Donnie Van

Yeah, I can relate, Rogan. Try finding a pub in Great Falls, Montana. Every bar here requires it's patrons to wear a cowboy hat and spurs before entering.

Good show on posting up "Lord of the Dance." I've always loved that issue. Everything about it is just so spot-on, from John's rambling about mundane problems followed up with a casual "Oh, and there's a ghost following me" to the two drunken stumblers sining to the Lord of the Dance.

Oddly enough, that's the one issue of Hellblazer of mine that seems to have gotten lost during moving. A Christmas anti-miracle, I guess.

"Flowers For Rhino"

A take on Flowers for Algernon, obviously, though it didn't come to me until I was about halfway through Part 2.

And I have to say that was surprisingly good and eloquent. "Written by Peter Miligan" ... no, forget the "surprising" part. I should have known it was gonna be great the second I saw his name on it.

Another wonderful choice, Rogan. Cheers!

I'd say DC more than Vertigo, really. He's always around in the DC books whenever mystic shit is happening. Probably because he's one of the few magician-types that doesn't come off as completely hokey.

I mean, it's hard to take Dr. Fate's sorcery skills seriously when he goes around Ankh Blasting bad guys, and Zatanna comes off as silly when she prances around in fishnets (not that I'd have her any other way, but you get my drift).

Here we go: Aquaman #32 ("Sea of Green") and 33 ("Vision Quest").

What was going on with Swampy then? Was that after volume 2 ended?

Alec was in Aquaman (Peter David series, #30 or thereabouts). He wound up going inside Aquaman's head and fixing something ... or whatever. I don't know. I never read it.

That's the most recent DCU Proper Swampy I've noticed.

There was a montage of magical characters (John included) in Dr. Fate #1 last year. And that's the most recent one I can remember.

You gonna do more character entries after all that?

Just thought these might be interesting to some of you guys.

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They should be, because I wrote them!

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Haha! I was kinda hoping someone here was the author, actually.

Loved the Delano and Ennis Era write-ups, actually, and would really like to see the Paul Jenkins one (yes, I'm one of the odd few that actually liked Jenkins run).

Very nicely done, though. They're chock full of information, and written wonderfully to boot.

I wouldn't worry about it. I've gotten multiple items from Amazon in times past, and they never seem to notice. I think they're too huge and unwieldy an organization for something minute like that to avoid slipping through the cracks.

But yeah, definitely hang on to it.

I didn't find anything sexual about it, either.

But maybe I was scoffing too much for it to work properly ...

Danita Wright ... Joshua Wright.

Think there was ever a thought going around about relating the two?

I'm playing "Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door" for the GameCube. I know, I know ... it looks stupid and childish. And it sort of is. But it's funny and stylish at the same time, and a nice light-hearted contrast to putting in hours on "Halo 2" and "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas."

Everything2 is a sort of cyber-encyclopedia (one of many). Just fucking around, I did some searches on Hellblazer-related things. I was surprised that there was actually a good deal of information there. Take this write-up on the First of the Fallen, for example. It's got everything from #62 up to #199.

This guy's also written summaries of Delano's and Ennis' runs, the beginning of the Vertigo imprint, and a nice little write-up on Nergal detailing his existence all the way back to that obscure battle with Dr. Fate none of us have ever read.

Just thought these might be interesting to some of you guys.

Agreed. It's another one of those books that's opened my eyes as to what can actually be conveyed through the comic book.

Don't let the price scare you away, folks. It's worth it.

Frog one. I've never read that, and it sounds interesting enough.

Someone asked Mike what would happen if Lucifer and John went against one another in an interview once. I don't recall what he said, but I remember laughing about it.

Anyone remember it?

I actually have this one.

Wonderful story. Definitely one of the most interesting, unique things I've read in comics in a long time.

Nice call, Rogan.

Strange. Works for me.

