Raindog

I've always liked Sean Murphy's approach to an aging Constantine. Shame he got some of the worst scripts to draw. City of Demons still pisses me off whenever I think about it...

I'm going to chime in with a small positive: I liked that Constantine smoked himself back into being (even if it sounds damn stupid to just say, it was a very cool visual). When the title of the final storyline was "Death and Cigarettes" I though it was a stupid, vapid phrase. "Death" because this is a horror title's end, and "Cigarettes" because… well, it's Constantine, right? Can't just say "Death and Trench Coats." Used "trench coat" in the title of a storyline barely a year ago. So (and this might be the soft bigotry of low expectations) the fact that cigarettes actually had an important role in the story was a sublime little moment.

Having first read Gemma in Ennis' run and really liking who she became in Mike Carey's hands, seeing her reduced to this trembling, stuttering shadow of her former self seems really unfortunate. On one hand, she's the most obvious symbol of all Constantine's failures, and not even his occult ones, just his simple failure to be a reliable family member for his niece. On the other hand, Milligan doesn't seem at all interested in exploring her as more than a paper-thin persona. Milligan's women in this story, from his cheap fat jokes at the expense of Angie, to the abuse heaped on Gemma, even Epihany (who I like) are thin shadows of real people.

Constantine's final departure from Piffy seems ridiculous, too.

I don't know if Gemma's magic bullet kills Constantine and he disappears and we see that for John hell is really being an ordinary old codger in a Liverpool pub, or if it's mean to be a kind of Finnegan's Wake wherein the whole series has been the fleeting thought of an old man, or we're seeing John's future as having escaped his fated death but now is just a lonely old man and we're catching him in the moment of realization of what an idiot he's been, or (as mentioned previously) that the bullet destroys "magician" Constantine and we see the 60-year-old man he really would be.

Maybe it's just a cruel joke at his expense or a curse. Either one is kind of appropriate if we look at John turning his back on everything good in his life in another "nobody hurt anymore" bout of self-pitying avoidance that finally bites him right on his old arse.

Or maybe it's a little meta commentary. He winds up an old man surrounded by hipsters, trapped. Just another undying piece of intellectual property... and nothing makes you show your age like never growing old.

Hellblazer is dead. Long live Hellblazer.

Welcome back, Raindog, pull up a chair and get comfy, it's gonna be a rough ride into the sunset.

Thanks Rogan, the worst part is that it's not even likely to be an ending, just a stopping point, y'know? There's been a lot of comic blog posts I've read about Hellblazer's cancellation, and I think the central thing everyone's essentially getting at is how its a shame that there's no build up to this. There's no valedictory lap for John or the title, no big finale. Just a useful issue-number coincidence.

It's the terrible resolution to his arcs that have driven me mad. The plots where even if there's a good set-up, as I thought the insanity/thumb cutting issues did, the resolution is often "Well, lets not do that." When I've dropped Hellblazer in the past, it's always been a matter of finances - comics or food. Reading these last few issues has been the first time I've looked at Hellblazer as some weird obligation.

Looking back over the past dozen issues or so, I like the rare times when Milligan tries to look at John as the aged former rebel. When he tries to pull out the punk duds or walks past a 99% rally at the beginning of the latest arc. But it never seems to really go anywhere.

Eh. *cough* Hello. Came to (re)join as the end is nigh for John.

I first ran into Constantine in the Books of Magic trade, and years later got properly introduced to him with Ennis' "Fear and Loathing" trade (I couldn't resist the title). I didn't start picking up the individual issues until Azzarello's "Lapdogs & Englishmen", which I thought was an awesome little two-part con. I enjoyed how far Azz stretched the concept of what JC could be, and it really hooked me on Constantine and made me go back to see what had come before. I kept up all through Carey's run, loved the opening to Dina's first story (c'mon, that t-shirt gag was great... and then the rest of the story happened, and even Manco's art couldn't keep me interested). I couldn't afford most of Diggle's run, but picked it back up with Milligan's stuff. Here we are

My name's Matt young. I'm a student at the Center For Cartoon Studies in Vermont, USA. I think being originally from Pittsburgh, another smoke-blackened ex-industrial town, is what attracts me to stories about London and England.

I've always wanted to live there, too. I'm a huge fucking Anglophile and am probably one of the few left to proudly wear his Welsh heritage (anything to claim history in the UK). I've continued horrible fucking relationships just because the girl had a family home there, and she said we could go touring from it over the summer. (Of course, I didn't think about how I'd have to spend all my time there with her.)

I started reading Hellblazer during Azzarello's run, but started with the "Fear and Loathing" trade (great name). Then got hooked into Azz's run around "Highwater." Went through Carey's stuff, which felt like someone hired him to be the continuity plumber (clear out some o' them hairballs and golems in the trap, and exchange we'll let you really scar John). I like Mina's idea (let's have John meet someone new!) but really wish they'd just let her write a graphic novel, because that 7 part story just killed me. I'm really looking forward to Diggle.

I forget how I found this site, but I really enjoyed reading the commentary, the level of discourse here is really cool (and the Hasselhoff appearances and the like keep the pomposity deflated). Missed not reading during the end of Mina's run while I was waiting for the trade, looking forward to being part of the site now.

Gotta go get a new icon, since James already has a Dr. Venture one, and I don't want to be the other Doc Venture guy.