Tenzel Kim

I have a small question regarding AHE. In the beginning we have a flashback to August 1961 in Liverpool and as I've just been rereading and indexing some early issues of Hellblazer for my site that got me wondering. In the Secret Files timeline it states that Thomas was sentenced to six months in prison in 1961 and in Hellblazer #35 we see John and Cheryl at their aunt's house in Northhampton in July 1961 after Thomas was imprisoned.

Was it ever revealed when in 1961 Thomas was jailed? I mean is this a mistake or could he possibly have been jailed in january and be out again in August? Did John meet befriend anyone while living in Northhampton because in #35 he stated that he had no friends there.

I know this is nitpicking, but the flashback just made me wonder if it was ever revealed when he was actually jailed.

Tenz.

I agree with some of that, but I still think that, in terms of dramatic impact, some of the choices made regarding who to 'kill off' have been pretty weak.

 

- he's playing the 'elimination of John's past' angle, as you suggest, but without actually killing too many of the characters a future writer may want to bring back.

I'm pretty amazed at how many of you are complaining about the characters that are killed off aren't important ones. Would you all have liked this story better had Carey killed off chracters like Kit and Chas instead?

I know I wouldn't. I'd say that would be pretty disrespectful of Carey. The way he's doing it by killing off minor characters instead he just establishes that no matter how small or insignificant parts they have played in John's life they aren't safe. Would these deaths even matter much to John? Probably not but considering he is a man looking for his own past at the moment killing off his past no matter how important seems like a good move. Furthermore, they TRIED killing off Map and Chas but were couldn't or were prevented.

I actually think it was done pretty well. Lots of these characters aren't familiar to newer readers so they don't really know whether or not they are important and to us that have read the title forever it gives us an idea that just having said "Hi" to John at some point might be enough to get you killed. Chas was saved and the fact that Kit, Zed and Angie are "kinda" the parents of the children I'd say it seems reasonable that they'd wait a while before killing them. Considering Angie is a Carey invention I'd say that she is still a likely death candidate for the final issue of the storyline. Gemma is being thrown in our face to make us worry and then we end up with Angie being killed instead. I really like Angie though (as well as Gemma) so I'd like to be proven wrong.

Had this been THE/a storyline that Carey been building towards for a loong time and we had been seeing some of these "insignificant" persons being killed off in the background for the last year or so then having it end off in the murder of one or more significant characters then I wouldn't mind, but to kill important characters off in a four-issue storyline just after a big jumping-on point like issue 200 would be a damn shame.

Tenz.