Well, anyways, it's a little article about this guy (someone named Kent Orlando) and his ideal Justice League roster. The first eleven are:

01. Superman

02. Batman

03. Green Lantern (Hal Jordan)

04. Flash (Jay Garrick)

05. Wonder Woman

06. Aquaman

07. The Atom (Ray Palmer)

08. Hawkwoman

09. Robot Man (Cliff Steele)

10. Black Lightning

11. Katana

His final pick is, of course, John Constantine. Here's his reasoning:

12.)  JOHN CONSTANTINE  -- Okay:  in a weird, roundabout sort of way... this all ties in with the long-ago  Justice League "mascot" known and revered (or reviled; mileage varies) as  "Snapper" Carr.

 

 

I'm.   Not.  Going.  One.  Step.  Farther.  Until.  You.   Put.  Those.  Butterfly.  Nets.  Away.  Dammit.  ;-))

 

Love him or loathe him (and I know folks on both sides of that  clay court; heck... I've played on both sides, over the years), the irrepressible  "Snapper" served a wholly valid storytelling purpose, back in the Silver  Age JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA comics.  He was the ground level voice and P.O.V. of  the "everyman":  the almost aggressively "normal" human  whose goshwow reactions to the derring and doings of the various god-like beings around  him was meant to serve as a sort of emotional "tether" to the sympathies of the  readers of the day.

 

This is a time-honored literary conceit,  stretching all the way back to the days of the Greek chorus, in plays such as Oedipus  Rex;  and I'm of a mind that maybe -- just maybe, mind, now -- something  interesting might be made of it again, in the very same comics series which first  utilized said device.

 

Now... the question raises itself, at  this point:  "Do I think said character could 'work' today, played with  the same sort of whey-faced innocence...?"

 

... and the mournful answer, in return:   "Not.  A.  Chance."  ;-))

 

I'm willing to make that much of a concession to The  Brutal Realities of Today's Comics Marketplace.  We're all (it says here) a little  more knowing; a little more cynical, jaded and world-weary.  And an  "everyman" character would, naturally, need to reflect such a sea change  in the readership gestalt.

 

The sly, saturnine and fatally charming  (in an oily, mildly repulsive sort of way) John Constantine -- an aggressive, acerbic and  relentlessly self-centered amateur "magician" (read:  "con  artist") -- would, I think, play spectacularly well against The Big Blue Boy Scout (Superman); the League's resident "control freak" (the Batman); the  monarch who's used to pretty much everyone sketching a quick salute whenever he  glides by (Aquaman); and so on... while tweaking interesting responses, in turn, from the  bleakly sarcastic likes of the equally sarcastic Robot Man; shocking even Katana with his  naked, "me-first" opportunism; and so forth.  ;-))

 

Plus:  everyone's always harping on and  bloody on about how "the Justice League needs a magic-user in their  ranks" (although they certainly seemed to limp along ably enough for one hundred-plus  or so issues without one, back in the day)... and Constantine's presence would mean  we (the readers) wouldn't be subjected to the tired and tiresome likes of, say, Zatanna.   So:  you see.  ;-))

 

Yeah... well... you'd all probably be applauding and tossing  bouquets of roses up onto the proscenium if Grant Morrison had said it first.   ;-))

 

WHAT HE BRINGS TO THE PARTY:  The  "everyman" view of the '90's, and beyond... while surrounded by heroes (and  heroines) who -- for the most part -- hearken back to the all-but-forgotten charms of an  earlier, bygone era.  And you can't buy the sort of frictional fireworks that that  would provide, nowadays.  ;-))

And yes, he does use that ugly text smiley way too much.

He sold it three times in Dangerous Habits but won it back in issue 61 by foiling The First three times. Then chopped it into bits and put the bad parts in the Demon Constantine, then he had sex with Ellie to regain the taint. Finally, he sold exclusive rights to The First at the end of Jenkins' run.

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What about the Golden Boy thing?

I don't have those issues, but the summary here says their souls combine at the end or something.

That was "Tower of Babel," and I think it's a Mark Waid story.

It's been awhile, but basically it went like:

Batman, being the paranoid psychotic rich kid he is, secretly gathers information on his fellow Justice Leaguers and uses them to make up some rather inane plans just in case they happen to go rogue and start blowing shit up.

