Hellblazer, Vol. 3: The Fear Machine

Hellblazer: New Editions

by Jamie Delano, Dave McKean, Kent Williams

In The Fear Machine, John Constantine looks for a way to reconnect to humanity -- but how can such a man ever find inner peace? Constantine finds himself encamped with a new-age pagan group that's tapping into their own psychic abilities – but a defense contractor is out to exploit their powers. Is the company's aim just political, or is it something much more sinister?This volume collects issues 14-22 of the original series.

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

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jamie Delano aka A. William James began writing comics professionally in the early 1980s. Latterly he has been writing prose fiction with "BOOK THIRTEEN" published by his own LEPUS BOOKS imprint (http://www.lepusbooks.co.uk) in 2012, "Leepus | DIZZY" in April 2014, and "Leepus | THE RIVER" in 2017.

Jamie lives in semi-rural Northamptonshire with his partner, Sue. They have three adult children and a considerable distraction of grandchildren.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a REALLY slow burn at 9 issues. John gets down with some hippies before he gets tangled up with a MK-Ultra group who is using remote viewing and other psychics to instill fear in the populace. So, of course, the freemasons are involved as well. Might as well get all or your government conspiracy theories involved. Then there's some stuff with the Earth Mother and animus and anima. It gets very esoteric towards the end. Delano's writing can be very dated with tons of flowery exposition, almost becoming a prose work with illustrations at times.

[Dev · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I am really not into all the hippy crap [sorry] I was ready to give this a kind of 3-stars-A-for-effort rating but then it REALLY fell apart at the end and I was like no this is just ...not good. The beginning started off well enough I suppose, although like I said I just found it really bland because I am not really into the whole sex, drugs, and nature thing. Also John has a horrible mullet and beard and I'm sorry I know it doesn't 'matter' but this is a visual medium and I had to look at that for like 4 issues and I couldn't stop laughing the entire time.

The middle issues are just like ...blah, whatever. Then in the last few issues we get into the whole 'nature mother women are so nurturing and pure and men are ruining the earth' thing and like ...listen I get that like ...male authors are trying to be progressive or whatever when they write things like this and I'm definitely not saying that there isn't some basis there but also I have NEVER seen this particular trope used by a woman writer. Any time I see women using any kind of nature metaphor it's because nature is wild and untameable and will totally fucking kill you. It's just so tired. ALSO we then go onto some weird deus ex machina that consists of the old 'love will defeat fear and by love we obviously mean sex' thing. [sigh] I'm sorry but sex as the 'ultimate' form of love is just the most straight white man thing I've ever seen and between this and that fucking child orgy in IT I have had it up to here with it recently.

There were good moments but they were kind of few and far between. I liked the general anti-government attitude and there was one point where John says that he just 'automatically lies to cops' like without even thinking about it and I was like [thumbs up] you're doing amazing, sweetie. Also I appreciate that he just casually has a lot of gay friends. It's really great for something written in this time period especially to just include that and not make a big deal out of it or anything. But all in all I just found this volume so unbelievably dull. I can't believe I'm saying this but I'm actually looking forward to Ennis taking over. Sure he's a complete edgelord but at least he just goes for it and you know what you're going to get.

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

In which our protagonist runs off with pagan New Age travellers. Something, had my life been a bit different, I might like to have done in my late teens/early twenties. Though just *because* - not under the various dodgy circumstances afflicting Constantine and then these particular travellers themselves. Yet all the trouble in the comic serves to remind about the motley types of people who'd have been there, some of them potentially uncomfortable to be around IRL, and how it was a way of life never quite separable from legal issues and worse. You could play Levelling the Land and skip the track 'The Battle of the Beanfield', but you couldn't skip stuff like that when it happened to people you were hanging out with IRL. (Even a comic-book character with supernatural powers of synchronicity only gets to evade *some* of the worst things that happen to his friends here.)

All of which is to say that I was predisposed to like this apparently unpopular storyline.

