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Demon Chas08

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Posts posted by Demon Chas08

  1. I thought she's badly drawn but you can see wrinkles at the back of her neck and arms.

     

    I quite liked the continuity of characters being so clearly Hellblazer but with fuzzy edges.

     

    Lets hope the Annual has the Three Johns meeting at some nexus or other.

     

    Some of the panels would be a delight to annotate. Eg orbital comics.

     

    I noticed the wrinkles too. She's still our Clarice but with some kind of age like whatevertheshit going on.

     

    Now Oliver can wheel out either Dani, Angie, or Kev to round off the character return mambo and top it off with the return of Cheryl and Gemma (with Tony staying dead in this continuity).

     

    Oh, and Tefé. I mean why not since the tree tat and how John got it via Swampy's maintained so her existence is bound to pop up

  2. Episode 9 seems to have been custom-designed to make me hate the show and everyone in it. Seth Rogen can suck my cock.

     

    Even if he does, I'll probably still be pissed off at him for bringing this nihilistic shit into the world.

     

    I wish he'd told us ahead of time that the whole thing would be just another one of his sardonic eye-rolls. I mean, say what you will about the sappy sentimentality of the books - at least it's a fucking ethos.

     

    Or, whatever, fine. Be hip and detached and ironic and refuse to believe in anything. Make a show that might as well just be a two-second clip of you saying "Iunno?" looped into eternity. But do you think maybe we could also have a single character who isn't totally vile*? Do you think we could stop pretending that a tone-deaf atrocity parade counts as good film-making, good writing, or pretty much anything other than a huge glaring mark against humanity as a general concept? Do you think we could make Preacher great again?

     

    So yeah, for someone who enjoys a lot of hyper-violent media, I'm really inclined to turning on shows as soon as they start smearing the screen with gratuitous, hateful violence and acting like they're above it all. The show's always struggled with tone when it comes to extreme violence, often thinking it counts as a punchline, but I'm trying to think of any way that the Ratwater massacre could've been portrayed that might have been more tasteless, exploitative or adolescently smug than the way this episode did it. I'm failing. The closest I can think of is if maybe they played it over and over, ad fucking nauseum, only no - the show went and did that, didn't it? Because an injection of mind-numbing tedium is exactly what we need after nine episodes of the world's slowest plot development. That'll really kick things into gear.

     

    I'm thinking probably fuck this shit. It's less Preacher than it is Crossed. And I don't mean the Garth Ennis Crossed, I mean the bad Crossed.

     

    ...I suppose I'll try and watch 10 at some point, just like I'll try to get this sore tooth of mine looked at by a dentist at some point. So, grudgingly, and possibly as a hostage.

     

    -Gwi "Worst. Episode. Ever" lym

     

    P.S. I'm willing to entertain the possibility that my recent onset of massive depression may well have contributed to my negative response to the episode, but to be honest I prefer to believe I'm doing god's work and self-righteous internet ranting will lead us all to the promised land

     

    *OR if you absolutely insist on doing the big shocking emotional point-of-no-return moment, maybe earn it? Make it seem like the characters are doing it, rather than just being puppets to your random whims? Jesse Pinkman didn't tearfully kill a man because he realised he'd wandered into a bad adaptation of Hellraiser. There was an actual build-up, with thoughts and emotions and everything. It was wild. You should watch that show. It might even give you an idea for a scene you can recreate, shot-for-shot, for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

     

     

    And folks wonder why I forever hate him for the same thing with Green Hornet; yes its a Gondry film but it reeks of Rogen's unfunny shtick all over it

  3. If Oliver does plan on referencing old Hellblazer continuity, that permanent 30-something age will likely mean that only the Delano and Ennis runs are canon for him (which is likely, given his references to Astra in the Rebirth special that ignores Jenkins' run).

     

    I be surprised if we just get Dani as the sole rep of Jenkins era for the new book should Oliver opt to bring back a past love interest.

  4. Resurrecting an old thread here, but if Hellblazer would have continued past Diggle and Milligan (man was this thread prophetic), what were some of the names you'd have like to see take on the series? Kieron Gillen is an obvious favorite, but I'd also put some hope in Paul Cornell, a writer that kind of got shafted by his work during the New 52 DC era.

     

    Or, even better, James Robinson. Starman is probably my all-time favorite series (sorry Hellblazer) and his current work on Scarlet Witch is a real return to form for him.

     

    Scarlet Witch aside, I really don't want Robinson near out John.

     

    How bout that Becky Cloonan?

  5. So, last week Comixology had the entirety of Constantine: the Hellblazer on sale for .99 an issue. Curiosity got the better of me and I bought and read the whole run in the span of about two days. That sale took advantage of me. I had dropped the series after issue # 3, and ye gods did it get dreadful as it went on.

