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Hellblazer: New Editions
Hellblazer, Vol. 10: In the Line of Fire
In this new Hellblazer collection, John Constantine comes to the aid of his downstairs neighbor, a dimwitted, epileptic giant whose home is haunted by a persistent ghost. Plus, John's affinity with the supernatural spoils a soccer game when a demon that thrives on hooliganism shows up. And in the story "Difficult Beginnings," Constantine must reconnect with the darker side of his own nature--a journey that leads him to the "most evil man in the world."
Collects HELLBLAZER #97-107.
Collects HELLBLAZER #97-107.
284 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 17, 2015
51 people are currently reading
438 people want to read
About the author
Paul Jenkins
1,267 books154 followersPaul Jenkins is a British comic book writer. He has had much success crossing over into the American comic book market. Primarily working for Marvel Comics, he has had a big part shaping the characters of the company over the past decade.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
September 13, 2021
A bunch of smaller stories with an underlying thread running through it. John begins to realize it may have been a bad idea to split his evil side off at the end of the last volume, now he's only his good half. He's become a prat to a certain extent and certainly lost his edge. So he searches out a way to rebalance his i-ching. Jenkins has a good take on Constantine although his stories can be a tad mundane at times. Phillips was made to draw books like Hellblazer.
November 24, 2020
Paul Jenkins' writing on this series is clumsy. That's the word that I come back to over and over again when thinking about his Hellblazer issues I've read so far.
The basic premise of a Jenkins story is usually good - and as I said about vol. 9 I like him for returning Constantine to a sometimes scuzzy, sometimes beautiful, countercultural setting of English ghosts and magic similar to Jamie Delano's at the beginning of the series, and being less focused on the reworked hellfire Christian mythology that Garth Ennis augmented, though it too was with the series from the beginning.
And I'm enjoying the way that Jenkins has given Constantine more overt powers of synchronicity: it's now something he can decide to tune into, or invoke, rather than merely find himself subject to, as it seemed with the earlier writers. (I can understand preferring the character less superpowered too, because that was part of the point of him, as a contrast to other comic-book magicians, but this, as seen in #102, is an unusual and fun power.)
If one accepts that real people, psychologically, and especially real work - because it's work - tend to have recurring themes, then a certain amount of repetition in one character's long-running story is fine. And even acknowledged greats of the comics world like Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison produced HB stories (collected in vol. 4) that were essentially Delano remixes. But with Jenkins, whilst there are pages or occasionally even whole stories that are enchanting, too often there are issues with detail. Not that the previous runs have ever been perfect in detail, but these problems are far more frequent in Jenkins. It's frustrating: even when he's off the mark, he's close enough to something good that one can (almost) imagine what a better writer would have done with that premise, or that line.
For me, this volume started strongly with #97 'The Nature of the Beast'. (There was also a YA novel from the 80s called The Nature of the Beast which fits with the subject of animals and wandering in the wild; I wonder if Jenkins had borrowed the title, or if that's too much of a stretch for a common phrase.) This issue had a clichéd premise which was nevertheless an instantly spellbinding read, an example of what a good writer can do with an old trope, especially when there's a sympathetic audience. Walking in a wood, Constantine stumbles on an old gypsy* who reads his cards - but a bearded bloke in a flat cap, not a headscarfed lady - and as well as the prose working beautifully, something about this bloke reminded me of countless loveable-rogue poacher characters in old novels and memoirs. (And one of the few occasions when this type gets a starring role, Danny the Champion of the World, was always my favourite of Roald Dahl's books, and my favourite "middle grade" book as a kid full stop ... small wonder that someone who loved that would also love Constantine.) Yes, it might have been better if the whole thing had stuck to trad Lenormand style cards - a fox is a real card in those decks - and not introduced a New Agey symbol like a butterfly. But then who's to say that a working-class fortune teller would care about, or fit, purist middle-class-historian aesthetics? The conclusion was what I'd already figured would be happening to JC, but that didn't matter - the atmosphere and prose did.
[*An old guy like this would probably have called himself a gypsy anyway, and in the UK it's not such a taboo term, as community groups generally call themselves 'Gypsy Roma & Traveller…' The terminology doesn’t have quite such an intelligentsia/ 'ordinary group members' divide as usage of 'Latinx', but there are real people in the GRT community in England who still use the term 'gypsy' and don't consider it a slur; there have also been intimations of an increased usage/reclaiming attitude on intersectional site Gal-Dem.]
(But it's just the sort of faux-pas you can imagine Jenkins making, if he'd written early issues of HB, that he might have made Constantine's mum Romany as a way of explaining his augmented magic powers compared with earlier Constantine ancestors, and then JC would have been a much more problematic character because he'd be embodying a lot of negative stereotypes. Jenkins is culturally a bit tone-deaf compared with the earlier writers on the series, whose attitudes have, more often than not, aged well.)
#98 and #106-7 were classic minor haunting stories of the sort that I love in HB, but also showed up the Jenkins clumsiness. Jenkins isn't as witty and sharp as Delano or Ennis (or other writers who've written Constantine so far), and this means JC doesn't have as many good lines in awkward situations, nor does he have the awareness of double entendre which I feel is a basic part of his character. There's no way they would have Contantine use a phrase like 'captain comequick' to refer to being summoned to save the day, nor in any situation other than making a joke about premature ejaculation, almost certainly at another man's expense.
There's less sense of charm, too, or distinctiveness of characters, as almost everyone has a slightly bitter blokeyness in the way they talk. At least Jenkins manages to make some historical characters sound historical (e.g. Coleridge), but plenty of the others end up sounding like 20th century slightly-pissed-off blokes at least some of the time. Shouldn't demons like the First of the Fallen and Ellie sound a bit grander, like they used to?
Again I wondered whether Jenkins was responsible for instructions to the artist, or if some of the off-key art choices are Sean Phillips' fault. Why have angels attaching electrodes to an otherwise perfectly late-18th-century Coleridge? They could just put their hands on his head or something. And what's with the Crystal Palace fans' scarves? Were fans in the late 90s still wearing colours last used for strips in the early 70s? Because that's the only reason they might be wearing what look like West Ham colours. (The colours used to be the same.) You'd assume, that, once there was another option via the primary-coloured red and blue, this would be a confusion that most younger fans would have been glad to drop. And did opposing fans ever refer to Brighton & Hove Albion as "the Brighton"? Sounds off. This is one of a number of stumbles which made it seem like a non-Brit, or someone who'd only lived in the UK a few years, was actually writing this.
A legend about the mountain Ben Macdui is introduced badly (I'm cringing too much to type it out), whereas if Constantine had said he'd heard it from an old girlfriend or mate who was Scottish, that would have made sense. It's the sheer accumulation of minor irritations like this that make me understand dislike of Jenkins. (Also, there are quite a few Scottish references here; does Jenkins have Scottish connections, I wonder, and was putting them into the comic the way Ennis did in a more noticeable way with Northern Irish Catholicism?)
Jenkins is noticeably iffy, too, on professional processes when there's really no need to be, both medical (he could just have put a couple of different groups of people in different places around the hospital) and police (a DC heading a major serial killer investigation??) Those things have always been easy to find out about, and were common knowledge from TV and newspapers before practically everything was on the internet - whereas the opportunity for better research, likely via feminist social history papers, about the community role of backstreet abortionists in the 1950s, less so.
