Hellblazer, Vol. 5: Dangerous Habits

Hellblazer: New Editions

by Garth Ennis (Writer), Jamie Delano, William Simpson (Illustrator)

This new Hellblazer collection features several tales never before collected, including a look at John Constantine's rough and tumble childhood and the beginnings of his unique skills. Then, in some of the earliest stories from Preacher writer Garth Ennis, John Constantine is dying. As a sorcerer literally haunted by the demons of his past, John is no stranger to mystic bedevilment or supernatural horror. But it's his chain smoking that ultimately brings death to Constantine's front door. John Constantine has lung cancer. Though condemned to hell, Constantine continues to laugh in the face of this all-too-serious world.

Collecting: Hellblazer 34-46

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Horror, Fantasy, Comic Book, Dc Comics, Urban Fantasy

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 2013

About the author

Ennis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.

Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.

Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.

Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.

While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.

Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.

After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.

In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.

Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.

In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.

In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Ennis

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume almost has multiple personalities. I'm not sure why DC decided to combine the end of Delano's run with the beginning of Ennis's. Maybe to force you to buy the Delano half? I'll give props to DC for finally collecting the rest of Delano's run. Only one of the seven issues had been collected before. Once you read it though, you can pretty much see why it was never collected in the past. Delano is 40 issues into this run and still hasn't realized comics are a visual medium. He's writing a prose novel with some illustrations. It's so boring. It's John Constantine back hanging out with Marj and Mercury being a mystic hippy. The only exception is the 2 issues Steve Pugh draws. It's about a young vegetarian being terrorized by his father who runs a slaughterhouse. There is plenty of horrific moments in these two issues, in visceral detail by Steve Pugh. The rest of Delano's run is a bunch of dull, flowery language and meandering story.

Then Garth Ennis comes in like a crack of thunder and bolt of lightning. This might as well be the start of the series. Constantine is back to the sarcastic, smartass magician we all know and love. He's back to being the con man who knows a bit of magic. Even in the face of the news that he has cancer and will die soon. We get this cathartic look at John going around making amends to his friends while showing flashes of his old self. There's just some brilliant moments in this.

It was during Ennis's run that I started picking up Hellblazer in single issues and I still think it's the best run on the character. It's also some of Ennis's best work of his career. It's right up there with Preacher. If you like Ennis and haven't read this yet, son, you are missing out.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of two halves - though there is a continuity between the end of Jamie Delano's run (#34-40) and the start of Garth Ennis's (#41-46) which mean this makes sense - and that Delano clearly paved the way for Ennis' legendary 'Dangerous Habits' story which is many fans' favourite (yet for which Delano gets no credit that I've read so far. The 'Dangerous Habits; story was also the basis for the 2005 Constantine film.

(I'm going to post my review of #41-46 under the old collection for space reasons. This post is about #34-40.)

In #34 John Constantine turns up in a toxically depressed state on the doorstep of Marj and Mercury's van, and psychic now-teenager Merc says she smells death on him and can feel his mood becoming contagious to her and her mum. In Delano's story this is because JC just intentionally killed a man for the first time - but it left the door open for Ennis to use these lines as if Merc had also/instead sensed that he was terminally ill. (I agree with a couple of other reviewers who doubt that JC would be so severely affected by shooting dead a serial killer when he has already, numerous times, been involved in magical accidents and missions with collateral damage in which blameless friends of his have died horribly.)

There's a one-issue flashback to JC's childhood in #35, in which he may have had another near miss with a serial killer - in some ways this feels like it belongs with the childhood material in The Family Man collection, but it's evident why it's afterwards, when he's processing his more recent experience. (Still, the inevitable separate volumes create divisions where there were never originally meant to be any.) JC was a tough, self-reliant kid, but even the placement of the story seems to show how this experience had a lasting effect.

In #36 JC's psychic journey to what he feels is the most likely scenario for his own death also lays groundwork for Dangerous Habits. It's not imminent, it's in 2032, but it's still smoking-related.

Old near-future stories are always interesting to see how they compare with what's actually happening. This one from 19 years ago is no exception, with now, 12 years to go until the setting. Crabby 79 year-old JC has been, for some reason, living in a sanctimonious utopian community. The illogic in this is kind of acknowledged in his conversation with a caricature-librarian-like woman who appears to be a staff member. She says "There will be bandits -- savage animals. It's bad outside." JC: "I've been outside all my life. I'll manage." But it provides a vehicle for Delano to write a short dystopia with sort-of predictions, and I'm happy to go along for that ride.

S:"You were fully grown before devolution…" [tick, that happened in the late 90s] "… and depopulation" [Very unlikely as soon as 2032, even if you've been noticing how closely the Limits to Growth graph has been panning out and were basing your dystopia on those. Yes, I once tried to write a spec-fic story using that.]
S: "You must have eaten flesh as a boy" [Fuck, am I watching that Simon Amstell film Carnage?] "You're fortunate to have avoided encephalopathy - meat madness" [Ah, this was because of BSE, not an insight that veganism would grow in the 2010s.]
JC: "I was there but you haven't lived til you've survived a couple of plagues." [He'd have meant BSE and AIDS, but it sounds prescient read in 2020.]
S: "You came to Greenhill when? Twenty years ago at the end of the typhoon decade." [It certainly wasn't that bad in the 2000s, but the general idea that stormier weather and stronger tropical cyclones would be among the first signs of the climate crisis getting serious? Spot on for some countries, albeit not Britain.]

"Persistent tobacco cultivation and abuse" [Whilst it's not demonised that much, smoking was officially squeezed out of more and more public places in the UK in the 00s.] "… obsessive negativism, dis-harmonious attitudes, refusal to participate in group dynamics -- sexism" [I for one am certainly recognising a phenomenon in some areas of culture in the last few years, an atmosphere with a more collective and conformist than individualist and renegade outlook, often dictated by female authority figures. And indeed one sometimes has to be that in a small way, even if ambivalent about the general direction.]