     

    I'll take Peter Milligan or even Ray Fawkes over that run, thank you very much. Like someone else on the forum said, there were so many words yet the book ultimately said nothing. I also found it really grating how the writers had John romanticizing New York City like it was the greatest place on Earth, which is fine if you're from NYC, nothing against the city. I just don't think John would be writing 5th grade poetry about it when he's only there because he's exiled from his real home country.

     

    I don't think there's a single run of Hellblazer OR Constantine that I disliked more than C:tH. Awful on just about every level.

     

    Careful with the former. They might get hom back again

  6. the timecapsule-thing can be said about a lot of what delano did too, especially politically speaking. there is nothing bad about that in my opinion, not everything has to be everlasting and in the context of constantine aging and all, it made his character have more dimensions.

    ennis take on judeo-christian religion/mythology/whatever is well.. let's be real here the guy makes constantly fun of that stuff to show how stupid he thinks that shit is. at least thats how i read both preacher and his hellblazer stuff. some parts of it is: look at this, idiots. thats what you believe. LOOK AT IT! ennis is a bit like todays edgy militant-atheists-kids, except before it was cool and he is funny.

    i am not sure he actually had in mind what to do with the first of the fallen when he wrote dangerous habits, imo it was a deus ex machina and he ran with it, because the premise was nice (constantine and cancer) and he could give us the fingerpanel and the solution to cancer in the hellblazer universe was above all else, as real as you could get john constantine.

    he turned the first of the fallen dynamic it into the typical comic-book protagonist-antagonist relationship, put a little homoerotic undertones and some cracy on top and voila. what i want to say is: i think he intentionally went way over the top with a trope (as he does sometimes) and it reads a little shitty, because the trope is shitty. think of luther/superman, joker/batman the fact that there are comics were there is this overpowered (yeah batman is) guy that fights for good, but hesitates to kill a mass murdering maniac on every occasion is just... insane. and there is a certain homo-erotic vibe to two guys who obsess over each other as much as the batman and the joker do. coming back to hellblazer: well the only reason for a guy like constantine to not kill off some motherfucker is, apart from temporarily a little torture and social exploitation (a.k.a. fun), that the antagonist is infinitely more powerful and immortal, enter the first. maybe i am giving ennis to much credit, but i think a lot of his writing is far more self (read industry) aware, than you give him credit for.

     

    i liked some of the shorts ellis did for hellblazer. some of them were actually creepy and had some nice horror-feeling to it, nothing special, but none of it was bad either.

     

    i actually think azz tried to experiment, yes his hellblazer was a cringy shitshow, but i honestly had the feeling he tried. it was just really really bad. to send a british based character to the states for some time is not a bad premise. it is certainly not original, but it could have been interesting. that can be said about a lot of azzs run: could have, but fucked it up. coming back to s.w.manor, the batman analogy and all. at some point i can see an author saying: well either fuck, or kill each other. you will never be able to write a batman comic, in which this happens (which is shit btw), but you can in hellblazer. i can see the appeal in that. was it necassery: no. but azz obviously needed to get it out of his system :D

     

    milligan wrote a fucking soap opera and maybe projected some midlife-crisis or whatever. his stuff was bad, really fucking awful.

     

    I wouldn't be surprised if those seven issues was responsible for Levitz and the rest letting him and Risso do Broken City the following year later and his Joker and Lex focused books

  7. The problem with these 'rebirths' is that John aged in real time during the original run. The current writers are cherry-picking his history but even they have to realize there's no way a 30-something year old man was in a punk band in the late 70's. My feelings thus far is that these creative vasectomies has severely undercut his gravitas and made him a much less interesting character. This was why Milligan pissed me off so much - he wiped his ass with John's past rather than treating it like the well-earned weight he'd been carrying all those years.

     

    But I want him back, dammit! So how to do it? Well, maybe Hell needs him alive and operating and restores him to his middle-aged self while the rest of the Hellblazer universe has aged around him. It's ridiculous but as long as the writer stuck true to the characters (Old Chas reacting to a young John) (MILF Kit?) it could be interesting. And maybe enough to drive John batshit crazy again! Of course, that would involve taking the character into directions DC would poo-poo before it could ever see the light of day.

     

    Regardless, I don't know how any of these rebirths are going to amount to anything more than elevator music without giving him the weight of his years (a.k.a. his balls) back.

     

    Ok, open fire.

     

    Unless WB shareholders wise up and demand a clean house on every sector and for someone to reverse the damages Alan Horn created with the revised Vertigo contracts, Vertigo and the John we known for so long has gone to the DiDio dungeon.