Yet there are good ideas here, which sound like longtime fans' idea of 'classic Hellblazer' (when the newer iterations are being discussed). An encounter with a lightly fictionalised version of Wearside Jack. (In more of the synchronicity that happens when I read HB, I looked up Wikipedia and found the Yorkshire Ripper had died recently). There's a demon that feeds off the energy of football hooligans. The I-Ching as a device, so soon after the cartomancy, might have seemed like overdoing the popular divination methods - but because I'm reading this later, it can feel fittingly like 'a late 90s thing' because it was mentioned in a song on Pulp's album This is Hardcore, actually released a couple of years later.
Jack-in-the-Green / the Green Man is just the sort of figure you'd expect to spring up in a Hellblazer story, but what a muddle he is here. He's a figure of English folklore, but Jenkins associates him with the mythical town of Abaton, a Scottish legend. Though, after what I'd said in review of volume 9 about how a once hippy valuing of rural myths has in the last few years been implicated in right-wing politics, it was curious to see this figure portrayed as an openly racist little-Englander. Jenkins was, no doubt, meaning to make a point about rural racism and how PoC may end up feeling less welcome in the countryside because of it. But he hadn't thought through what it meant to use an ancient mythic figure in this way. Now there have been years of diffuse online discussion about this sort of thing: far-right Twitter accounts, infamous in certain niches, adopting just such symbols for their avatars or names (screenshot of one such in this blog post); fantasy authors who reach a wider audience and other cultural commentators discussing how to portray mythic embodiments of a country in a more inclusive way. Because the latter, with whom an obviously left-leaning project like Hellblazer has a home, have pointed out how it's particularly important for those symbols to be shown in fiction as judging belonging on factors other than skin colour, parents' nationality and so on. An obvious one for a Jack-in-the-Green would be to judge characters based on environmental behaviour (especially if you don't go into too much detail about contentious matters where dark green/bright green philosophies are opposed). Here he didn't need to judge anyone based on that anyway, and the portrayal of rural racism could have been delegated to a character who wasn't a presiding spirit of anything.
Concerning the main plot arc of the Jenkins run so far, the writer has used it in such a half-arsed way. If Constantine split himself into 'good' & 'bad' selves, the remaining 'good' self, should have been considerably more different than he actually was in these stories. It wasn't even noticeable. What a copout. A properly good, bold writer, could have created a reformed Constantine and had him like that for many issues - it's not as if there wasn't, by the late 90s, a decent crop of ageing rock stars of JC's generation who'd given up the booze, settled down, got fit, got spriritual and so on, whilst retaining some talent. They would have been plausible models for it characterwise. Maybe he'd have been running a reliable little exorcism business and he's enjoying how far he can run now he no longer smokes. He's something like ex-girlfriend Kit wanted him to be, but a) he's still doing magic, which she didn't want, and b) she likes pubs too much. You need skill to make this fun for the audience. Then after several months he's hit with some major occult problem that he needs his bad sides to solve, and there he goes getting some of them back. (And whatever new girlfriend there is doesn't like the change.) But losing the demon blood, that's basically losing a superpower, and that hasn't been addressed yet. (A few months ago, I read criticism of a 2018 writing decision to have him lose the demon blood... For that to happen, I can only guess he ends up with it again after this, in another repeating storyline.)
As it is, Constantine's reintegration of his bad self has thematic parallels with the end of the Delano run, but with far less psychological astuteness. It's simply a series of events and a trip through already-familiar aspects of Constantine's past, and it says little about the human mind and life in general. One of the few stories where there was a decent amount of psychological insight seemed superfluous, making moral conclusions about Constantine's dad which I thought both avid readers of the series, and JC himself, had already arrived at. It could have covered the new retcon in a couple of pages, rather than a whole issue, and also underestimates how much a thoughtful person in their 40s who had an abusive parent would have already processed. (Perhaps as Jenkins was only in his early 30s when he wrote this. It can be a particularly fruitful time for reflection, being at or near the age the parent was when you were a kid.)
Whilst Jenkins continues to be not as bad as I expected, there are nonetheless plenty of faults to find with his work on Hellblazer.
(November 2020)
The basic premise of a Jenkins story is usually good - and as I said about vol. 9 I like him for returning Constantine to a sometimes scuzzy, sometimes beautiful, countercultural setting of English ghosts and magic similar to Jamie Delano's at the beginning of the series, and being less focused on the reworked hellfire Christian mythology that Garth Ennis augmented, though it too was with the series from the beginning.
And I'm enjoying the way that Jenkins has given Constantine more overt powers of synchronicity: it's now something he can decide to tune into, or invoke, rather than merely find himself subject to, as it seemed with the earlier writers. (I can understand preferring the character less superpowered too, because that was part of the point of him, as a contrast to other comic-book magicians, but this, as seen in #102, is an unusual and fun power.)
If one accepts that real people, psychologically, and especially real work - because it's work - tend to have recurring themes, then a certain amount of repetition in one character's long-running story is fine. And even acknowledged greats of the comics world like Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison produced HB stories (collected in vol. 4) that were essentially Delano remixes. But with Jenkins, whilst there are pages or occasionally even whole stories that are enchanting, too often there are issues with detail. Not that the previous runs have ever been perfect in detail, but these problems are far more frequent in Jenkins. It's frustrating: even when he's off the mark, he's close enough to something good that one can (almost) imagine what a better writer would have done with that premise, or that line.
For me, this volume started strongly with #97 'The Nature of the Beast'. (There was also a YA novel from the 80s called The Nature of the Beast which fits with the subject of animals and wandering in the wild; I wonder if Jenkins had borrowed the title, or if that's too much of a stretch for a common phrase.) This issue had a clichéd premise which was nevertheless an instantly spellbinding read, an example of what a good writer can do with an old trope, especially when there's a sympathetic audience. Walking in a wood, Constantine stumbles on an old gypsy* who reads his cards - but a bearded bloke in a flat cap, not a headscarfed lady - and as well as the prose working beautifully, something about this bloke reminded me of countless loveable-rogue poacher characters in old novels and memoirs. (And one of the few occasions when this type gets a starring role, Danny the Champion of the World, was always my favourite of Roald Dahl's books, and my favourite "middle grade" book as a kid full stop ... small wonder that someone who loved that would also love Constantine.) Yes, it might have been better if the whole thing had stuck to trad Lenormand style cards - a fox is a real card in those decks - and not introduced a New Agey symbol like a butterfly. But then who's to say that a working-class fortune teller would care about, or fit, purist middle-class-historian aesthetics? The conclusion was what I'd already figured would be happening to JC, but that didn't matter - the atmosphere and prose did.
[*An old guy like this would probably have called himself a gypsy anyway, and in the UK it's not such a taboo term, as community groups generally call themselves 'Gypsy Roma & Traveller…' The terminology doesn’t have quite such an intelligentsia/ 'ordinary group members' divide as usage of 'Latinx', but there are real people in the GRT community in England who still use the term 'gypsy' and don't consider it a slur; there have also been intimations of an increased usage/reclaiming attitude on intersectional site Gal-Dem.]