Elements of the story and visuals look back to sometimes ancient influences - Constantine being surprised by psychic kid Mercury, who takes him back to her people, is like something from the Odyssey, another trickster's travels. And in turn there are features here very reminiscent of later works influenced by Hellblazer. Constantine's initial frustration with the countryside is very much like fellow magical-powered, London-based investigator PC Peter Grant in in Ben Aaronovitch's Foxglove Summer. And when Constantine eventually disposes of his mullet and beard and dons not his usual beige trenchcoat and short, messy haircut, but a long black leather coat and gelled-back style, it becomes a lot clearer why Spike from Buffy is supposed to have been modelled on him.

The story has a common enough SFF theme: if there were scientific evidence that the paranormal was reliable and effective, governments and defence contractors would harness it for sinister ends. (TVTropes must have a pithier name for that.) How engaging you find any given variation depends on the creators.

Richard Piers Rayner is probably my least favourite of the Hellblazer artists so far (at time of writing I'm up to the end of vol 4 / issue #33) but his stuff is still within the realms of standard comics art and so in the greater scheme of things could be worse, as far as I'm concerned.

I found Jamie Delano's writing more variable here than in the previous two collections. There were panels and pages I found as evocative as ever, but others where I can see why other readers say he is verbose. Take something like the following, where (unlike in Delano's best writing), it isn't the case that every word is a meaningful addition: "The broken man's screamed dying word echoes like a monster's cry without some primal castle's walls -- Each soft in his own rawness we walk in silence towards Talbot's house."

The most lyrical stretches are either about the city boy getting to love the countryside:
I'd forgotten how still the world could be at dawn. In the city there are no magic, frozen moments for the Earth to call its own. No calm space set aside for truce -- when time is suspended between breathless branches…
If only I could learn to ignore that B-movie voice, which murmurs … yes, almost too quiet.
[Quoted with the caveat that of course in the UK nearly all of what seems to be 'nature' has been a man-made landscape for centuries. I'm not sure that was even discussed much circa 1990 - and there are limits to what nuanced commentary you can fit into a comic.]

Or they are about Constantine's states of mind on the case, which often seem intended to reflect a wider frustration with Thatcherite Britain.
A particular favourite was a set of panels about helplessness, containing the phrase "as usual the taxis have all dissolved in the rain".
From the perspective of some in 2020, his opposition mindset, if generalised, might also sound characteristic of 1980s individualism. It is, I think, coming from a sort of pop-anarchism:
I've taken sides, made a commitment. I'm going back to war - - But this time I know what I'm fighting for.
It's simple really -- the right of every living thing to live a life in peace and free from interference.
Simple, he says. Oh well, always did like the odds as long as possible. Makes it more exciting, dunnit.

And unlike the traditional superhero, he of course can't or doesn't fight every single battle in this war. Even if there's a happy ending here for some, there's a high body count from his own side as well, confirming that Constantine can a dangerous man to know. It must be hard work as a writer, creating all these interesting people only to have to kill them off soon afterwards.

By issue 14 (the first in this collection), I'd thought it was getting a bit silly, how much the reader wasn't told about Constantine's legal situation. But this starts to be explained in this collection, first in issue #18 WRT the deaths of residents in other flats in the building he used to live in. (And more in the subsequent collection about his past.) However he apparently lets himself be libelled by the papers - everything else about the character suggests he wouldn't want the publicity of a case.

Constantine's adjacency to the gay male world continues here - these days it might be called queerbaiting, but it must have been brave in the late 80s and early 90s when writing a character who in many other ways was moulded after the noir PI, all booze and smoke and dames.

