons are stockbrokers in souls and day traders in damnation, literally at points. Soccer hooligans get transformed into hideous monsters. Computers strain to reach the shores of Heaven. Heaven has put a new group on the board, the Resurrection Crusade, believing it destined to create the next Messiah. Hell has countered with the Damnation Army, led by long-time Constantine nemesis Nergal.

Constantine also faces an ancient hunger demon in New York and a horrifying resurrection of Viet Nam veterans in the American heartland when he's not stalking the nightmarish streets of jolly old England. John Ridgway's art is, for my money, the best Constantine ever had in his own book -- grimy, realistic, grotesque. It perfectly suits Delano's exploration of Constantine's damned yet heroic psyche, and the terrible new ways evil works in the go-go 1980's. How Hollywood got a Keanu Reaves movie out of this is anyone's guess. Highly recommended.

Magical Mystery Tour

John Constantine: Dark Entries, written by Ian Rankin, illustrated by Werther Dell'edera (2009): DC's Vertigo Crime imprint releases black-and-white graphic novels in a normal (for print, not comics) hardcover-sized format. Technically, this isn't really a crime (graphic) novel, and would have made more sense as part of DC's normal Constantine releases. However, author Rankin is best known for his detective series starring Scottish hardcase Inspector Rebus, so I assume that simple fact went into the decision as to the proper format.

Rankin does a solid job here of giving us a standalone story about Vertigo's (and now and again the normal DC Universe's) jaded, working-class English occult detective/magician John Constantine. A British reality-show producer offers Constantine a wad of money to investigate why it is that the contestants on a reality show are being haunted by strange visions and occurrences. Constantine joins the cast, and weirdnesses multiply.

Rankin nails Constantine's bruised and damaged cynical heroism, that of a man who's opposed demons and angels in his day and knows enough to trust neither side. Artist Dell'edera didn't impress me much in colour on the short-lived Loveless Western series, but here black-and-white seems to have freed him up an awful lot -- there are hints of B&W hardboiled master Jose Munoz in the work here -- and the work remains grounded in a grimy reality regardless of how weird things get on the supernatural end. All this and Sawney Beane too. Recommended.

John Constantine in Iraq

Hellblazer: Pandemonium, written by Jamie Delano, illustrated by Jock (2010): Delano returns to John Constantine (Hellblazer), the British occult investigator/magician character whose first 40 or so issues he wrote back in the late 1980's after Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, John Totleben and Rick Veitch created the character in Swamp Thing. He's working-class English and looks a lot like Sting, which explains why the movie Constantine had Canadian Keanu Reaves portray Constantine as an American living in Los Angeles. It makes perfect sense.

Delano has always been firmly in the Ramsey Campbell school of horror fiction -- wordy, literate, and concerned with evoking horror through off-kilter description moreso than sudden shocks or graphic violence, though both of those also have their role to play. Constantine is probably the world's greatest magician. He's also something of a bastard who tends to get his friends and companions killed during his forays against both supernatural and human evil. But he gets results, which has made him enemies in both Heaven and Hell.

Herein, coalition forces in Iraq track down Constantine in London, England to get his help with a peculiar occult problem they've discovered -- a prisoner who drives everyone crazy if he's not sedated. Soon, Constantine is waist-deep in blood as he tries to discover what the forces of Hell are up to in Iraq, though at least some of these demonic forces are also pagan deities (there's a brief shout-out to Pazuzu, the Babylonian demon who showed up in The Exorcist, while one of Constantine's demonic/pagan enemies from Delano's run on the comic also puts in a mythologically and geographically correct appearance).

With the help of a physically and emotionally scarred, Iraqi-born archaeologist, Constantine again manages to insert himself into the competing plans of governments and demons; Heaven, in this case, appears to be absent from the proceedings. I like Jock's art here more than I have on other projects -- he's understated in a way that reminds me of early Delano Hellblazer collaborator John Ridgway's art. The fantastic remains grounded, and dirty. Delano's become a better writer over the last 20-odd years -- there's none of the occasional straining for linguistic effect that could sometimes be a bit jarringly purple in early Hellblazer. Highly recommended.