(But it's just the sort of faux-pas you can imagine Jenkins making, if he'd written early issues of HB, that he might have made Constantine's mum Romany as a way of explaining his augmented magic powers compared with earlier Constantine ancestors, and then JC would have been a much more problematic character because he'd be embodying a lot of negative stereotypes. Jenkins is culturally a bit tone-deaf compared with the earlier writers on the series, whose attitudes have, more often than not, aged well.)
#98 and #106-7 were classic minor haunting stories of the sort that I love in HB, but also showed up the Jenkins clumsiness. Jenkins isn't as witty and sharp as Delano or Ennis (or other writers who've written Constantine so far), and this means JC doesn't have as many good lines in awkward situations, nor does he have the awareness of double entendre which I feel is a basic part of his character. There's no way they would have Contantine use a phrase like 'captain comequick' to refer to being summoned to save the day, nor in any situation other than making a joke about premature ejaculation, almost certainly at another man's expense.
There's less sense of charm, too, or distinctiveness of characters, as almost everyone has a slightly bitter blokeyness in the way they talk. At least Jenkins manages to make some historical characters sound historical (e.g. Coleridge), but plenty of the others end up sounding like 20th century slightly-pissed-off blokes at least some of the time. Shouldn't demons like the First of the Fallen and Ellie sound a bit grander, like they used to?
Again I wondered whether Jenkins was responsible for instructions to the artist, or if some of the off-key art choices are Sean Phillips' fault. Why have angels attaching electrodes to an otherwise perfectly late-18th-century Coleridge? They could just put their hands on his head or something. And what's with the Crystal Palace fans' scarves? Were fans in the late 90s still wearing colours last used for strips in the early 70s? Because that's the only reason they might be wearing what look like West Ham colours. (The colours used to be the same.) You'd assume, that, once there was another option via the primary-coloured red and blue, this would be a confusion that most younger fans would have been glad to drop. And did opposing fans ever refer to Brighton & Hove Albion as "the Brighton"? Sounds off. This is one of a number of stumbles which made it seem like a non-Brit, or someone who'd only lived in the UK a few years, was actually writing this.
A legend about the mountain Ben Macdui is introduced badly (I'm cringing too much to type it out), whereas if Constantine had said he'd heard it from an old girlfriend or mate who was Scottish, that would have made sense. It's the sheer accumulation of minor irritations like this that make me understand dislike of Jenkins. (Also, there are quite a few Scottish references here; does Jenkins have Scottish connections, I wonder, and was putting them into the comic the way Ennis did in a more noticeable way with Northern Irish Catholicism?)
Jenkins is noticeably iffy, too, on professional processes when there's really no need to be, both medical (he could just have put a couple of different groups of people in different places around the hospital) and police (a DC heading a major serial killer investigation??) Those things have always been easy to find out about, and were common knowledge from TV and newspapers before practically everything was on the internet - whereas the opportunity for better research, likely via feminist social history papers, about the community role of backstreet abortionists in the 1950s, less so.
Yet there are good ideas here, which sound like longtime fans' idea of 'classic Hellblazer' (when the newer iterations are being discussed). An encounter with a lightly fictionalised version of Wearside Jack. (In more of the synchronicity that happens when I read HB, I looked up Wikipedia and found the Yorkshire Ripper had died recently). There's a demon that feeds off the energy of football hooligans. The I-Ching as a device, so soon after the cartomancy, might have seemed like overdoing the popular divination methods - but because I'm reading this later, it can feel fittingly like 'a late 90s thing' because it was mentioned in a song on Pulp's album This is Hardcore, actually released a couple of years later.
Jack-in-the-Green / the Green Man is just the sort of figure you'd expect to spring up in a Hellblazer story, but what a muddle he is here. He's a figure of English folklore, but Jenkins associates him with the mythical town of Abaton, a Scottish legend. Though, after what I'd said in review of volume 9 about how a once hippy valuing of rural myths has in the last few years been implicated in right-wing politics, it was curious to see this figure portrayed as an openly racist little-Englander. Jenkins was, no doubt, meaning to make a point about rural racism and how PoC may end up feeling less welcome in the countryside because of it. But he hadn't thought through what it meant to use an ancient mythic figure in this way. Now there have been years of diffuse online discussion about this sort of thing: far-right Twitter accounts, infamous in certain niches, adopting just such symbols for their avatars or names (screenshot of one such in this blog post); fantasy authors who reach a wider audience and other cultural commentators discussing how to portray mythic embodiments of a country in a more inclusive way. Because the latter, with whom an obviously left-leaning project like Hellblazer has a home, have pointed out how it's particularly important for those symbols to be shown in fiction as judging belonging on factors other than skin colour, parents' nationality and so on. An obvious one for a Jack-in-the-Green would be to judge characters based on environmental behaviour (especially if you don't go into too much detail about contentious matters where dark green/bright green philosophies are opposed). Here he didn't need to judge anyone based on that anyway, and the portrayal of rural racism could have been delegated to a character who wasn't a presiding spirit of anything.
Concerning the main plot arc of the Jenkins run so far, the writer has used it in such a half-arsed way. If Constantine split himself into 'good' & 'bad' selves, the remaining 'good' self, should have been considerably more different than he actually was in these stories. It wasn't even noticeable. What a copout. A properly good, bold writer, could have created a reformed Constantine and had him like that for many issues - it's not as if there wasn't, by the late 90s, a decent crop of ageing rock stars of JC's generation who'd given up the booze, settled down, got fit, got spriritual and so on, whilst retaining some talent. They would have been plausible models for it characterwise. Maybe he'd have been running a reliable little exorcism business and he's enjoying how far he can run now he no longer smokes. He's something like ex-girlfriend Kit wanted him to be, but a) he's still doing magic, which she didn't want, and b) she likes pubs too much. You need skill to make this fun for the audience. Then after several months he's hit with some major occult problem that he needs his bad sides to solve, and there he goes getting some of them back. (And whatever new girlfriend there is doesn't like the change.) But losing the demon blood, that's basically losing a superpower, and that hasn't been addressed yet. (A few months ago, I read criticism of a 2018 writing decision to have him lose the demon blood... For that to happen, I can only guess he ends up with it again after this, in another repeating storyline.)
As it is, Constantine's reintegration of his bad self has thematic parallels with the end of the Delano run, but with far less psychological astuteness. It's simply a series of events and a trip through already-familiar aspects of Constantine's past, and it says little about the human mind and life in general. One of the few stories where there was a decent amount of psychological insight seemed superfluous, making moral conclusions about Constantine's dad which I thought both avid readers of the series, and JC himself, had already arrived at. It could have covered the new retcon in a couple of pages, rather than a whole issue, and also underestimates how much a thoughtful person in their 40s who had an abusive parent would have already processed. (Perhaps as Jenkins was only in his early 30s when he wrote this. It can be a particularly fruitful time for reflection, being at or near the age the parent was when you were a kid.)
Whilst Jenkins continues to be not as bad as I expected, there are nonetheless plenty of faults to find with his work on Hellblazer.
(November 2020)
October 12, 2015
This is generally a very strong Hellblazer volume, especially the major arc that runs from 97-104, concentrating on Constantin's recent changes. However, even the non-arc stories are at the worst, good. Jenkins was a strong Hellblazer writer, so it's great his writing is finally coming back into print.