JC: " Yeah yeah -- I know. I'm a thoroughly useless ... member of the community. A waste of scarce resources." [Opposite. Towards the end of the 2010s a hard pro-humanist turn was visible among radical-left environmentalists, and that undercurrent seems to have mainstreamed as a more general tendency, not just environment-related, among many political groupings during the covid pandemic.] "A troublesome non-conformist." [Though these, especially the sort that JC is, seem to be seen as increasingly a problem, especially on the left and centre, rather than essentially cool as they were when the character was created.]

Reading over forty of these monthly comics in the space of one month, it was easy to forget how much passage of time there was during them for the original readers - and for the characters, who in this series age in real time. I was reminded of this as Mercury was now clearly a teenager, chasing after a boy of 18 and her mum happy about it, when not long ago in my reading, she'd defined herself several times as 'just a kid'. The only span of ages over which this would make sense to me (as someone who was a teenager in the UK in the 90s, and therefore likely to have had a similar sense of maturity) was if she was 13 or 14 in late 1988/early '89 in 'The Fear Machine', and 15 or 16 in late 1990/early '91 in #34-40.

This arc in #36-38 about Mercury and Martin, the sensitive son of an abusive butcher - which for some reason doesn't have its own name, instead each issue having its own title - The Undiscovered Country, Man's Work and Boys' Games - is one of the smaller stories that I've been looking forward to reading in Hellblazer, about individuals fortuitously stumbled on and helped. And as this is primarily Mercury's adventure rather than JC's, there's less collateral damage along the way and a refreshingly lighter mood.

I liked it for a couple of other reasons too. Together with one of the Fear Machine issues, confirmed an idea about a counterculture fashion I'd had since my teens, and indeed located it in the late 80s and early 90s. I've always had a sense that British military surplus jumpers were kind of a counterculture fashion item, and I've usually owned at least one ever since I was a student. But over the last decade my reference point for this had drifted away and I could no longer remember exactly where I'd got the idea from, and I didn't know if other people still perceived the jumpers that way. (I still don't know that bit.) But seeing the jumpers in these comics, being worn - perhaps paradoxically to those unfamiliar with the fashion - by New Age travellers reassured me that I had remembered something correctly.

And then there's the synchronicity. (Synchronicity is also one of Constantine's powers.) Since I started reading these, I've experienced a series of small synchronicities connected to them. I went to sleep one night after reading #34. At that point I hadn't opened any of the subsequent issues, and didn't know what to expect from the rest of the Delano run. I woke up about 3.30 after what can only be described as a nightmare. I continued reading the comics because I may as well and I'm not so bothered by these things that I wouldn't read a horror comic. Issue #37, which I got to maybe an hour later, was so similar in theme to the nightmare that you'd have thought I'd have had the dream *after* reading it, not before I knew what was even in it. (It's not one of those stories that gets talked about in reviews and articles.)

The art of these three issues, like the others in this collection by Sean Phillips and Steve Pugh, has the colourful blockiness of traditional comics art, with a bit more detail added - and I prefer it to the heavily-lined and sometimes ghostly washed-out look of Dave McKean's in #40.

Delano's final story of his Hellblazer run has what I've already come to see as a typical focus on the character's psychology and other, mystical planes of existence. Constantine, wrestling with various psychological issues, becomes conscious that he had a stillborn twin, the Golden Boy, who in parallel universes would have been brilliant and loved in ways he himself was not. He travels on another plane to meet him; in more conventional psychological terms, he is integrating another aspect of himself he might have been. From background material I'd read on the series up to this point, I'd assumed that the Golden Boy was good and kind as well as more gifted than Constantine. Instead what Delano wrote here is a character who has more in common with the family psychology category of the golden child. They *may* be very nice, but they aren't always, and they can certainly be domineering. (I'm the offspring of someone who was the golden child among their siblings, but as I only found out about this relatively recently, I haven't explored the concept that much, but I'm certainly aware of the downsides of golden children.) It's odd seeing the originating author apparently undermining hype like this and producing what feels like a revisionist take. I don't know whether later writers of the series had different takes on the Golden Boy, or if online commentators have just interpreted him strangely. The Golden Boy had been described as a messiah, but here, he's just a charismatic, controlling cult leader, who has a stable home unlike JC, and more of his cohort survived and stuck around than JC's. He doesn't seem to be doing anything great for them, and JC can see he's not all he's cracked up to be. "I'm surprised Zed let you get away with all that bollocks. The one I knew has a bit more spark. But then she never had a lifetime of your self-righteousness to wear her down."

Apparently integrating the Golden Boy, or at least learning a lot from his encounter, means that it makes an unusual amount of sense for JC to have a slightly different personality when he is taken over by the new writer. (Though, not having read any other long-running comic series, for all I know devices like this are a common cover, as obvious as Doctor Who regenerating.)

[James DeSantis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jamie leaves and in enters Garth!

The ending to Jamie's run hits some emotional parts but overall it's nothing special. Just like most of his run, it's overly written and boring. He's trying to make our hero go through a spiritual jounary but none of it is interesting. The niece/uncle stuff is by far the best stuff. On the flipside Ennis comes in and creates a powerful story about a very real disease, cancer, and how he'll have to handle it. A trick to the devils? Friends leaving and dying? All the darkness Hellblazer is known for grows here.

As I said the first half of this book is decent enough but nothing really worth talking about. It's the later half of Dangerous Habits arc that really pushes the character into a interesting zone. The supernatural twist, the realistic viewing on dealing with cancer, and the loss of friends all works really well here. The ending is heartbreaking in the best ways.

