James

Shall I tell you about my life

They say I’m a man of the world

I’ve flown across every tide

And I’ve seen lots of pretty girls

I guess I’ve got everything I need

I wouldn’t ask for more

And there’s no one I’d rather be

I just wish that I’d never been born

And I need a good woman

To make me feel like a good man should

I don’t say I’m a good man

Oh but I would be if I could

I could tell you about my life

And keep you amused I’m sure

About all the times I’ve cried

And how I don’t want to be sad anymore

And how I wish I was in love

Yeah, but as I said you can't build a computer game around the second thing.

Well you could, but it would just be a rip-off of Pipe Dreams.

I honestly think that they were justified in including the first thing. You have to make some concessions to an action movie audience if that's the kind of film you're trying to make, and in the context of the scene it's really not all that bad.

Dear dissenter,

Thankyou for registering your dissatisfaction with the U.S. Air Force. Your comment has been taken into consideration and will be raised at our next internal meeting.

Our officers will be dropping by shortly to re-educate you. Please remain where you are. Do not try to run.

Yours sincerely,

MAX

Seriously James can back me up on this, we have this building in the center of town called The Corn Exchange which just seems to be a magnet for perpetually confused looking Goths, which just annoy me.

This is true.

Vermin!

No, I'm just kidding.

Wait, they get in the way when I'm trying to buy comics.

Vermin!

It didn't sound like that to me, but he'd apparantly told all his French friends that in Yorkshire you have to say coop. :rolleyes:

My grandma says that. Same thing with cookbook - elongated vowel sounds rather than short ones.

I've been told by other Northerners that I have a posh accent. I'm sure Ade and John can't tell that one.

Ah, see now I look like a miserable bastard.

I haven't said anything too spoilery have I? Edit out anything you think is going too far.

Yeah but he now has the memories of an entire lifetime spent with Kit, Angie and Zed so killing one of them off would hit him pretty hard since he'd lose any chance of regaining those lost lives.

Assuming that's what he wants, of course. I'd like to see whether John's going to come to miss the comfortable, relaxed life he had with "Kit" in ish 200...

My favorite is the so-called magic bullet.  According to the Warren Commission, it went through JFK's upper torso from back to front, exited from his neck, went through John Connoly's torso, hit and broke a rib, exited his torso in front, entered his right wrist, hit and broke his radius bone, exited the wrist and comes to rest in his left thigh, from which it apparently fell out, and was supposedly found in a stretcher that had been put aside in Parkland Hospital.

The path of the bullet is entirely plausible when you take into account the relative positions of Connelly and Kennedy on that day (Connelly to the left of the President and a little lower, not sat directly in front of him and at the same height).

Now Charlie, look at the recovered bullet, that supposedly did all this damage, on a page in the website James recommended, and tell me if you think a bullet that did all this damage, including hitting and breaking two big bones, would look like this?

As the site itself points out:

Anybody who wants to posit that CE 399 was faked and planted by conspirators needs to supply plausible answers to all of the following questions. Why did the conspirators . . .

*Plant it in a location where it could easily have been lost?

*Plant a bullet that was only "slightly" damaged if its role was to have passed through at least the President? Why not shoot up some livestock and get a bullet a bit more mangled?

*Plant it before it could have been known how many other bullets would be recovered? How could they have known that CE 399 would not be the "one bullet too many" that would blow the whole plot?

*Plant the bullet so it was found before it was known how much lead was in JFK's neck/upper back? What if a big chunk of lead was found in JFK's neck or upper back, a chunk too big to have come from CE 399?

(my emphasis)

We're talking about a conspiracy orchestrated by a major Governmental agency who've had the foresight to set up the motorcade to pass by a certain depository, got their patsy marked for death and managed to put together enough agents on scene to plant evidence and fuck up the body so that a perfect autopsy is impossible. Are they really going to throw in an undamaged bullet and hope that nobody notices?

Oh, and re Beeman: Remove the HGA from the Demonshoot and leave the <other thing*>. So, remind me why we need the HGA ?

Is the HGA the shotgun? The other thing only weakens them and makes them shed their human form. The shotgun "deports" them back to hell. Or something. The mythology for the film makes no sense anyway.

 

More practically, the shotgun looks cool and makes it easier to develop a spinoff action game.

 

And, like, how else are they going to work awesome nu-metal music and strobe lighting into the movie?