He's a character who in various ways is traditionally masculine, yet in Delano's version he shows a certain amount of vulnerability, and is often surrounded by alternative culture and sexualities - including the cosmic ecofeminism of the traveller women. (Some younger reviewers seem to find them incongruous, but to me as a middle-aged reader they seem entirely characteristic of the more spiritual side of 70s-90s ecofeminism, something which was quite noticeable in, e.g. mainstream environmental books when I was a teenager in the 90s.) There was a daft scene near the end of #22 (and therefore the end of this book) which seems to reference the world egg of several mythologies. Wikipedia reminds me it was also in Robert Graves' The White Goddess, which a guy like Delano is sure to have read - and which was one of the books pictured in boxes in Constantine's lockup several issues earlier. The scene also reminded me how essentialist and gendered groups like that could be - another reason I might not have enjoyed them in practice for long. Reading, I found the announced "Now it's time for femaleness" probably even more alienating than it's hinted the male reader/Constantine does. (They at least get to be overtly opposite to it and not expected to be part of it.)

Concurrently with this collection, I also read a few articles and reviews about the current John Constantine: Hellblazer series by Simon Spurrier, which is supposed to have more similarities to the original comics than any since 2012. Aside from making politics more central to the story again, compared with the intervening years, there were a couple of other shared motifs. In The Fear Machine there's a passing reference to William Blake (JC pulled a student barmaid who talked to him about Blake) and fishermen appear here, briefly as benevolent rescuers. I'm guessing that rather than replaying big obvious themes from the first comics, he's using clever little references and making them a bigger part of the new stories.

[Sud666 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delano's "Fear Machine" was a story that did not have an auspicious start. In fact, to be honest, I was hating it. But then half-way through the story really picks up and redeems itself. The artwork? Typical for its time. It has not aged well.

Constantine is on the run and decides to drop out of normal life and hang out with British hippies. But, trouble has a way of finding John, or is it John finding trouble? Either way the first half of hippie tomfoolery, corrupt cops and Constantine eating mushrooms and "finding himself" was fairly awful. I could not give two shits.
Conversely, half-way through, the final part of the story is rather good and interesting. A magician is being manipulated by an ancient power. Infiltrating powerful groups like the Magi and the Freemasons, they seek Constantine's friend who is a powerful medium. As the story continues and we are shown the premise behind the Fear Machine and how it can unlock the G.O.A.D. (God Of All Gods) from its prison and destroy humanity. This is the part of the story where it stops being Delano's reminiscing about hippie love fests and truly become's a John Constantine story with demons and death and darkness. Had he only spent 25% of the story on the hippie-dippy bullshit, then this would have been a 4 star story.

[James DeSantis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just can't get into Jamie's writing. It's long and overstuffed, and just not very interesting. The art is solid enough but this book feels weird. Like he's with a bunch of hippie like people, weird shit begins to happen, and then...even more weird shit. It kind of reminds me of Grant Morrison but not in a good way. I'm excited to finally move on to a new writer next book. A 2 out of 5.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 really. Funny seeing Constantine with his 80s hair and clothes. Also a trip down memory Lane in terms of the politics and cultural cues.

[Rowena Hoseason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second time around (first read the Hellblazer series back in the 1980s in monthly comic form), I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this collection. The artwork feels somewhat clumsy in places, but the storyline - which sees JC taking refuge with a bunch of a new-age travellers - still resonates. It's interesting, too, how much of the social commentary remains true. The theme of female emancipation / liberation certainly rings big bells...

This young(ish) version of Constantine is more vulnerable and less hard-bitten than he's written in later years. The dialogue is no less entertaining, mind, and the series has kept its feeling of freshness, of daring. For a 'horror comic', it's remarkably daring in its blunt appraisal of the human condition.

Hellblazer can be challenging. It features counter-culture ideals, sexual expressiveness, recreational substances, a cast of intriguing supporting characters who drift in and out, and a stack of bad guys (usually but not always demons. The Snob is no good guy, for instance). It's self-referential, DC-universe referential, occult literature referential and deliberately obscure.