The Nature of the Beast (97). A coda to "Critical Mass", though I suppose it sets up the new Constantine as well. It's one of my favorite Hellblazer stories because it does a great job of defining John in this moment while also reminding us of the unchanging elements of his character. And it does it with some nice attention to magic and to English myth. Beautiful! [9/10]
Walking the Dog (98). A fun little story that's quite evocative and does a good job of introducing more of John's crew. Plus: Ghost Dog!! [7/10].
Return to Abaton (99). And here we get back to the serious stuff, despite the one-off nature of these stories. We have a new, bright and shiny John who just wants to bring joy to his friends ... but the old Constantine curse can't help but emerge. A wonderful look at Constantine (and a nice continuation of the British elements from previous stories) [8/10].
Sins of the Father (100). This was what made Jenkins' Hellblazer so great. It's another issue built solidly upon the foundation of Delano and Ennis' runs, thanks to the focus on both John's father and the First of the Fallen. However, it's also a uniquely Jenkinsian story that takes all of that and puts a modern twist on it. It's yet another great look at the new John and what's made him what he is [8/10].
Football (101). I've never been a fan of the Football mob stories, but this does a good job of detailing the culture and showing Constantine at his best [7/10].
Difficult Beginnings (102-104). As a sequel to "Critical Mass", this one was interesting from the start. It's a culmination of the threads about the new Constantine that have run through most of the issues in between. Admitted, it meanders a bit. The parable in "One-Sided Coin" (102) is a bit obvious (but beautifully told), while "The Trouble with Worms" (103) is definitely a digression. However, Jenkins knocks it out of the park with "The Darkening of the Light" (104). This is a archetypical Constantine story that's one of the best around. Wow! And as usual it's a beautiful continuation of the stories from earlier writers [9/10].
A Taste of Heaven (105). Another fun look at the myth of England, here looking at one of its writers, Coleridge. It's a simple story, but it's a nice mix of the supernatural and the historical [7/10].
In the Line of Fire (106-107). This doesn't have quite the heft of Ennis' Hellblazer war story, "Finest Hour" (#71), but it's still a terrific combination of the same motifs, looking back at what WWII meant to the people who fought in it [7/10].
The Nature of the Beast (97). A coda to "Critical Mass", though I suppose it sets up the new Constantine as well. It's one of my favorite Hellblazer stories because it does a great job of defining John in this moment while also reminding us of the unchanging elements of his character. And it does it with some nice attention to magic and to English myth. Beautiful! [9/10]
Walking the Dog (98). A fun little story that's quite evocative and does a good job of introducing more of John's crew. Plus: Ghost Dog!! [7/10].
Return to Abaton (99). And here we get back to the serious stuff, despite the one-off nature of these stories. We have a new, bright and shiny John who just wants to bring joy to his friends ... but the old Constantine curse can't help but emerge. A wonderful look at Constantine (and a nice continuation of the British elements from previous stories) [8/10].
Sins of the Father (100). This was what made Jenkins' Hellblazer so great. It's another issue built solidly upon the foundation of Delano and Ennis' runs, thanks to the focus on both John's father and the First of the Fallen. However, it's also a uniquely Jenkinsian story that takes all of that and puts a modern twist on it. It's yet another great look at the new John and what's made him what he is [8/10].
Football (101). I've never been a fan of the Football mob stories, but this does a good job of detailing the culture and showing Constantine at his best [7/10].
Difficult Beginnings (102-104). As a sequel to "Critical Mass", this one was interesting from the start. It's a culmination of the threads about the new Constantine that have run through most of the issues in between. Admitted, it meanders a bit. The parable in "One-Sided Coin" (102) is a bit obvious (but beautifully told), while "The Trouble with Worms" (103) is definitely a digression. However, Jenkins knocks it out of the park with "The Darkening of the Light" (104). This is a archetypical Constantine story that's one of the best around. Wow! And as usual it's a beautiful continuation of the stories from earlier writers [9/10].
A Taste of Heaven (105). Another fun look at the myth of England, here looking at one of its writers, Coleridge. It's a simple story, but it's a nice mix of the supernatural and the historical [7/10].
In the Line of Fire (106-107). This doesn't have quite the heft of Ennis' Hellblazer war story, "Finest Hour" (#71), but it's still a terrific combination of the same motifs, looking back at what WWII meant to the people who fought in it [7/10].
June 18, 2015
Hellblazer Vol- 10: In The Line of Fire" collects issues n º 97 to 107 of the title "John Constantine: Hellblazer".
All stories and issues contained within are written by Paul Jenkins, a writer whose work on the title had remained uncollected until the release of these new edition paperbacks, which aim to collect all issues of the title in chronological order. I have been finding Jenkins' work on the title to be absolutely stellar and find it hard to believe that the issues he wrote had remained uncollected for so long. The dialogue he writes flows beautifully and his characterization of both Constantine and those around him is very well established. He really brings forth Constantine's "con-man" persona through engrossing stories that create new challenges and characters for John without for a second failing to effciently reference, expand and develop previous seminal motifs and events presented in "Hellblazer" in a very organic and exciting manner.
The artwork of the issues collected in this volume is by Sean Phillips (aside from one issue drawn by Al Davinson). I can't praise his arwork high enougth - it's a perfect fit for the stories and world of Hellblazer and one of the best artists that have ever worked on the title.
I am really glad that Vertigo finally took it upon themselves to collect Jenkin's and Phillips' brilliant run on Hellblazer - it's one of the best in the title.
All stories and issues contained within are written by Paul Jenkins, a writer whose work on the title had remained uncollected until the release of these new edition paperbacks, which aim to collect all issues of the title in chronological order. I have been finding Jenkins' work on the title to be absolutely stellar and find it hard to believe that the issues he wrote had remained uncollected for so long. The dialogue he writes flows beautifully and his characterization of both Constantine and those around him is very well established. He really brings forth Constantine's "con-man" persona through engrossing stories that create new challenges and characters for John without for a second failing to effciently reference, expand and develop previous seminal motifs and events presented in "Hellblazer" in a very organic and exciting manner.
The artwork of the issues collected in this volume is by Sean Phillips (aside from one issue drawn by Al Davinson). I can't praise his arwork high enougth - it's a perfect fit for the stories and world of Hellblazer and one of the best artists that have ever worked on the title.
I am really glad that Vertigo finally took it upon themselves to collect Jenkin's and Phillips' brilliant run on Hellblazer - it's one of the best in the title.
November 11, 2017
This volume has a great deal of focus on John's inner self and thoughts, given the splitting of his soul in two in the previous volume. He must go on a journey to become whole again. There are also several single-issue stories where John uses his magical skill to solve some chilling hauntings that would depress anyone. He can't win every fight, but he trudges on.
John stumbles into an old man named Tom who offers to read Tarot cards for him. John's first card is the fox, so Tom compares John's life before his recent soul splitting with that of a fox who has to rely on smarts to survive encounters with stronger opponents. John's life right now is that of a butterfly, his second card, given his transformation and the need to choose a path for the future. His story is one of becoming what he was again, but John doesn't care about the path any more, only the choice.