 

Seriously, I don't have a problem with the shotgun or - to a lesser extent - the gadgets, since neither actually play a big role in the climactic battle. What I do have a problem with is the complete fuckuppery that is Constantine's character and the logic behind the film's mythology being so thin that you could push your finger through it.

The person who writes the solicitation info.

"they’re going after John’s few remaining friends and loved ones"

“Constantine’s three very illegitimate children continue to hunt and destroy his closest friends and allies"

Unless he doesn't give a shit about even his closest friends...

Edit: there's also Abigail Holland as a potential victim, I suppose, but they wouldn't kill her off in Hellblazer when there's already a monthly Swamp Thing on the stands.

100:1

If, as you say, Constanteen were shown trying his luck with both sides it would put a different spin on what happens at the end.

Not much of a spin, though. It would still turn out like Rogan suggests above.

According to Ade: "The trickery that Constanteen uses to engage God and Satan is very much in keeping with that neutrality we have been talking about, but a few of Constanteen's monologues undermine that."

Disagree. The trickery John uses only applies to the devil, not god, and is apparently the result of some post-prayer divine inspiration. And don't get me started on the cure for cancer...

You know what - they should remove the fucking "Beeman/Q introduces the Holy Weapons of Antioch" scene  and replace it with the scene you describe.

Nah, to be fair that does explain all of the - hnggh - gadgets that Keanu uses in the film. take that out and you'll just confuse the entire audience. "What's up with that matchbox?"

Presumably that they're going to film the extant scenes, which sounds crazy, but who knows?

Well that's alright then.

The ending's still a travesty though, and it's that scene which really pissed me off.

If you want to convince me otherwise without ruining the film for everyone then by all means send me a PM...

Ruby was a nutbar. Oswald acted alone. I spent half a year writing a dissertation on this and no pro-conspiracy theory I read struck me as being halway plausible. And this was when I was 18, an X-Files addict and champing at the bit to see which group really did knock him off.

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/home.htm was a jolly useful resource, a website dedicated to refuting various conspiracy theories. It's not perfect, but it does provide convincing explanations for those conspiracy theories that have become so well known that nobody really looks at how feasible they are any more.

Why? Surely DC own Wildstorm anyway?

Sorry, I'm lost as to what we're talking about here. I don't think, given the current set-up of the comic, that reintroducing Rich and his family in Reasons to be Cheerful for the sole purpose of killing them off is a good idea.

I'm not clear what this has to do with arms. Can someone explain? You may need to draw diagrams because I'm feeling a bit slow.

Well, if you want details like the man with the wavy hand to be correct (and why not?) then it's fair game to have characters from the past (as well as events) come back to haunt John regardless of how long ago or how popular they might be. Whether they turn up with important messages or get killed howwibly.

These are different aspects of the same thing in the larger story.

ie using the foundation work of the past two hundred issues.

There's a difference between being extremely anal about tiny obscure details and bringing back characters in a way that will have minimal dramatic impact but will confuse and put off newer readers.

The scene with Gary Lester in ish 181 was completely throwaway. It didn't matter if you hadn't read that first Hellblazer storyline since he was done and dusted within about two pages, and there was no intended emotional impact on either John or the reader, except perhaps a smile from the older bunch.

In this instance you're talking about having John's life get all fucked up, and in order for the audience to understand and appreciate the impact it's had on him, they need to become familiar with the characters either before or after the storyline. Since it's too late to squeeze them in beforehand and having them lament them afterwards would be dramatically flat, I don't think it's very likely that they'll make an appearance at all.

Unless Carey intends a couple to survive for later issues, in which case it would be reasonable.

Realistically, I don't think this storyline will have anything more than one or two deaths, probably of extremely peripheral characters like Tony or Clarice.

Re killing off characters, as we often come to the subject of the great big huge continuity laden behemoth that is the 200 issue monthly series, I think it's as reasonable to knock off someone from the "distant" past as it is to make sure you get amputated arms on the right (I mean left) side.

Not quite sure what you mean by this...?

Maybe Ellie was on the rag.

Wait, that was a bad thing to say wasn't it?

We are talking about people close to John dying here.

While that may not score much on the FanKid-o-meter it will have dramatic effect on yer man.

Yeah, but when were these characters last in Hellblazer? Five, six years ago? Kill off Clarice or Map and we can point confused readers towards the Haunted trade or Staring at the Wall. Kill off Rich the punk and you'll have to tell them to look through the bargain bins for issue 90-whatever.