I sadly can't go full 4 stars since I did love the ending, but the first half of this book is dull for most part. A 3.5 out of 5. We might get a 4 next volume!

[Ｆｒａｎｋｈ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Walking away is what I do best. Walking away without a glance over my shoulder at the misery and bloodshed I've left behind me. I escaped when I shouldn't have. I cheated. I laughed in the face of the Devil when all the other people can do is succumb. Because that's what it is to be me. To be John Constantine."

There are a lot of reasons to read and recommend Hellblazer. If your desire is to read a compelling serialized paranormal comic book series then this will more than satisfy such cravings. If you enjoy complex anti-heroes and their existential struggles against their inner demons, then John Constantine will never disappoint you. I started reading Hellblazer because of those reasons (and because I was just instantly curious to find out more about who John is after reading his brief cameo in The Sandman volume 1 and watching that Keannu Reeves film adaptation which most of the fans did not receive positively). I'm also a sucker for supernaturally-driven storylines especially when they are told impressively, and the drama and mystery elements within are well-balanced with the great characterizations. Again, Hellblazer has more than provided these requirements.

After reading and reviewing the first fifty-issues so far (the first wave of my Hellblazer comics diet sadly has come to an end for this year), I can honestly say that this volume collection is the finest the series has produced yet. Composed of thirteen issues (#34-46), Dangerous Habits was a collaborative work of original series creator Jamie Delano and new writer Garth Ennis. The latter writer has written the six-part Dangerous Habits story arc which dealt with John Constantine's battle against the most human yet grievous of ills: contracting lung cancer. This is all because of his indulgent smoking vice. In addition to that, this cancerous ailment is also the symbolic accumulation of all the bad habits he had acquired in his lifetime now finally catching up to him. It was an impressive concept in itself and a kind of story that suits someone of Constantine's character quite perfectly well. Ennis' story arc was invigorating; his prose was straightforward and genuinely comical even during the gravest of moments in the story.

I enjoyed his prose because it wasn't as verbose as Delano's. He doesn't lend himself to poetic language as much as the other writer which actually helped in telling his story which was able to stand by itself as a simple yet layered narrative concerning our titular hero's struggle to save himself from the impending doom of his mortality. That's not to say that Ennis didn't get flowery every now and then; but his style has more control and less showmanship which was refreshing since it allowed readers to focus on the story more than the linguistic style it was employed with.

I might sound like I dislike Delano's style but I would like to point out that the most genuinely poignant and disturbing moments in his Hellblazer issues are the ones where his prose has a tendency to get lost in itself due to several metaphors and imagery but are woven in the tapestry with a surprisingly effortless approach. Delano's verbosity and his penchant for incorporating figurative language in every narrative and dialogue for an issue can be confusing when the story he's telling lacks plot strength in the first place (cough, Fear Machine story arc, cough). But his style best complements stories like the ones found in this volume. As much as I enjoyed the scope of Ennis' Dangerous Habits story arc, it was Delano and his stories like Dead-Boy's Heart, Undiscovered Country, The Hanged Man and The Magus that made this volume an unforgettable collection I'm proud to own.

While Ennis told a story that was more grounded in reality while merely using a paranormal twist to drive in the consequences of our lead character's choices and mistakes, Delano chose to explore some more the mystical appeal of this series by giving us The Hanged Man and The Magus which are stories so out of this world and yet chilling in its presentation and familiarity despite having more magical elements.

I believe it's a wise decision to collect Delano's stories (issues #34-39) alongside that of Ennis' (issues#40-46). Delano's standalones and two-parters served as vital stories that established  and added more dimensions to Ennis' six-part arc afterwards. Their distinct styles as writers hardly ever clashed because they both managed to retain the essence of Hellblazer as a whole, and expound on their respective insights concerning John Constantine as the integral character himself. This is also the volume of the series that is the most personal for readers because we get to read John as he undergoes his journey of self-knowledge and impossible choices. Dangerous Habits has been very enlightening and it further sealed my love for this series and its beloved and forever fascinating anti-hero.

[Unofficially, I would recommend this to everyone I know. In fact, they can just read the first nine issues (Original Sins, first volume), Newcastle issue #11, The Family Man story arc (#24, #28-30) and #31 The Mourning of the Magician before they can dive straight to Dangerous Habits, fifth volume. I'm not even going to include The Fear Machine story arc in the mix because that was rubbish with only a few redemptive issues at the end.]

RECOMMENDED: 9/10

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well that's a neat trick to remember 😆

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am slowly working my way through the tales of John Constantine (the originals in case you were wondering), and here we are on to the collection that I think contains one of the most famous storylines of them all (and we are only at volume 5 there are nearly 20 more to go I believe).

I will not give anything away but for those that know Constantine will be probably able to guess. The story is just a visceral as you would expect and it pulls no punches this really is a man who is dammed in almost every sense of the word but still insists on fighting on and trying to find a way out - or at least a way to postpone the inevitable. This is the real face of John Constantine and now the one that has been sanitised over the years.

What really has impressed me is that this is so early in the series - reading around the stories and the artists and writers who have worked on the series it is amazing how many and how far its influence has gone. I will admit that I am intrigued to see what the remaining volumes get up to!

[Theo Logos · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Never tackle postmortems before breakfast…that’s what I always say.”

The above line is Jamie Delano’s, from the first section of this collection. It collects his final Hellblazer stories, and it’s easy to imagine him wanting no postmortems on them. The artwork ranges from boring/barely serviceable to hideous/barely intelligible. And the stories range from meh to cringe. Constantine is portrayed as not just beaten down, but weak, pathetic, a whiner wallowing in self pity. There is almost nothing of the brash con man magician in these tales, which begs the question, why read them? There are some revelations about his birth, childhood, and early life, but they suffer from being use to explain this pathetic excuse for Constantine. This opening section (which fills more than half the collection) rates only two stars.