This self-contained story is reasonably easy to get to grips with, but even then if you're unfamiliar with the series then some of the back-story will be opaque.
7/10

[ir · Rating 1 out of 5]

so random ass

[Philip James Ahlschlager · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit of a slog, this one. Great art throughout but not a fan of pacing or writing from Delano on this one.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The third volume in the chronological reprinting of the Hellblazer series, 'The Fear Machine', is an enigmatic instalment that divides opinion sharply. Reviews from both its original publication and this collection vary wildly—some hail it as one of the series’ highlights, while others dismiss it as among its weakest entries. Initially, I leaned towards the latter view, but as the narrative progressed, I found myself warming to its idiosyncrasies. That said, there’s no denying that this is a flawed piece of writing, even from a writer as esteemed as Jamie Delano.

What kept me engaged, despite the book's shortcomings, is its central theme: conspiracy theories. If you’re partial to tales of shadowy cabals and hidden agendas, there’s enough here to hold your interest. The main plot is intriguing and incorporates many of the elements that make John Constantine such a compelling protagonist. However, the writing leaves much to be desired. Delano’s penchant for overwrought narration and dialogue, evident in the earlier volumes, reaches almost absurd levels here. The story’s climax, in particular, veers into the realm of the cringe-worthy.

The narrative starts promisingly enough, with Constantine on the run after being framed for murder. But this seemingly pivotal event ends up feeling like a red herring. Rather than serving as a driving force for the story, it becomes little more than an excuse to get Constantine out of London. Worse still, it’s hastily resolved halfway through the book in a manner that feels contrived and unconvincing. This lack of narrative cohesion extends to the broader plot, where events often feel arbitrary, and characters conveniently stumble into key moments without meaningful setup. It’s a surprising misstep, especially from a writer hand-picked by Alan Moore to helm Constantine’s adventures.

Despite these issues, there are redeeming qualities to 'The Fear Machine'. The occult conspiracy themes are intriguing, with genuinely unsettling moments peppered throughout. The story also allows for a more tender exploration of Constantine’s character, showcasing a side of him rarely seen amidst the usual grit and cynicism. His trademark wit and complexity remain intact, making the weaker aspects of the plot easier to endure.

Ultimately, though, this feels like a shallow entry in the series—ambitious in concept but lacking in execution. With a few more Jamie Delano volumes to go before Garth Ennis takes over, I can only hope this is an isolated misstep rather than a sign of things to come. For now, 'The Fear Machine' is worth a read for its highs, but it’s hard to shake the sense of relief at reaching the end.

[Wing Kee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow that was very jarring indeed.

This arc I remember from my first reading of Hellblazer, when I first read it I felt like it was weird, zany but the ending was holy shit cool. Now as I'm older and older and read a lot more, a lot of the glamour of this series when I first read it is gone:

World: I still can't get use to the art, it's dated and the colors are simple and the framing though sometimes creative leave a lot to be desired. I think comic book art has come a long way since this arc, not only is art more detailed but also a better tool for storytelling. There are often times when the art and the words on the page don't really mesh to express what the writer and artist is trying to show and that takes me out of the book. World building here actually is quite strong. I remember this being one of those arcs that showed me a side of John which I've not seen before and also a side of England and also magic that I was not fully aware of. This time around I still feel the oddness and the wonder of learning about something new and I am still at awe of the world building.

Story: This is where this story falls apart and loses me. I remember loving this story growing up and now it was such a slog getting though it. I won't go into story specifics but I will go into writing specifics. The pacing is terrible, the front is slow and methodical but I can understand the nature of where the story is, the middle is bloated and the end is just way too deus ex (John and Mercury reuniting...). The dialog is stilted and overly long, the story is convoluted and presented in a jarring and choppy way so that no momentum is built up. The reader often feels lost and the jumping of characters makes for an unpleasant read. I wanted the story to be over this time around because it was just so...poorly paced and written. In the midst of all the bad writing there is an interesting take here, but man it has not aged well and reading it now the writing is terrible.

Characters: Actually not that bad. We get a healthy dose of John development and also because the story is so long a big dose of development of other characters also. I just wish the story has been able to support this zany cast of characters. It was great to see where John went after the super emo arc last time and the place where he himself was quite interesting. His personal arc as long as it was did amount to us knowing more about him and changing his character towards being a deeper and more realistic character.