Sure, new characters have been introduced just to be killed off but they've always had either a half-decent amount of screentime first (Dez, Ray Monde) or had John mope and reminisce about them afterwards (Elizabeth Bracknall, Gary Lester). Zed and Kit were reintroduced in issue 200, so are fair game. Rich and family weren't reintroduced and most likely won't be before the kids run amok, so the only option is the latter - by which point they'll all be dead and the eulogising will be taking up valuble page time that could be used advancing the story and doing something more interesting. It's just dramatically buggered every way as far as I can see*, but I'm not a writer so I'm very probably wrong.

*Unless Mike plans to have a couple of them survive and become recurring characters again. That would be good.

Re: The Streatham lot. Nah, I don't hate them enough to want them dead. In fact, I actually liked Rich and his family.

Besides, only hardcore fans have heard of them so killing then off wouldn't have much effect.

100:1

"That lot in Streatham"?

Clarice is doomed, I reckon. How much more can you really do with her?

1:100 favourite.

Alba from Staring at the Wall is equally likely to die. She's not established enough for the audience to want her to survive and could be useful as "the one that dies in the intro sequence" if Mike's going to bother with that. The only question is if she'll even turn up.

1:99

Tony Masters is expendable. You can knock him off to upset Gemma and Cheryl without messing up John's head too much. The resulting fallout with Cheryl could be useful too.

1:2

Map too, probably. A powerful character whose death would really make the kids look tough. Not sure about the message given out by a load of Aryan kids killing a black guy though.

Evens.

The female deaths to male deaths ratio is sufficiently tipped toward Y chromosomes that Hellblazer can afford to knock off Angie without looking like mysogynist trash. Also, John lived out fourteen years of marriage with her in ish 200 so he'll feel close enough to her for her death to actually affect him. On the other hand, she's one of the (very) few co-stars that Carey actually created, so he might be reluctant to kill her off.

5:1

Anyone remember Nathan Arcane? Tough guy, good sense of humour, could be useful as a recurring cast member, so it'd probably not be a good idea to kill him off. On the other hand, he's not established enough to guarantee his survival, and would be entertaining as a foil for Constantine who can snuff it in the final act.

5:1

Cheryl doesn't really do much in Hellblazer, but she does provide a human anchor for John and Gemma. Her death would probably provide meat for future stories featuring Gemma and would hit John harder than anything has before. Lots of useful stories waiting to be mined here, but if Carey does kill her he'd better make good use of the opportunity to stop it from appearing gratuitous and sensationalist.

8:1

Hope Watford doesn't snuff it since John's non-magical associates are few and far between - and it's not like John's close enough for Watford's death to really matter. Probably not important enough for the kids to bother with.

10:1

It'd be a shame to see Zed die, since she's probably one of the most positively portrayed female characters in comic books. I wouldn't mind her popping back for a spell (ho ho) if she made it out alive though. Mike was originally going to have her in Staring at the Wall, but decided against it since her character was to go loony for a bit. Would he really pop her clogs?

15:1

Killing Gemma would be a shame, since there's a lot more that can be done with her relationship with John. And Carey's expressed an interest in the character.

25:1

Any members of Chas' family should watch their backs, but the relationship between him and John is strained already and killing any them off might make it impossible for Carey to reset it without stretching credibility.

25:1

John's not been in love with Kit since Critical Mass, when he transferred his passion for her into The Demon Constantine. Then again, he just lived out ten years of relationship with her in the latest issue, so who knows? It's a possibility, but she's Ennis' baby and a fan-favourite, and until this issue there did seem to be a conscious decision by the writers/editors to leave her in the past.

30:1

Chas is untouchable. You hear me, Carey? Untouchable! I know where you live! Roughly! And if I have to break every car window in London just to get back at you then I will! Actually, I wouldn't, because that would take too much effort. I'd probably be very bitchy about it on the internet though. How'd you like them apples?

100:1

Who's betting that the mysterious helper is actually the Phantom Stranger? He won't die though.

2:1 on PS being the helper, 100,000,000:1 on him buying the Phantom Pharm.

I always die at the sloth bit, but that's only because it's rock-fucking-hard playing with an X-Box controller.

You get HOTD II built in free with HOTD III. The gun targets are virtually invisible though.