”I laugh in the face of the Devil, when all the other people can do is succumb”

But then we get to what we came here for — what they named the collection for — Garth Ennis’s brilliant debut Hellblazer tale, Dangerous Habits. Ennis went big, went bold. His Constantine is in even worse shape than the final iteration Delano served up, but without having his cocky spark extinguished by his despair. Constantine is dying in a most mundane and terrible way — stage four terminal lung cancer. If that’s not enough, he’s tricked and humiliated the Devil who is salivating to give him personal attention when he arrives in Hell. Oh, and Heaven ain’t an option, and there’s no one left to help, and no debts he can call in. And backed into that impossible and bleak corner, Constantine does what Constantine does, with
”no sympathy for the Devil.”

I would have preferred to read Ennis’s Dangerous Habits by itself, without Delano’s stories tacked on to the beginning. The difference in both tone and energy between them is startling. Even the artwork in Dangerous Habits is superior to the earlier stuff. While there is a bit of continuity between Delano’s final, weak stories and Ennis’s tale, you won’t really lose much of anything if you just skip over them and go directly to Dangerous Habits. The four stars I gave this collection is based completely on the Ennis material. The remainder is dreck.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've literally been waiting to get to read the end of Delano's run of Hellblazer for almost 20 years, so it's great to finally see them in this new edition of Dangerous Habits.

Dead Boy's Heart (34-36). It's great to see Delano's story come full circle, as we get the return of Marj and Merc, who have been long-missing (and missed!) from the comic. Beyond that, John at his lowest looking for new hope is wonderfully depicted. The center issue of this trio, about John's childhood, is absolutely superb because it raises such questions about what made him into the Hellblazer [9/10] while the other two issues are quite good [7+/10].

Men & Boys (37-38). The pig story. This is a horribly wonderful depiction of cruelty that hurts to the bone, so it's a great story, even if it's more Merc's story than John's [7+/10].

The Golden Boy (39-40). Delano's finale is great. It offers secrets of John's past that add great depth to his character, and it also offers up a really wacky but really meaningful ending. I love it. [9/10]

I also love how much Delano's finale stories mirror The Fear Machine and some of his other work. It really ties everything together into a nicely cohesive whole. I'm really sorry that Ennis entirely dropped Marj and Merc and Errol and the rest.

Dangerous Habits (41-46). This remains a very definitive Constantine story. The polished and aloof John of the Swamp THing stories is long gone, but here we get an iconic characterization of John the trickster. Plunged into a realistic disaster, he fights back in the only way he can … and the result is terrific. As with so many Constantine writers, Ennis drops the previous supporting cast and creates his own, which I don't like … but seeing the first appearances of Ellie, the Snob, and Kit is nonetheless great [8/10].

I was a bit leery of having both Delano and Ennis in the same volume, but the transition was less abrupt than I expected, as Ennis at least makes references to Delano's stories and his wordy style in these early issues is a good match.

Overall, this isn't Delano's best work, but it's still strong, especially his ending, while this may well be Ennis' best Constantine.

[Sud666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was awesome! Utterly brilliant! Relax Jamie Delano, I am not talking about you. After nearly five volumes, well four and a half I suppose, of listening to Delano's leftist ramblings in the vein of "muh...Thatcher sucks....muh...England sucks....muh London sucks...." which were, appropriately enough, underwhelmingly backed up by terrible art work. Thankfully, for the series, Jamie Delano has been put out to pasture. Garth Enis takes over. Thank God!

Firstly, let us take a look at the end of Delano's run. I come not to praise Jamie Delano, but to bury him. I give him due credit for the several truly interesting Hellblazer stories I've read, over the five volumes. But the last few were not good. His environmental hippies and JC hanging out with them finding himself and so on was pretty awful. Both the art and the general story. But, Delano did seem to find some final gasp of creative juice with the final "ending" of his run and the concept of the "Golden Boy" which leads to the Magus. That was well done. But I do not weep to see Delano pass on.

Now, on to the good stuff- GARTH ENNIS! Yes, Ennis swoops in to save the day. We get the classic story "Dangerous Habits" (also the one that served as the basis for the Reeve's JC movie) and it is one of my favorites. JC is dying of lung cancer and has managed to piss of many people (and demons and worse). Due to his prior actions on behalf of a friend, he has drawn the hatered of the First of the Fallen.
Quick side note- While Lucifer is King of Hell, along with his own triumvirate, there is another triumvirate that consists of the First of the Fallen (Satan), the Second of the Fallen (nameless) and the Third of the Fallen (Nameless), just as a further aside according to this Veritgo lore Lucifer is the Fourth of the Fallen. JC's prestidigitation with his soul will cause a brilliant three-way conflict of wills. This is the quintessential Constantine. Ennis' interpretation of Constantine is not only spot on, but the emphasis on JC being likely one of the most manipulative and cunning Mages on Earth (or elsewhere) is set in stone with this volume.
All Constantine fans should read this excellent volume. Delano's run is over. Long live Ennis' run!

[Ivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

After weak volumes 3 and 4 finally we get a good one. This is John Constantine I singed up for.

It starts badly but than Garth Ennis takes over and quality jumps significantly. First half was between 2 and 3 stars There where few issues from quest writers and illustrators (Neil Gaiman and Sean Philips as most notable names) which where decent and it was last few issues that it really starts to get good and there was ending which was just brilliant.