The soul of a mistreated dog is haunting the building where Straff, one of John's friends, lives. John coaxes the animal outside, freeing the building of its negative influence.
Abaton is a magical realm with certain rules. John takes several of his friends there and a couple of them break the rules. John can't do anything about it and they suffer for it.
John's body goes into a coma and his soul is brought to the hell belonging to the first of the fallen who show John his father. They recount their strained relationship and the events around John's moving away from home.
During a football (soccer) game John encounters the demon responsible for enraging the spirits of football fans. John tries to bluff his way out, but can't prevent the violence that breaks out, nor the killing of one of his friends.
John's friend Wong follows the I Ching belief and tells John about the journey to complete himself involving his trigrams. John worries that the good part of his soul can't exist without the bad one. Visiting each trigram corrupts his soul just enough to become a whole person again, with 'good, bad, indifferent' sides.
The fictionalized story behind the writing of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan follows. After dreaming the poem while under the influence of opium, he started writing it, but was interrupted by someone who made Coleridge forget the ending.
A house on a street John often visited is hidden by magic he can now perceive. The tenant, an World War II infantryman named Jack, survived for two days behind enemy lines by thinking of the girl he will see on his return home.
John stumbles into an old man named Tom who offers to read Tarot cards for him. John's first card is the fox, so Tom compares John's life before his recent soul splitting with that of a fox who has to rely on smarts to survive encounters with stronger opponents. John's life right now is that of a butterfly, his second card, given his transformation and the need to choose a path for the future. His story is one of becoming what he was again, but John doesn't care about the path any more, only the choice.
The soul of a mistreated dog is haunting the building where Straff, one of John's friends, lives. John coaxes the animal outside, freeing the building of its negative influence.
Abaton is a magical realm with certain rules. John takes several of his friends there and a couple of them break the rules. John can't do anything about it and they suffer for it.
John's body goes into a coma and his soul is brought to the hell belonging to the first of the fallen who show John his father. They recount their strained relationship and the events around John's moving away from home.
During a football (soccer) game John encounters the demon responsible for enraging the spirits of football fans. John tries to bluff his way out, but can't prevent the violence that breaks out, nor the killing of one of his friends.
John's friend Wong follows the I Ching belief and tells John about the journey to complete himself involving his trigrams. John worries that the good part of his soul can't exist without the bad one. Visiting each trigram corrupts his soul just enough to become a whole person again, with 'good, bad, indifferent' sides.
The fictionalized story behind the writing of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Kubla Khan follows. After dreaming the poem while under the influence of opium, he started writing it, but was interrupted by someone who made Coleridge forget the ending.
A house on a street John often visited is hidden by magic he can now perceive. The tenant, an World War II infantryman named Jack, survived for two days behind enemy lines by thinking of the girl he will see on his return home.
December 10, 2015
At first, This whole collection is a series of one-shot independent issues. Most of them are about Constantine and his mates pissing about, but one of them stands out above all. . .
Issue #100: "SINS OF THE FATHER."
Oh my, I can't remember the last comic book that made me cry, or if there ever was one. But this issue, wow. It was so fucking sad, so fucking harrowing, it broke me. On one hand I felt sorry for Thomas Constantine, and for Constantine to see his dad suffer under Hell's torment. On the other hand, I knew what a wry bastard the old git was. This confrontation and reconciliation between father and son was so well written, so well drawn, that at the end when the circumstances surrounding Constantine's mother's death are finally revealed, you can't help but have a minor breakdown. The coat hanger imagery then sits well in your mind and the true horror takes root. Damn, it's amazing in its edgy grittiness.
The main story starts at Issue #102: DIFFICULT BEGINNINGS. It's a rather existential piece, this one. It's about John coming to terms with his goodness. Seeing as he's purged himself of the evil side of himself. Life on the straight and narrow is rather tedious, but Constantine being Constantine, it doesn't lack in its fair share of thrills. Basically, this story line follows Constantine's search for himself, a search that leads him back to Ravenscar, and then to Hell to see Ellie, the succubus demon he helped mask from her master, The Devil.
It's not the most interesting Constantine you'll read, but if you get through the first two Issues, thw third issue #104, when he manipulates and seduces Ellie, that'll be worth the read. All in all, a cool collection.
Issue #100: "SINS OF THE FATHER."
Oh my, I can't remember the last comic book that made me cry, or if there ever was one. But this issue, wow. It was so fucking sad, so fucking harrowing, it broke me. On one hand I felt sorry for Thomas Constantine, and for Constantine to see his dad suffer under Hell's torment. On the other hand, I knew what a wry bastard the old git was. This confrontation and reconciliation between father and son was so well written, so well drawn, that at the end when the circumstances surrounding Constantine's mother's death are finally revealed, you can't help but have a minor breakdown. The coat hanger imagery then sits well in your mind and the true horror takes root. Damn, it's amazing in its edgy grittiness.
The main story starts at Issue #102: DIFFICULT BEGINNINGS. It's a rather existential piece, this one. It's about John coming to terms with his goodness. Seeing as he's purged himself of the evil side of himself. Life on the straight and narrow is rather tedious, but Constantine being Constantine, it doesn't lack in its fair share of thrills. Basically, this story line follows Constantine's search for himself, a search that leads him back to Ravenscar, and then to Hell to see Ellie, the succubus demon he helped mask from her master, The Devil.
It's not the most interesting Constantine you'll read, but if you get through the first two Issues, thw third issue #104, when he manipulates and seduces Ellie, that'll be worth the read. All in all, a cool collection.
September 29, 2021
Volume 10 of Hellblazer was quite enjoyable. Paul Jenkins has hit his stride and these stories are a great mix of horror, supernatural and esoteric magic.
This volume has a broad range of stories and they are all good. From a demon at a soccer game, to the continuing machinations of demons seeking to earn the First of the Fallen's favor and even fallen soldiers trapped as ghosts. JC's adventures should always be interesting and out of the ordinary. JC's cunning and knowledge is what sets him apart and these stories highlight that. While all the stories are good- the one with the First of the Fallen and JC's father's soul was likely the best one.
Jenkins understands and gets his JC and these stories are top notch.
This volume has a broad range of stories and they are all good. From a demon at a soccer game, to the continuing machinations of demons seeking to earn the First of the Fallen's favor and even fallen soldiers trapped as ghosts. JC's adventures should always be interesting and out of the ordinary. JC's cunning and knowledge is what sets him apart and these stories highlight that. While all the stories are good- the one with the First of the Fallen and JC's father's soul was likely the best one.
Jenkins understands and gets his JC and these stories are top notch.
February 19, 2015
Mostly a selection of done-in-ones with a two parter thrown in at the end that are your usual Constantine fare - John finds himself up to the eyeballs in magical buggery and has to bullcrap his way out of it, with varying degrees of success. These vary in quality, with the football story probably being the weakest, whilst the return to Abaton and the dog story being the best ones for me personally.
Then there's the three part 'Difficult Beginnings' story halfway through the trade that once again brings back The First of the Fallen and drops Constantine even further than before. It does feel like it's a quick-fix for what could have been a really long-term storyline for John (the loss of his demon blood/evil side which occurred in the previous volume) but I suppose reading these issues all at once instead of across a year like they would have been released makes it feel quicker than it should.