I am so happy this arc ended. I liked it when I was younger but man this story and the writing has not aged well.

Onward to the next book!

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

And so one stormy night I get to finish the 3rd volume of the John Constantine Hellblazer series. Since these volumes layout the stories in the order they were meant to be read in (although I am not sure what happened to the order that resulted in that statement) we now close out the 80s with these stories.

Now I will admit (and I will no doubt show my ignorance of the series - then again I am reading these books for a reason you know) but considering the whole selling his soul to the Devil it did sort of suggest the magic was based around the Christian ethos - however this book and the stories inside it demonstrate there are forces which are far reaching and utterly unfathomable that such limits would lead you to believe.

Now like I say this caught me out although in a good way since it means there is so much more material here than I originally though and the potential for further adventures makes the following 20 volumes far more exciting laced with all sorts of potential.

I guess with that in mind I should really start looking for volume 4

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of pretty boring "tell don't show" going on in this volume of Hellblazer, which has a great metaphorical idea at its core that feels sorely under-explored. This could've really been a standout of comic storytelling and political satire, but instead it just feels like a bunch of aging punk rockers sitting around complaining about "The Man."

John Constantine is on the run, fleeing the police after he's suspected of a murder he didn't commit. At least, he is at the beginning of the story, before this fact is flushed away and altogether ignored in later issues of the storyline. He never has to clear his name, never has to even deal with any real fallout from this. It just goes away with a literal shrug. Not a great place to start.

Anyway, as he hides from the police who I guess really aren't even all that interested in him, he uncovers a massive conspiracy in place by a large corporation to send whomever and wherever it sees fit into a spiral of terror and chaos, allowing the company to essentially control the government as it sees fit. The way they do it? A machine that taps into spiritual leylines and infects citizens with intense states of fear. It's a very overt metaphor for how government uses propaganda and scare tactics to keep its citizens in line, and could be a pretty apt horror story.

But, it's almost completely indecipherable. The players are never fully developed, so at any given moment it's hard to understand why anyone is doing anything they're doing, what they stand to gain, or whose side they're even on. Instead, we're just treated to lots of people talking about the fear machine in highly philosophical ways without really investigating how it can be stopped. This means the climax of the story reads as utter, forced nonsense, and couldn't be more on the nose if it were a nostril. In a word, this is boring.

I had a very hard time even finishing this volume, and am no longer excited to keep reading Hellblazer at all. The only saving graces here are a couple of interesting sequences involving the fear machine's effects on the mind, but otherwise this feels incredibly skippable.

[ᴥ Irena ᴥ · Rating 2 out of 5]

It starts pretty slow. Running from the police, Constantine ends up with a bunch of hippies, the freedom mob. Everything is nice and calm with them. Constantine's inner voice says it's too calm (fortunately). His new girlfriend (or whatever she is to him) and her daughter are kidnapped and he is dragged into a new occult conspiracy. Zed also plays a role in this volume and I can't say I like her here.

I don't mind the violence. At least it interrupts the let me tell you about the stuff parts of the story. What I found ridiculous is the solution.
To be honest, this volume was kind of boring. I like the idea of fear machine, though.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, what's there to say about this? There's lots of hippies, and government conspiracies, and towards the end a lot of mixing of mythologies that don't really mesh all that well to create a deus ex machina. I'm not entirely sure this comic made any sense. It starts off well enough, a mystical girl is kidnapped by the badies who want to use her powers for evil and Constantine needs to save her. But it all falls apart towards the end, and Constantine does literally nothing except maybe act like some sort of dildo? I honestly don't know, I think Delano just pulled the last 20 pages out of his ass after a bad trip.

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I love Hellblazer/John Constantine, I found the early going somewhat tough to slog through.

While all the elements we know and love are largely in place fairly early on, in hindsight, I don't care for Jamie Delano's initial run on the title (especially in light of the stellar authors and storylines to come in later volumes!)