Too bad he didn't work on a better security system instead, because I think Ra's Al Ghul breaks into the Batcave, steals the plans from the computer, and modifies them to be ... well, not lethal, although he fucking should have if he were a real villain. But whatever. He goes out, enacts all the stupid little plans, and then nobody dies, and all the Leaguers feels betrayed by Batman, and they vote him out of the League (and he's back in like two issues).

From what I remember of the plans:

Superman: A synthetic piece of red kryptonite that turns his skin transparent. He absorbs too much solar radiation, and writhes around in pain like a creepy skinless sissy.

(With all that solar radiation, his strength is bound to be supremely high. Yes, let's make Superman even stronger.)

Wonder Woman: VR helmet that makes her think she's fighting the ultimate opponent. So she fights the air in front of her until she dies.

(Am I the only one who thinks Wonder Woman flying around kicking randomly is a potentially bad idea?)

Martian Manhunter: Little nanobots that explode into flames when they are in contact with oxygen, so he's forced to retreat to space.

(Couldn't he just turn intangible and have all the little nanobots fall off his ghostly form? Oh well ...)

Plastic Man: Freeze him.

Aquaman: Something about making him afraid of water. At that point, he needed to enter water every 24 hours to live or something.

(That's it? Weak.)

Green Lantern: Break into his apartment at night and plant a hypnotic suggestion in his head. Something about not using his Power Ring.

(Wouldn't breaking into his apartment at night and clubbing him to death be more effective?)

Flash: Shoot him with a special vibrating bullet. Flash vibrates through bullets, so when he tries to vibrate through this one, the cross ... uhh, cross-vibrational [comic book science] stuff makes him have light-speed seizures.

(That doesn't even make sense.)

Am I a sad person for knowing all this?

Alright, I've got another one.

Can someone give me an in-depth history of John's soul, and all the times he's done something to it? It just occured to me while reading through some of Jenkins' run that his soul seems to get played around with quite a bit.

Very interesting.

Alright, so a question about Tefe, then: Is she still biologically related to John? I only have a handful of v.3's issues (and don't like them enough to warrant tracking down the rest), but from what I've gathered, John and Alec managed to somehow wipe Tefe's memory and then infest her spirit into the corpse of Mary Conway.

Wouldn't that sever the Constantine connection?

There's really a character called Psycho Pirate?

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The funny part?

He's the second Psycho Pirate.

Crying shame, man. I didn't hear about it until I showed up at work last night, and my co-cook Greg told me. I was just sort of in shock. So was Rue, our manager. He's a huge Pantera fan (so much so that he's actually got a Pantera tattoo).

It's a tragedy, to be sure. I am glad that Vin is gonna be alright, though. Physically, anyways. Seeing your brother shot on stage before your eyes will undoubtedly leave some emotional scarring.

:icon_cry: R.I.P. Dimebag Darrell ...

Although probably not in the vein you're looking for, and mercifully leaving out my religious psycho-babble, I thought the death of Jesus in "The Passion of the Christ" was very powerful. Some people have criticized it for being overly-violent, almost to a pornographic extent, but I didn't find it to be distasteful. But then again, I think I'm sort of desensitized to this stuff.

The Bride vs. the Crazy 88s in "Kill Bill" was cool, in an over-the-top sort of way (and yeah, I know it was supposed to be like that).

I was only a wee little one when I saw it, and maybe that's why, but the end of "The Good Son" has always stuck very vividly in my mind. That little fucker finally gets his comeuppance ...

Oh, and Ash vs. the Pit Witch in "Army of Darkness." That was just as fun as it gets.

[More if I can think 'em up ...]

I've got one. And I know answers will vary, but let's give it a try ...

How many kids does John have? Aside from Saul and Co.

Biologically speaking, there's Tefe. I read somewhere (and I swear I thought it was here, pre-Millarworld forums) that Zed was knocked up from one of their little encounters, but I've never read any in-comic bits to support that.