The artwork is excellent throughout, with Sean Phillips penciling all but one of the issues.
Then there's the three part 'Difficult Beginnings' story halfway through the trade that once again brings back The First of the Fallen and drops Constantine even further than before. It does feel like it's a quick-fix for what could have been a really long-term storyline for John (the loss of his demon blood/evil side which occurred in the previous volume) but I suppose reading these issues all at once instead of across a year like they would have been released makes it feel quicker than it should.
The artwork is excellent throughout, with Sean Phillips penciling all but one of the issues.
March 2, 2023
It's a little shaky at points, with needlessly long monologues at points. Especially the first issue felt like it droned on and on. BUT it did become better when we got into the main meat of the story. The highlight be having to deal with Constantine's father. A dark, twisted, really fucked up tale with a brutal ending. I loved this issue, and while there's none that lived up to it, there's still some good ones here about a poor girl who kills herself, and Difficult Beginnings storyline is a great sequel to critically Mass even if it feels lacking a bit in the middle.
Overall a solid collection, around a 3.5 out of 5.
Overall a solid collection, around a 3.5 out of 5.
June 27, 2016
This collection of one shot stories and shorter multi-parters turned out to be one of my favorite Hellblazer collections so far.
Some of the gems included in this one:
A ghostly pet that won't leave his home.
Constantine gets closure (of a sort) with his dead father.
John gave up his dark side to save a child's soul, but now finds himself needing to regain it once again.
A look at the poet Coleridge and the real story behind one of his most famous works.
A ghost soldier who won't go to his final resting place before he takes care of some unfinished business.
This isn't every story included, but the majority. The art was also good, and and fit the stories well.
Overall I thought this was a very underrated collection, and I'm glad DC finally got around to releasing it.
Some of the gems included in this one:
A ghostly pet that won't leave his home.
Constantine gets closure (of a sort) with his dead father.
John gave up his dark side to save a child's soul, but now finds himself needing to regain it once again.
A look at the poet Coleridge and the real story behind one of his most famous works.
A ghost soldier who won't go to his final resting place before he takes care of some unfinished business.
This isn't every story included, but the majority. The art was also good, and and fit the stories well.
Overall I thought this was a very underrated collection, and I'm glad DC finally got around to releasing it.
November 30, 2014
Aside from a terrible story about Hooligans, this was filled with good to great stories and careful, quiet characterization. Jenkins's run seems to be a return to actual characterization and depth, especially as the bloodshed and graphic gore that defined Ennis's run is completely elided by the impressive art of Sean Phillips. Instead, we have a measure of Humanity as Constantine works to rediscover what kind of person he is after tampering with and vivisecting his personality at the end of the previous volume. The push and pull of new politics and old world myth and magic continues to produce a wonderful frisson, the tensions being much better executed than Delano's own take on magic.
October 9, 2015
Again with the jumpy timelines, but good solid stories throughout.
February 3, 2021
The tenth volume of John Constantine, Hellblazer, “In the Line of Fire”, sees the Con-Man come to the vital realization that good can’t exist without evil, especially when it comes to one’s soul.
See, in the last volume, John used his magical abilities of manipulation and bullshit to trick the Devil (literally) into getting rid of his dark side, the evil aspect of his personality. Unfortunately, the truth begins to dawn on him: life sucks without his dark side. It’s boring when everything is goodness and light, cheerio and “‘Ello, guv’ner”. (Sorry, that was an attempt to sound British. It’s probably offensive to actual Brits. I apologize.)
Despite John’s predicament, this volume does provide us with an adorable look at John’s pitiable attempts at being a nice guy, someone who helps his neighbor and doesn’t kick cats.
This volume’s highlights: John invites some of his old punk buddies to the fairy land of Abaton; he helps exorcise a haunted house of the ghost of a dog who just wants one last treat; he makes peace (kind of) with his dear ol’ da, who had some pretty nasty skeletons in his closet; he helps the spirit of an old WWII vet find peace at least; and he manages to get his evil mojo back…
See, in the last volume, John used his magical abilities of manipulation and bullshit to trick the Devil (literally) into getting rid of his dark side, the evil aspect of his personality. Unfortunately, the truth begins to dawn on him: life sucks without his dark side. It’s boring when everything is goodness and light, cheerio and “‘Ello, guv’ner”. (Sorry, that was an attempt to sound British. It’s probably offensive to actual Brits. I apologize.)
Despite John’s predicament, this volume does provide us with an adorable look at John’s pitiable attempts at being a nice guy, someone who helps his neighbor and doesn’t kick cats.
This volume’s highlights: John invites some of his old punk buddies to the fairy land of Abaton; he helps exorcise a haunted house of the ghost of a dog who just wants one last treat; he makes peace (kind of) with his dear ol’ da, who had some pretty nasty skeletons in his closet; he helps the spirit of an old WWII vet find peace at least; and he manages to get his evil mojo back…
August 18, 2021
This volume was really, really good! That's a weak adjective, I know. I also know that I will have to go out and buy the next volume tomorrow so I can continue this amazing series as fast as possible.
June 23, 2017
Free of the demon blood that's coursed through his veins for years, free of the baggage of all his past misdeeds since he created a doppelgänger of himself to be touted off to Hell, Constantine is staying on the straight and narrow, doing good deeds whenever he can and growing closer to his friends. In Ennis' run, Constantine had made an effort to have a "normal" life; in Paul Jenkins run, he's making an effort to lead a "good" life. But misfortune has a way of catching up to ole' John.
The art in all but one story in this volume is by Sean Phillips, who just gets stronger and stronger with each issue. Fair warning: there are spoilers ahead...
Multi-parters are fun, but I really enjoy single issue stories too. It harkens back to the earliest days of Hellblazer, and this volume opens with a nice chunk of them.
In "Nature of the Beast", Constantine meets an old man in the woods (possibly God? There's some strong hints) who reads his Tarot cards and tells our man two fables, metaphors for Constantine as he used to be, and as he currently is. Constantine decides not to hear the old man's fable about what he WILL be, and good thing.
In "Walking the Dog", Constantine's downstairs neighbor, a gigantic but dull-witted fellow called Straff, needs help with his doddering mother, and this leads Constantine to an encounter with the ghost of a poor abused dog who had lived in the unit previously.
"Punkin' Up the Great Outdoors" feels like set-up for future stories, as Constantine, on what seems like a ill-thought-out lark, takes his friends to Abaton (the mythological place he gained access to via Jack of the Green in the previous volume). For one old flame, the results are tragic.
"Sins of the Fathers" is the 100th issue of Hellblazer, and... wow, man. Just, wow. Constantine lapses into a mysterious coma, and in a half-dead fugue, he's led by the First of the Fallen into a revelatory conversation with his damned-to-Hell father. Constantine learns some ugly truths about his mother's death, and about his father's own sexual depravities, and it ends with Constantine forgiving his father, but also understanding that Hell is where the old man belongs. It also establishes a different kind of rapport between Constantine and the First, as the Devil doesn't seem to be interested in Constantine's soul anymore as much as he is in just making him miserable. It's a turning point in their long-running animosity. This is just an amazing issue, one of the very best single issues of Hellblazer, and after reading it I actually had to stop for a while to let it linger in my mind.