[Scott Rhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

The 1980s were a maelstrom of paranoid conspiracies and nightmares: the Cold War, nuclear proliferation, AIDS, Satanic cults, Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, student riots, police beatings; and from that shitstorm arose a different kind of (anti)hero, “John Constantine, Hellblazer”.

Originally appearing in Alan Moore’s “Swamp Thing” series for DC, Constantine was given his own series in the late-80s, written by Jamie Delano, for DC’s more mature line of comic books, Vertigo.

He was an unusual protagonist in that he was, for one, British, and, secondly, didn’t really have any superpowers or even anything particularly likable about his personality. He was, in fact, kind of a narcissistic asshole who smoked a lot and didn’t like to get “involved”. He was a practitioner of magic (the black kind), and was known to have run-ins with the occasional demon from Hell, some of whom knew him on a first-name basis.

In Volume 3, “The Fear Machine”, Constantine is on the run for a double-murder and falls into a hippy commune, where he learns how to almost be a normal human being. When a young girl gets kidnapped by government agents, Constantine decides to do the right thing and go after her.

In his investigation, he uncovers a governmental “deep state” of believers in black magic and ancient deities who are attempting to resurrect an ancient god that will wipe out humanity.

Delano and a rotating array of artists (Mark Buckingham, Richard Piers Rayner, Mike Hoffman, and Alfredo Alcala) really push the envelope of what is appropriate and tasteful in this volume. The violence is rather off-the-charts and stomach-churningly gory. In other words, it’s awesome, if you like that sort of stuff.

Seriously, there’s a child that is kidnapped, beheaded, and disemboweled whose entrails are used to create a demon made out of human intestines in this volume, so, yeah, that happens.

If this stuff is not to your liking, “Hellblazer” may not be for you, and I respect your decision. It’s not for everybody.

I have to hand it to the British, though, they really know how to push the envelope in comic books. As a people, they seem to be really in tune with their dark side. I would have never guessed this from watching “Downton Abbey”.

[Danielle The Book Huntress · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess that I started reading this series out of order. I can't say if that affected my rating. I will say I was disappointed with this first read of Constantine in the graphic novel format. I have read a novel with him Hellblazer: War Lord, and I liked that more.

In all honestly, I am completely square when it comes to free love sex, drugs, and alternative religions. None of that are things I would choose for my life. Yes, that's an obstacle with this book, because they play a big part in this story. However, I believe all humans are equally worthwhile, and I care about the connection you form with a character, even if I don't necessarily agree with their choices.

John Constantine is on the run, implicated in a series of brutal murder with occult elements (when he actually saved the world in that situation and didn't kill those people). He runs into a group of earth-religion practitioners and bonds with a strange young girl with precognitive abilties named Mercury. Her mother Marj, is the poster child for an aging flower child/hippie chick. Her friends are all good-hearted, kind people who have a penchant for psychedelic drugs, earth spirituality, and living off the land. They generously take in Constantine, and he bonds with them. Constantine has led a rough, cynical life, but I get the impression that he is a kind person at heart, and goes out of his way not to harm others. When Mercury is kidnapped, he vows to get her back, even though it takes him back into the eye of the dark, occult storm he is trying to escape.

My biggest issue with this story was the graphic violence and the horrible murders that took place. I admit I am sensitive to that kind of thing. Ritual murders and stuff, and pretty much any kind of heinous murder or violence like that disturb me. This was all done by the bad guys, of course. So it's perfectly warranted to dislike them. ( I wish they had gotten more comeuppance in the end.) The Fear Machine concept was interesting, but stomach-turning. I think fundamentally, I hate when people's fears and weaknesses are manipulated, and I certainly hate innocent people getting harmed for whatever reason. Also, some aspects were confusing and didn't translate in the visual medium well. I had some question marks, even when I finished this book.