[Lukas Sumper · Rating 4 out of 5]

For being really good it also surprisingly felt very undecided, starting with Garth Ennis redconning a bit, so some characters close to John suddenly are alive again (hey I dig it). But then it hurts when a really good story line gets going and one or two issues later it ends in a mention without much closure just to move into the next adventure.

Very weird.. because the stories themselves are a thrill to read. There are some real gems in here but in a complete picture this sadly missed the mark a bit.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars

[ir · Rating 3 out of 5]

more interesting because it focused on constantine as a person - his relationship with his sister and the cancer patient was neat. the way he used his wits to cure.. his cancer was also nice. that panel where he’s slitting his wrists and jesus is above him is.. insane. better and absolutely fucked-up art in general.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume contains one of the best Hellblazer stories ever. I read the original version years ago, and it just had the Garth Ennis storyline. This one contains both the end of Delano's run as well as the Garth Ennis story.

Now, to me this was almost like two separate books, so I'll show how I arrived at the combined rating.

Delano Stories: 3 Stars

The Delano stories were just "out there." Even though Hellblazer is a pretty weird comic, these stories took it to another level. I don't know if Delano was ready to leave the character and therefore just tossing out his strangest tales, or if he just genuinely wanted to take Hellblazer in an even more experimental direction. Probably somewhere in the middle. I won't get into specifics other than saying it was more several one shot stories rather than anything cohesive. It wasn't horrible, and some people probably loved it. It was just a little too far out for me.

Garth Ennis Story: 5 stars

Garth Ennis really knocked it out of the park. Constantine has constantly smoked like a chimney since the character was introduced, so sadly he is stricken with lung cancer. It's terminal, and he doesn't have many options. So he comes up with a plan that only he could He sells his soul to three demons, and none of the others know about it. (One he didn't actually sell his soul to, but...well, you should read for yourself.) When it comes time to claim his soul, none of the three demons are willing to give it up. The only option is war. However, if they go to war they know Heaven will sweep in and defeat them all. So they do the only thing they can do: keep Constantine alive so his souls isn't up for grabs at all. There's also a scene where Constantine bonds with an older man who is battling cancer, and the interaction between the two really adds a human element to the otherwise supernatural story.

Just really well done, and pretty much defines the character. If you're a Constantine fan, you have to read this one. If you aren't, maybe you should try it anyway. It may make you a fan.

If you're a Constantine fan, this one is a must read. Honestly, even if you aren't, this one is still entertaining. I

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half and more is bad. Now, I know John Constantine will never be all sunshine and roses - far from it actually - but the amount of ugliness here is not good, to put it mildly. Horrendous illustrations don't help either.

The eponymous last part of this volume saves the day as far as the story and illustration go, so there's that. Smart placement.

[Nicolo · Rating 5 out of 5]

As Jamie Delano winded up his run in this collection, Garth Ennis began his own lengthy run on Hellblazer with an arc that soon became on of the iconic Constantine stories as it was the main inspiration for the Keanu Reeves movie.

This is easily merits a five-star rating from me.

[Dev · Rating 4 out of 5]

me on an average day: I would fistfight Garth Ennis in a Wal-Mart parking lot at 3 AM
me after reading Dangerous Habits: Wow! I cannot believe Garth Ennis single-handedly made Hellblazer interesting!!

In all seriousness, I do generally enjoy Ennis' work at least on some level but I also think that as he goes along he often gets lost in what he perceives to be his own genius, but this is very early days so I have high hopes continuing forward. BUT, before we get to all that I guess I should wrap up my thoughts on Delano's run, which mostly boils down to 'I appreciate the effort and am probably being mildly unfair to him overall but also I thought it was pretty boring'.

If I was rating this based purely on Delano's writing it would be 3 stars, and if I was rating it based purely on Ennis' it would be 5. But since I have decided to read the expanded versions simply because they're more linear, I'll have to settle in at 4 stars for the whole thing. BUCKLE IN. THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG REVIEW!

So for this last part of Delano's run Marj and Mercury are back and issue 34 pretty much just introduces that and allows for John to be annoyingly emo. I know a lot of people complained that Nu52 John was too much of an asshole but honestly I'll take it over Delano's version because it seems to me like all he does is whine and expect other people to fix him. Issue 35 was interesting because it was a flashback issue and I pretty much love anything we get to see about John's childhood. And he was a damn creepy kid too. Issue 36 was pretty good too because Mercury just totally drags John and I'm just like yes!!! But then she kind of apologizes for it later and I'm like no honey, he's an ass.

Also there's a weird kind of flash-forward thing to his possible death, which we get back to later but first there's a quick weird aside where Mercy rescues a butcher's son from his abusive dad in issues 37 & 38. It also gives us this page [NSFW] which absolutely kills me. AND IT'S STILL IN DELANO'S RUN. That is like the most Ennis thing I've ever seen and it's not even in one of his issues. Like, you could play 90’s edgelord bingo with that page. You've got animal heads, BDSM overtones, a disposable bald pervert guy ...amazing.

Anyway then issue 39 and 40 goes back to the weird trippy death stuff where we find out John had a twin brother he killed in the womb. At first I was going to complain about these issues because they were painting it like ...as an excuse for John being awful at everything I guess and that if his brother [the Golden Boy] had survived everyone's lives would have been great, but then the whole point at the end was that that wasn't true and they're just like two-sides of the same coin or whatever so I was okay with that. And then of course you've got more of Delano's weird gender stuff that I think he's trying to be progressive with but ultimately makes me angry. The problem with all the ~nurturing mother~ overtones in a series like this is that John is an absolute mess and it basically leaves all the women in his life with the task of trying to take care of him, often at their own expense. I'm hoping we can get away from that going forward.