     

    Injustice, the show, and now thus iteration is as close as we're going to get

  8. Oh yeah, there was a lot more to the character, to be sure. I was just saying that was an aspect of the character from the beginning of Hellblazer.

    It would be funny if they decided to return to the days of John hating Thatcher though. I don't mean flashing back when Thatcher was in power, but just that he constantly rants and rants about how bad Thatcher was, and people keep saying, "Thatcher is dead now! There are a lot of other slimy politicians to hate!", but John just keeps ranting away about Thatcher. That could be fun for nostalgia.

     

    Just like how my mother goes on her Obama rants with the occasional once a fortnight shots at Reaganomics and the damages it wrought

  9. 7/10 from me too. I actually wasn't expecting something big for a change like I did with last year. Kinda wish his encounter with Captain Marvel (& NO I will not call him Shazam regardless of copyright grabsies!) got removed but babysteps...

     

    I trust Oliver enough to do our boy justice and he did. Now I want Gemma back so he can treat Milligan's run like a bastard stepchild the way the Carey era ignored Azzarello's follies but of course I'm getting agead of myself

  10. Don't get me started on Finn: another mistake of Milligan's. The only way he would work is if he was born the same time as Tricia Chandler or just have him be a distant younger cousin from Auntie Jean's side of the family. But NOOPE! Fuck logic

  11. It was mentioned once in the original Hellblazer series. This was not the original HB series, it was an alternate version. Really, the authors were able to do what they wanted with the character, since it was not in the original continuity.

    I wouldn't say it was rubbed in our faces, anymore than I would say that "John is in a relationship" was rubbed in our faces by Garth Ennis with Kit.

    The authors chose to revolve most of the ongoing plot of the series around the fact that John was interested in a guy named Oliver The consequences of Oliver getting involved with John became the reason for the series. The series wasn't good, but it wasn't due to John being bisexual. Shoddy, uninteresting plotting and writing that was less than engaging were two major faults. John's characterization was also poorly done. Remove the sexuality, and the series still wasn't going to work.

     

    This

  12. nu52 was generally a fuck up.period.there are those who slandered the Constantine comic of nu52,but i think the only thing it really lacked was 1)the lack of personal in depth look at John constantine ,it was all too vague.though i do like the idea of the cult of the cold flame setting john up for failure---even in his originial hellblazer incarnation,john fucked up with Astra...becasue he was trying to do the right thing ,the wrong way.i think a lot of writers are seem to lose that bit.john wants to do the right thing ---usuallly,but he keeps fucking it up,like failure is the only option.the only time i can say that john was out right mailicious wa sduring the azarello run --i mean yes,he did screw over his best friendgaz--but that was to save new york city.he DID stop the second coming by tainting zed---but bringing thesecond coming may have offset armaggeddon...which i don't think would've been good for anyone. he also started a bar fight with the first of the fallen (badass)so his friend could go to heaven earning himself a life of torment...if that ain't a sacrifice,i don't know WHAT is. I mean sure,he's cheated people out of money ,but what is that compared to saving the world a few time and averting serious fuck ups? and even when he does do some dastardly shit,he does have a sense to feel bad about it.that nu52 constantine lacked that preptual guilt of the hellblazer version--this guy was just...a bit too heartless.i mean constantine WASan asshole but an asshole and heartless are not the same thing.

     

    what nu52 got right was john's amazing and uncanny ability to outwit people above his level quite easily-fighting smart ,not hard--which is what made nick necro a poorly delivered villain.it wasn;t the match of wits it should've been--nick was eaither beastmoding everybody or trying to get back with his exes---if it was like an L vs Light Yagami [deathnote] typ thing then YES,that would've been gold.Or conversly,Nick could've been fuck psycho from being sent to hell and could've been joker-level creepy,or like some of the worse versions of klarion bleak--

     

    As for constantine:the hellblazer?? i doubt john would just screw some evil demon bitch for shits and giggles---do we remember how elle the sucubus from hellblazer had to help john out?yup,with John Constantine,you gotta pay for the D--then oliver...would've been better if he also turned out to be involved in the supernatural and even though john has had bystanders fucked over--after Astra ,he generally hadn't had too many kids in the freezer on his behalf.also...can i talk about how Neron and papa midknight were both disrespected? okay...really i am trying to find a decent point but its getting pretty hard to ,so i'm gonna drop it.

     

    basically,i knew the reboot was destined to fail as they failed to grasp john

     

    I think that writers miss the biggest point of constantine: sometimes to do the right thing,you gotta get your hands dirty...and sometimes get em' bloody.

     

    Hardly slander when the charges are no more truer then and now for the latest axed comic

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