Constantine himself, is a likable character, what I'd consider an amiable rogue (and I do have a weakness for them and antiheroes). I think ultimately he does save the day, but I wish he had done so a little sooner, and the methods he used were kind of questionable and didn't make a lot of sense to me. I love the graphic novel format, but I feel that prose would have worked better for this storyline, and I might have liked this more.

Will I keep reading this series? Yeah. I really like occult detective stories. And while I didn't like some aspects of this particular volume, I am hoping that I will find other storylines that appeal to me more than this one did. Your mileage may vary.

[C. Varn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

While I sometimes appreciate Jamie Delano's writing, he can be over ambitious. This masculine and feminine plot line reminds of Delano's run on Animal Man. The double murder frame plot seems to just put Constantine in the commune and the resolution of the paranoid gore plot was unsatisfactory.

[I' · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primer tebeo sobre John Constantine que leo. ¿Por qué el número 3? ¿Por qué no? Lo he sacado de la biblioteca ya que quería conocer al personaje y puesto que no había ningún número uno, me he dejado llevar por las portadas y los títulos. Y asi es como funciona mi cabeza.

Para ser un tomo intermedio, la verdad no lo he sentido como descolgado, ni fuera de lugar al empezarlo. Lo poco que conocía del personaje era sobre todo de la película y la serie de televisión, lo cual seguramente no tendrá mucho que ver. Pero me generaron curiosidad sobre el personaje. Creo que este tebeo, para un primer contacto con el personaje, me ha venido muy bien.

Lo que más me ha gustado, además del prsonaje en sí de John Constantine, ha sido el guión. Creo que puede parecer algo pesado, pues tiene mucho diálogo y carteleras, pero a mi me ha gustado mucho al poder hacerme una buena idea del personaje sin haber leído nada antes. Desde mi punto de vista es algo que le ha dado mucho contexto y profundidad a la historia y como lectora primeriza lo he disfrutado.

El dibujo me ha gustado, pero tampoco me ha parecido nada del otro mundo, de decir que me haya sorprendido mucho. Sí que es algo explícito en cuanto a violencia, sangre, vísceras y sexo, pero no es algo que me haya molestado. Las grapas en sí están muy bien enlazadas y la historia tiene buen ritmo, es más, me leí el tebeo de una sentada por el enganche que tenía. Me dejó un poco insatisfecha el final, pues me resultó algo apresurado, pero en general me ha cautivado tanto el personaje como la historia.

Lo que no me ha gustado son dos cosillas.
Primero, había varios personajes femeninos muy chulos que podrían haber dado mucho juego y que para mi gusto han sido muy desaprovechados. Me hubiera encantado leer más sobre ellas. Tampoco es necesario que todas las mujeres jóvenes se acuesten con John en algún momento.
Y dos, el gran momento de SeñorTM que tiene Constantine. Os pongo en situación. Le atan a una roca, para que les deje en paz y le dicen que van a hacer magia femenina y que quieren que él se quede quietecito y lejos. ¿Y qué hace nuestro protagonista? Pues desatarse e ir para allá porque claro, ¿cómo van a ser las mujeres capaces de hacer magia DE MUJERES sin él?

[Carla Dominguez · Rating 3 out of 5]

It got better, but enough of this series.

[Petr Nakasharal Fabián · Rating 4 out of 5]

Záhadnym způsobem je ten art horší a horší. Scénář ale pořád super.

[Pie]

Really enjoyed the section of this volume that could more or less be described as "John Constantine versus the English countryside." The bit about government conspiracies was less interesting to me but I will always remember iconic scenes such as Constantine accidentally eating some mushrooms and having a really bad trip that made him afraid of cows.

[Ola G · Rating 2 out of 5]

4/10 stars

The beginning is cool enough - neo-pagan hippies, ley lines and dolmens, plus some shady governmental organization in unmarked uniforms and an enthusiastic approach to violence. Mercury as a kid is a sweet addition, too - the exploration of the possibilities of relationships between her and Constantine, from tenuous friendship to older-younger sibling to parent, was the strongest element of this volume.