THEN FINALLY! DANGEROUS HABITS! This was so incredibly good. Like there could not be a bigger tone shift and it was mildly jarring to have them both presented in the same volume but I'm just so glad I finally got here! I've been thinking for the past 3 volumes 'wow, do you remember when this book used to be about demons and magic instead of John being emo and hanging out with hippies?? Because I barely do' BUT WE'RE BACK TO ALL THAT NOW! Also noticed a lot of quotes from this storyline that they used in the show, even though they weren't adapting it. Just a lot of great quotes overall here.

Issue 41 is basically just introducing the whole premise of John having cancer. Issue 42 was great firstly because John actually managed to HELP one of his friends for a change and also his interactions with the Devil were just so good. Part of me is kind of upset this came out before Gaiman's/Carey's Lucifer was a thing, but also I don't think it would have really worked with him because he's nowhere near that stupid [Lucifer is my absolute favorite jsyk]. Issue 43 was - surprise - also great! I love that John [and apparently all his demon friends] just go around calling Gabriel 'The Snob' all the time. Issue 44 was nice and it was good to see him trying to tie up loose ends with the few people he's got left. Issue 45 is where the whole thing really comes to a head and it was just so great. Like, this is the John Constantine I've been waiting for!! Also the character designs for the demons were really great. The art kept getting progressively better this entire volume. Then issue 46 is just wrapping things up now that he's not actually going to die anymore.

Anyway, this was just a really fun volume and I'm actually looking forward to continuing this series now! Also I really like Kit so far and I've heard good things about her from people who have read this series so I can't wait to see more of her [and I hope nothing TOO horrible happens to her although who am I kidding right].

[Hugo Emanuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This volume collects issues #34 to #46 (the first six issues are written by Jamie Delano and mark the end of his run on Hellblazer and the remaining six are penned by Garth Ennis).
I had build a considerable degre of expectation regarding this volume solely fueled by Ennis` "Dangerous Habits" arc, as I had heard very mixed opinions regarding the Jamie Delano penned issues included in this collection. As it turned out, the Delano issues were mostly excellent and stand proudly against Ennis' arc.

Issues #34 to #36 ("The Boogeyman", "Dead-Boy's Heart" and "The Undiscovered Country") are all part of the same sequencial story which finds Constantine drowned in booze and self-pity. His self-loathing and search for hope and meaning leads him straight to his friends Marj and Mercury (who first appear in "The Fear Machine", a story arc I have not yet read). A deep, meaningfull and touching voyage to Constantine's subconscious and fears ensues. The first two issues are pretty good and even if the third part is less stellar, I would still give the whole story a solid 7. The artwork on all three issues is assured by Sean Phillips who adds great visual gravitas to Delano's story.

Issues #37 to #38 ("Man's Work" and "Boy's Games"), also by Delano, relate a rather shocking and horrific story that dwelves deep into the cruely of the human heart. Constantine is barely present on this story, focusing more on Mercury. This rather good story is brilliantly complemented by Steve Pugh's art. I'll rate it 8.0.

Issues #39 and #40 ("The Hanged Man" and "The Magus"), the last two issues in Jamie Delano's run on Hellblazer, are excellent. We learn a secret about John Constantine's past that is so terrible that he himself had supressed. The first part of this story (issue#39 - "The Hanged Man") is drawn by Steve Pugh and it's excellent finale (issue #40 "The Magus") is by Dave Mckean, an artist with a style equally beautifull and surreal that fits perfectly into the tale it illustrates. Delano's final issue closes his "Hellblazer" work in a great way and whose references to his previous stories gives a very cohesive feel to his run. I'd give a 9.

Issues #41 to #46 mark the beggining of Garth Ennis' run on "Hellblazer" with his 6 issues long arc "Dangerous Habits". This arc is considered by many to be not only the best "Hellblazer" arc ever written but also Ellis' best work. Altough I tough it was very good, I believe the high expectations I had for this story somewhat diminuished my enjoyment of it. For some reason it did not feel as deep or "hellish" as Delano's best stories, but it was still very good. I was also a bit dissapointed with the artwork (the penciling is done by William Simpson), mostly the clouring, which as somewhat insipid and unspectacular considering it's high-stakes storyline. Of course the story is well known to everybody remotely interested in "Hellblazer", so I will not dwell much on it. It's easily worthy of a 9, but short of a 10.

This collection is yet another very strong volume in a series that keeps on improving thus far. I will miss Jamie Delano's writing but if the "Dangerous Habits" arc is a good indicator of Ellis' work on Hellblazer then I think I may be in for quite a treat.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alright folks, this is it. We have made it to THE NUMBER ONE Hellblazer writer/story. This is what is most often referenced, adapted, and enjoyed. And I must say, IT IS AWESOME. If I were to refer Hellblazer to a friend I would say to start here. It's that good.

[Ola G · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10 stars

It's a hard one to judge. The Delano run ended with a whimper, unfortunately; to keep in style of Hellblazer comics, I'd say the author's gone off his bloody rocker. Quite simply, the last few arcs were bloody bollocks, they were. I've had more than fair share of Zed and Errol and Marj, the whole hippie pagans, sexual empowerment and reentering the womb bollocks. The evil twin twist could have been really cool but old man Delano just had to go into the two-bit mysticism, and spoil it all, hadn't he?
But Ennis's arc, now that's a completely different story. Loved it in all its bloody, gory glory, loved the sting, and the guilt, and the guts (spilled or otherwise). What a start to a run! Hopefully it won't nosedive like Delano's did.

So here we are, 2 stars for Delano and 5 stars for Ennis, and the total, unfair to both authors, can be nothing other than 3.5.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Five stars for Ennis; two stars for Delano and his crew of fugly artists. Seriously, some of the most muddled, splashy and just plain dark art I’ve had the displeasure of trying to decipher. Or maybe I'm just mad at Delano's up-his-inscrutable-arse-ed-ness that I'm taking it out on innocent victims.