The next story, "Football: It's a Funny Old Game" is a bit of a let-down after the brilliance of the 100th issue. Featuring rather unappealing fill-in art by Al Davison, Constantine bluffs a havoc demon into not causing a murderous riot at a football match. Eh.
In the 3-part "Difficult Beginnings", Constantine has been feeling disconnected and out of step with reality since sacrificing all his evil bits to save Syder, Astra, and the other unjustly damned children. He's lost his mojo. An I-Ching reading sends him on a path in search of his darkness, first to the Ravenscar mental asylum, then to the doorstep of an evil murderer who'd gotten away with his crimes for years, and finally to Hell. In Hell, Constantine encounters his doppelgänger, Demon Constantine, who is interestingly enough doing quite well for himself albeit looking pretty nasty. The Demon Constantine is wicked enough to know what Good Constantine has to do to regain his wicked mojo...
Did I mention spoilers up above?
Constantine finds Ellie, still hidden from the First of the Fallen due to the sigils Constantine had etched her with all those years ago. Constantine seduces her-- our man seduces a demon, how you like that-- and regains all the aspects of his personality he had lost. But when Ellie realizes she's been duped, he's also made a very serious enemy of a former ally. She can't kill him, because to do so would cause the sigil that protects her to fade away, but there's little doubt it ain't over.
"A Taste of Heaven"-- are you familiar with that story about Samuel Taylor Coleridge writing Kubla Khan while whacked out on opium, only he never finished it because the so-called "person from Porlock" interrupted him and pulled him out of his trance? What if I told you that angels were whispering in Coleridge's ear the whole time, and the interrupting opium dealer was a distant ancestor of our man John Constantine? You'd believe that, wouldn't you? After all, it wouldn't be a bit surprising.
The volume ends with an uncharacteristically sweet two part story; Constantine stumbles across a sort of ghost house no one else can see, inhabited by the spirit of a heartbroken WWII soldier, and helps the bereaved ghost find some semblance of peace. It's a nicely melancholy end to "In the Line of Fire".
At this point in his run, Paul Jenkins is just on fire with great stories and great ideas, and his ranking in my list of favorite Hellblazer writers is skyrocketing.
The art in all but one story in this volume is by Sean Phillips, who just gets stronger and stronger with each issue. Fair warning: there are spoilers ahead...
Multi-parters are fun, but I really enjoy single issue stories too. It harkens back to the earliest days of Hellblazer, and this volume opens with a nice chunk of them.
In "Nature of the Beast", Constantine meets an old man in the woods (possibly God? There's some strong hints) who reads his Tarot cards and tells our man two fables, metaphors for Constantine as he used to be, and as he currently is. Constantine decides not to hear the old man's fable about what he WILL be, and good thing.
In "Walking the Dog", Constantine's downstairs neighbor, a gigantic but dull-witted fellow called Straff, needs help with his doddering mother, and this leads Constantine to an encounter with the ghost of a poor abused dog who had lived in the unit previously.
"Punkin' Up the Great Outdoors" feels like set-up for future stories, as Constantine, on what seems like a ill-thought-out lark, takes his friends to Abaton (the mythological place he gained access to via Jack of the Green in the previous volume). For one old flame, the results are tragic.
"Sins of the Fathers" is the 100th issue of Hellblazer, and... wow, man. Just, wow. Constantine lapses into a mysterious coma, and in a half-dead fugue, he's led by the First of the Fallen into a revelatory conversation with his damned-to-Hell father. Constantine learns some ugly truths about his mother's death, and about his father's own sexual depravities, and it ends with Constantine forgiving his father, but also understanding that Hell is where the old man belongs. It also establishes a different kind of rapport between Constantine and the First, as the Devil doesn't seem to be interested in Constantine's soul anymore as much as he is in just making him miserable. It's a turning point in their long-running animosity. This is just an amazing issue, one of the very best single issues of Hellblazer, and after reading it I actually had to stop for a while to let it linger in my mind.
The next story, "Football: It's a Funny Old Game" is a bit of a let-down after the brilliance of the 100th issue. Featuring rather unappealing fill-in art by Al Davison, Constantine bluffs a havoc demon into not causing a murderous riot at a football match. Eh.
In the 3-part "Difficult Beginnings", Constantine has been feeling disconnected and out of step with reality since sacrificing all his evil bits to save Syder, Astra, and the other unjustly damned children. He's lost his mojo. An I-Ching reading sends him on a path in search of his darkness, first to the Ravenscar mental asylum, then to the doorstep of an evil murderer who'd gotten away with his crimes for years, and finally to Hell. In Hell, Constantine encounters his doppelgänger, Demon Constantine, who is interestingly enough doing quite well for himself albeit looking pretty nasty. The Demon Constantine is wicked enough to know what Good Constantine has to do to regain his wicked mojo...
Did I mention spoilers up above?
Constantine finds Ellie, still hidden from the First of the Fallen due to the sigils Constantine had etched her with all those years ago. Constantine seduces her-- our man seduces a demon, how you like that-- and regains all the aspects of his personality he had lost. But when Ellie realizes she's been duped, he's also made a very serious enemy of a former ally. She can't kill him, because to do so would cause the sigil that protects her to fade away, but there's little doubt it ain't over.
"A Taste of Heaven"-- are you familiar with that story about Samuel Taylor Coleridge writing Kubla Khan while whacked out on opium, only he never finished it because the so-called "person from Porlock" interrupted him and pulled him out of his trance? What if I told you that angels were whispering in Coleridge's ear the whole time, and the interrupting opium dealer was a distant ancestor of our man John Constantine? You'd believe that, wouldn't you? After all, it wouldn't be a bit surprising.
The volume ends with an uncharacteristically sweet two part story; Constantine stumbles across a sort of ghost house no one else can see, inhabited by the spirit of a heartbroken WWII soldier, and helps the bereaved ghost find some semblance of peace. It's a nicely melancholy end to "In the Line of Fire".
At this point in his run, Paul Jenkins is just on fire with great stories and great ideas, and his ranking in my list of favorite Hellblazer writers is skyrocketing.
April 7, 2018
Continues Constantine's battles between the darkness of the world and life.
March 28, 2020
After reading Volume 9, I was a little trepidatious about Paul Jenkins taking over Hellblazer. Luckily, this volume, which is mostly short one-off stories, manages to largely make up for the missteps in that volume, so I'm back on board, baby! What a roller coaster!
The biggest change seems to come from Jenkins leaning back into making Constantine English as all living hell. Garth Ennis nailed that aspect of the character, and brought a ton of his Irish sensibilities into play as well. Now Jenkins, who is himself English, has begun to do the same, and it just brings so much life and specificity to the settings and scenarios.
There are stories about football hooligans, World War II vets, classic English fantasy characters, and even, somehow, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, all tied specifically to a demonic or magical force that Constantine has to face. These stories are told emotionally, as well, and damn it if they didn't make me care about Constantine as a person for the first time in a long while (though Ennis accomplished that intermittently, to be fair).
The only thing hanging me up in this volume is the central arc itself. In Volume 9, Constantine rid himself of all the negative aspects of his personality via some insane ritual in which he yet again got the better of Satan. Now we're seeing a Constantine who actually wants to do good, which is a cool concept.