But then the whole thing came crashing down with neo-pagan Eden in Scotland, where Zed makes a reappearance as a pansexual priestess of Mother Earth (interestingly, Greek mythology has been abandoned for a drizzling of feng-shui, which might have been considered exotic at the time, but right now just seems very trite and shallow). The big baddie is also a total fail, and the final conception of a dragon egg by a threesome cavorting among dolmens was the last straw for me. I don't know what Delano was trying to achieve here, but what he did achieve was a wet dream of rather pathetic neo-pagan porn.

I dearly hope that by vol. 4 Delano stopped smoking whatever it was he smoked writing this, because poor Constantine deserves a much better treatment than this.

Not recommended.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best Constantine epics -- and perhaps the most epic, running 9 issues that peel back like the layers of an onion.

One of the things that's so impressive about it is the fact that it's so different from anything else in the Constantine mythos. Having just invented the "standard" Constantine tale, with his story of Nergil, devils, and their earthly surrogates in issues #3-12, Delano now goes in a totally different direction, instead spinning a story of psychic powers, fraternal agencies, and corrupt corporations. This could have been the template for a totally different sort of Constantine story from what followed; it's a pity that it wasn't followed up on. As is, we get this one wonderful tale of Constantine fighting against very different opponents. The first two issues are particularly great, with Constantine living out in the wilderness, so far from his normal city life.

Beyond that, the story holds together well. There's great mystery and great unveilings and Delano is surprisingly harsh with his characters. And those characters are also great -- a whole new cast of characters for Constantine to meet, love, and interact with.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

Easily the worst Constantine collection I've ever encountered.

[Eric Stafford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I loves Hellblazer this was a long rambling story that was bland at best. Lousy use of John Constantine as a character.

[Thomas Flowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vol 3 The Fear Machine was a fun and very interesting read. I liked how all the books in this vol. were connected to the same main plot device. Vol 1 and 2 had random comics and not really a cohesive collection. Still great, but it was nice following a fluid story line.

The main plot in this collection followed, as you might have guessed, The Fear Machine. As one my expect, this was a story enriched in mysticism, magic, demonic forces, secret cults, and crazy serial killers, with added topics of feminism and paganism.

Some new characters in this one, and John felt more "connected," that is, finding a group/tribe and wanting to protect them. Zed from the Vol 1 stories made an appearance in this story line, which was awesome. I had no idea that was her in the artwork. She had survived the weird church cult from Vol 1 and has evolved into an active agent against the forces of darkness.

Certainly a collection worth your time, esp if you've already read the first two. If you're struggling with Vol 2, keep it going. Things get better and more cohesive in Vol 3.

[Adam Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume started out as a potential five star book, with a focus on characters rather than magic or continuity, and giving us a more human glimpse at who John Constantine is. As the volume gathers momentum, we do get a bit of continuity, and definitely some magic. But then the volume comes to a screeching nonsensical stop at the end. Where, for some reason, there has to be a sex ritual, and then ... and then everything is somehow solved in an incredible anti-climax, and we are led to believe that the next volume might feature an amnesiac Constantine (that is, fortunately, not the case). The ending was such a letdown that I considered dropping it down to three stars, but I am mostly glad that I read this volume.

The political statements are much more subdued in this volume as they serve the story rather than the story serving the politics. But it's still a bit messy and a bit much if you don't enjoy politics in your comics.

[Benjamin Pritchard · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume follows John Constantine as he gets caught up with a group of travelers, only to stumble into a conspiracy involving cults, government experiments, and dark magic. While the premise is intriguing, the execution is a slow burn—at times too slow. The story gradually builds momentum, only to lose its grip before delivering a truly satisfying payoff. There are moments of intrigue and classic Constantine cynicism that keep it engaging, but overall, this volume feels like the weakest of the series so far. Despite its flaws, there are still some enjoyable aspects, which is why I’m giving it three stars..🤔