Delano continues to whine and pirouette and stumble around some boring stories that must’ve been his best homage to Alan “as many flowery and irrelevant words on the page as will drown out the art” Moore. It’s like he’s angry at the readers and decided to make it as hard as possible to follow him. Are we the annoying little brother in Delano’s unintentional therapy?

Seriously, it’s like reading an old-timey newspaper - or trying to decipher a story on any typical news site these days (cancer as they are for putting your brain through an obstacle course of ads and distractions) - and yet the art only reinforces (not complements) the mazey quality of the prose. I couldn’t even enjoy me some early-career Sean Phillips for dog’s sake!

I figured “hey it’s the end of Delano’s run, he must be really steaming towards something good” and tried to actually read his issues. Fuck. Got about one issue on, then tried to skim. Nope, still slogging through melifurious nonsense. Fine, skip a few pages. Goddammit. Skipped a couple of issues. Jumpin Jesus on a spit skewer, fuck it I hate comics...

And then comes Ennis out of fucking nowhere, with Simpson, Pennington and Ziuko illustrating the goddamn point: here’s a stark, balls-out, easy to follow and *fun* Hellblazer for the ages. I finally feel like I know what’s going on, who this person is, what they be about, and what’s going on in the scene around them.

And hardly juvenile stuff. In fact this light and airy tone in the art - insanely pulled together by Ziuko’s subtle colours - complements well the clenched emotional chaos and regrets that make up John. This is the story that long ago taught me:
- the hero can be a fuckup, an asshole and a maze of neuroses
- Constantine is king of shitbags - and still relatable
- demons and angels are fallible monsters precisely because they think they’re better than us

Ennis nailed the entrance with this one. It’s even better reading his intro from a few years later - still fresh in his mind the terror of making good on this huge opportunity, knowing how many great, lone hero stories he had ahead of him.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fitting end to Delano's seminal run on Constantine, and a great, character-driven intro to Garth Ennis's. When I first saw that this was how DC had decided to collect these issues, I was a little skeptical. It seemed weird to combine what I thought would be very different takes on the character. And, while the takes are markedly different, these two story arcs fit together very well.

Delano spends the final few issues of his run mostly away from Constantine himself. Instead, he focuses on the people around the magician and how he's affected them, while getting a few one-off stories about abuse and animal torture. These feel disjointed at first, but throughout them, Constantine complains about his ineffectiveness, and a "blackness" that seems to be filling his body and mind. By the end, we get a few final reveals about his past, and then "Magus," a story with art by Dave McKean, about a world in which Constantine died in the womb and his twin brother, the "golden child" he's referred to several times, lived instead. It's about as emotional as Delano gets (which is to say, not very, but still), and the haunting art by McKean makes the whole thing feel like an elegy.

Then, Ennis takes over, and suddenly the "blackness" Constantine mentioned makes a lot more sense. Several lingering plot threads and characters from Delano's run are jettisoned (and I welcomed these changes, honestly), and instead, we see a Constantine faced with a problem magic can't get him out of: lung cancer. The six-issue arc that follows is a great introduction to Ennis's far more grounded take on Hellblazer. We now see Constantine not as Delano's collection of political motivations and societal anger, but as an entire person. We get much more of a sense of who and what he actually cares about, while not dropping the magical elements at all. I finally find myself giving a shit about the man himself, which is a huge step up.

If this new direction speaks at all to the coming 3 additional Ennis volumes, I'm all for it. Here's hoping he doesn't go too Ennis with the whole thing.

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a 4.5 for me.

I waffled between the two, but I opted to give it a 5 due to the sheer audacity and electricity Ennis brings to the title.

And it ends (for the most part) Delanos run on Hellbalzer, which I really didn't care for overall.

[Wing Kee · Rating 3 out of 5]

You've been lost for a while John, now it's time for a writer change and a return to your roots.

I like Jamie Delano, he has a distinct style and he did a tremendous job in establishing the John Constantine character, but after Newcastle the occult part of John was lost and it felt that John went on a tangent. I did not see this when I was younger and now as I'm older and rereading the series I really see that now. That's why I felt so happy when his run ended and Ennis stepped in and of course we all know he started with Dangerous Habits which is an iconic Hellblazer story. So, how does time treat these issues?

World: The world of Hellblazer has always been super weird and grounded at the same time. Not growing up in the UK I had found the locales and the people very interesting. Now when I reread it I like how it is gives us a snapshot of the times, it's an interesting world. John has been going off to the forest and doing hippie stuff with lay lines for a while so Delano's final issues does more of that, it is a very odd setting and I do enjoy it, but I'm a bit tired of it and I want a return to the occult thank goodness for Garth Ennis, his reintroduction of that aspect of the world was much needed and it was wonderful, it feels like this long crazy trip that John has gone on the last 2 years has finally come to an end and it's back to business. Oh wait I forgot to talk about the art, I still can't stand late 80s early 90s art, it's so ugly looking at it now, but when Ennis game on board the art became (not more appealing) much more easy to understand. Delano at the end of his run got a bit nuts in the alternative mystic storytelling and the art was unclear and blurry and way to stylized. I'm so happy Ennis took over.

Story: The last of the Delano issues are just classic Delano, it's a dark look at the human condition, you kind of feel unsavory after reading it and you feel disgusted, then there's the hippy dream stuff which is disorienting and mind exploding. It is good in small doses but give the 40 issues I've read of Delano and the wonderful start we had with Nergal and the occult stuff I had had enough of the mystic hippy stuff and this was the last straw. The author change was sooooo good. Ennis is a great storyteller and his John is much more understandable, his pacing much better and his dialog just as John but not as...meandering. Dangerous Habits is a wonderful reboot in my mind and good going back to roots for John. The demon stuff and friend stuff was amazing and heartfelt. I am excited about Hellblazer again, I will be honest I nearly gave up around issue 30 but now I'm excited and ready again.

Characters: Marj, Mercury and the hippies are wonderfully complex and odd characters and I do like reading about them, Martin's tale was stomach turning but I found the characterization of his relationship with Merc a bit too thin, but oh well there was some good characterization and development there. I also liked John of course in his dangerous habits storyline, he was likeable in a tragic way and felt more human than when he was reconnecting in the countryside. At this point in time the full John character is still not the modern one we know and love at this moment, Delano took him to a weird place and Ennis brings another flavor to the character. I can't wait for the next couple of arcs (if I recall correctly...)

The end of a writer's version and the introduction of a new writer may bring bittersweet feelings, but not with this arc. As much as I love Delano for Nergal and Gemma the mystic lay lines direction and the lack of magic has gotten old, with Ennis we are introduced to a much more classic version of John. This arc was both frustrating and wonderful, but now that the writer change has happened I'm looking forward to the series again.

Onward to the next book!

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eclectic end to Jamie Delano's run opens this Hellblazer trade, opting for short, sharp storylines instead of extended ones like The Fear Machine or The Family Man. These also vary in quality, but are overall enjoyable, with The Magus being the outstanding one.

Garth Ennis then takes over with his Dangerous Habits storyline in the latter half of the trade, which is Constantine at his best, especially as the story winds into its conclusion. I've not read any other Ennis Hellblazer, but if it is all this good, I'm even more glad that it is being reprinted.

The artwork also varies, but all has a distinct 90's Vertigo feel, with Dave McKean's issue standing head and shoulders above the rest.

[Scott Rhee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve started watching the short-lived series “Constantine” that aired on NBC in its 2014-15 season, the only season it ran before NBC muckety-mucks decided it wasn’t earning enough ratings and cancelled it. Any fan of the DC comic book that had its run starting in the late-1980s, all through the ‘90s and ‘00s, and ending in 2013 (the longest-running series in DC’s Vertigo line) could have guessed the outcome.

The comic was only ever written for a niche audience—-horror/dark fantasy fans with a sharply cynical left-leaning political bent and a weird sense of humor—-so it was only logical that a TV show would garner a similarly limited audience.

I’m only four episodes in, and I’ll tell you what I like about it: Matt Ryan is perfectly cast as the British exorcist/demonologist/dabbler in the dark arts who is beset with both spiritual and literal demons. He also looks like Johnny Rotten from The Sex Pistols, a fact which is not lost on the writers of the show, as every episode has at least one Sex Pistols reference per.

Ryan aside, the show was merely okay. (Again, I’m basing this only on the first four episodes.) Actually, the fourth episode (the only one thus far, I think, that is based on one of the original comic book storylines) is where it kicks into high gear and starts displaying real potential.

Ryan himself has stated that the show probably would have had more success on another network, and I would agree. Indeed, Ryan was able to reprise the role as a recurring character on the CW’s DC show “Legends of Tomorrow”, a show that I refuse to watch because it is on the CW. (Sorry. That’s not totally fair. I’ve just seen enough of CW to know that I’m nowhere near its main demographic.)

Anyway, I’ll stick to reading the huge backlog of “John Constantine, Hellblazer” comic book compilations that I missed during its original run.

“Dangerous Habits” is the fifth volume in the series and one that I accidentally skipped, although I suppose one does not have to read these in order. I’m just a bit anal and OCD when it comes to series, so I have to read them in order.

Shit gets real in this one, as Constantine faces his most terrifying threat: terminal cancer. How, you may ask, does he escape this fate? Answer: he doesn’t. Well, not totally.

The way Constantine cheats death in this is pretty fucking brilliant, and I refuse to provide any spoilers. Suffice it to say, it’s bloody clever. Emphasis on the “bloody”.

My goal for 2021 is to eventually finish reading every Constantine series, stand-alone graphic novels, and recent manifestations. It may mean the end of me, but I’ll take that chance…

[Arnis · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://poseidons99.wordpress.com/201...

[Petr Nakasharal Fabián · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loučí se Delano, nastupuje Ennis. A je to velká jízda. Ennise mám rád a tady jede extra třídu. Skoro i slzičku jsem zamáčknul.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

The archetypical Constantine story. I'd pirated these books several years ago, I freely admit that, but as with the others I picked up the trade because they're so great. Not for the faint of heart, though!

[devon marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now THAT is what I'm TALKING about!

Finally, finally, FINALLY. I was really getting tired of poor John Constantine, professional wallower and dabbler in no arts. The Family Man plot was good, but I was really starting to wonder if Constantine did magic at all. All he seems to do is moan and groan. And drink. And smoke. And ride in vans.

But THIS. Now, THIS is great stuff. His mortality catches up to him and (after the required wallowing and moaning) he pulls the biggest con possible to pull himself out of it. I really noticed the parts the 2005 film and recent TV series (RIP, you left us too soon) picked up from this plot line, too. Fast-paced, exciting, and well-executed. Loved it.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is where I remember why we liked Hellblazer

This one is special: the Dangerous Habits arc reset Constantine back to a more grounded reality where hell is everywhere but most it's day-to-day life that gets you. Yet as frustrated as I have gotten with Delano at different points of this series, this was also a high point for Delano's writing. "The Hanged Man" and "the Magus" truly personalize Constantine and the relationship seem the most realized of the Delano run. Yes, Delano still over-writes and can be a little humorless here. Having Ennis then reintroduce the world and truly come to a gripping twist works. I can see why the botched movie used this arc for part of its basis.