However, Jenkins upends this narrative pretty quickly, and in a way I found completely unbelievable and kind of angering. Tired of being a "good person," Constantine takes advantage of Ellie, a literal succubus who has done basically nothing but help him throughout the series, using her dark energy to reignite his own personal shittiness. He justifies his actions to himself by saying she's a demon and thus deserves nothing, but that doesn't feel like Constantine to me, good or bad. It feels like it's torpedoing all the character work Ennis did between Ellie and Constantine without earning it. It's completely out of the blue, and man, it sucks.
But, that's really just one (big) hiccup in an otherwise excellent collection. Assuming Jenkins doesn't spend much more time destroying longstanding character relationships, I think I'm going to like his run in general. Guess we'll see!
The biggest change seems to come from Jenkins leaning back into making Constantine English as all living hell. Garth Ennis nailed that aspect of the character, and brought a ton of his Irish sensibilities into play as well. Now Jenkins, who is himself English, has begun to do the same, and it just brings so much life and specificity to the settings and scenarios.
There are stories about football hooligans, World War II vets, classic English fantasy characters, and even, somehow, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, all tied specifically to a demonic or magical force that Constantine has to face. These stories are told emotionally, as well, and damn it if they didn't make me care about Constantine as a person for the first time in a long while (though Ennis accomplished that intermittently, to be fair).
The only thing hanging me up in this volume is the central arc itself. In Volume 9, Constantine rid himself of all the negative aspects of his personality via some insane ritual in which he yet again got the better of Satan. Now we're seeing a Constantine who actually wants to do good, which is a cool concept.
However, Jenkins upends this narrative pretty quickly, and in a way I found completely unbelievable and kind of angering. Tired of being a "good person," Constantine takes advantage of Ellie, a literal succubus who has done basically nothing but help him throughout the series, using her dark energy to reignite his own personal shittiness. He justifies his actions to himself by saying she's a demon and thus deserves nothing, but that doesn't feel like Constantine to me, good or bad. It feels like it's torpedoing all the character work Ennis did between Ellie and Constantine without earning it. It's completely out of the blue, and man, it sucks.
But, that's really just one (big) hiccup in an otherwise excellent collection. Assuming Jenkins doesn't spend much more time destroying longstanding character relationships, I think I'm going to like his run in general. Guess we'll see!
June 16, 2016
A solid volume that continues to build the plot and characters in Jenkins' arc. Aside from a lame one-off, it's a solid set of stories.
#97 The Nature of the Beast 4/5
This is technically the start of the "Difficult Beginnings" storyline. It sets a lighter and more optimistic tone for the book while allowing for an eerie ambivalence about Constantine's future. A great start to the book.
#98 Walking the Dog 3.5/5
A story about a dog haunting that expands upon some of Constantine's supporting cast, which is basically everything to look for in a one-off.
#99 Punkin' Up the Great Outdoors 4/5
This is another self contained tale also expands on the core supporting cast. Constantine decides to take his friends to the mystical village of Abaton. It hints at some of the stuff to come in the next volume.
#100 Sins of the Father 4.5/5
This one reads like something that something Delano would have written, and helps bring Constantine's relationship with his father to a head. Constantine's ennui reaches a head here, and these events echo through the rest of Jenkins' run.
#101 Football: It's a Funny Old Game 2/5
The weak spot of this volume. A one-off about sports violence. It isn't anything that hasn't been written before or since. The overall plot would probably read better if this issue got skipped.
#102-104 Difficult Beginnings 4.5/5
The meat of this volume sees Constantine forced to make a choice about his new lease on life. This is a great story that builds to the next climax without feeling incomplete.
#105 A Taste of Heaven 4/5
Okay, this is one for literature nerds. Constantine goes to the inn where Samuel Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan." I'm pretty sure this is the first Constantine Lineage story, which Paul Jenkins will further expand in Lady Constantine. Most people will probably find this an average, forgettable one-off.
#106-107 In the Line of Fire 3/5
This story is a weird two parter. It feels like it should be one part, but I can't think of too much to cut out. It ends a bit awkwardly, and I'm not sure how much is accomplished, though the next volume references this story, so it ends up being surprisingly important.
Aside for ending a bit weirdly, I'm still excited for the next part of Jenkins' run.
#97 The Nature of the Beast 4/5
This is technically the start of the "Difficult Beginnings" storyline. It sets a lighter and more optimistic tone for the book while allowing for an eerie ambivalence about Constantine's future. A great start to the book.
#98 Walking the Dog 3.5/5
A story about a dog haunting that expands upon some of Constantine's supporting cast, which is basically everything to look for in a one-off.
#99 Punkin' Up the Great Outdoors 4/5
This is another self contained tale also expands on the core supporting cast. Constantine decides to take his friends to the mystical village of Abaton. It hints at some of the stuff to come in the next volume.
#100 Sins of the Father 4.5/5
This one reads like something that something Delano would have written, and helps bring Constantine's relationship with his father to a head. Constantine's ennui reaches a head here, and these events echo through the rest of Jenkins' run.
#101 Football: It's a Funny Old Game 2/5
The weak spot of this volume. A one-off about sports violence. It isn't anything that hasn't been written before or since. The overall plot would probably read better if this issue got skipped.
#102-104 Difficult Beginnings 4.5/5
The meat of this volume sees Constantine forced to make a choice about his new lease on life. This is a great story that builds to the next climax without feeling incomplete.
#105 A Taste of Heaven 4/5
Okay, this is one for literature nerds. Constantine goes to the inn where Samuel Coleridge wrote "Kubla Khan." I'm pretty sure this is the first Constantine Lineage story, which Paul Jenkins will further expand in Lady Constantine. Most people will probably find this an average, forgettable one-off.
#106-107 In the Line of Fire 3/5
This story is a weird two parter. It feels like it should be one part, but I can't think of too much to cut out. It ends a bit awkwardly, and I'm not sure how much is accomplished, though the next volume references this story, so it ends up being surprisingly important.
Aside for ending a bit weirdly, I'm still excited for the next part of Jenkins' run.
June 30, 2017
Paul Jenkins was the third major writer on Hellblazer, and this is the volume where he's finally getting to tell his own story rather than just cleaning up the loose ends of someone else's. It holds up pretty well for its age, although it doesn't quite have the bite of the Delano run it resembles. The stories are good, but the horror is lacking for the most part (although the image of a man suspended from a forest of coat hangers is one that'll stay with you). But it's still bloody Constantine, innit?
June 2, 2018
I really don't know what else to say about Paul Jenkins other than that he is boring the ever-loving shit out of me and I can't believe I still have like two more volumes of this crap to slog through. It's just ...sooo boooooring. There were 11 issues in this and I think they were all random one-shots except one that was a 3-issue arc but even that was complete crap. I can't believe I'm saying this but I would rather have Delano back. I may not have liked his writing but at least he had a consistent character and story arc going on, I don't even know what the point of any of this is.
February 4, 2016
Teine köide varem taastrükkimata Paul Jenkinsi autorlusega Hellblazeri osasid #96 - #107. "Varem taastrükkimata" siis selles tähenduses et nad on ilmunud varemalt ainult 96. aastal igakuise 24- leheküljelise vihiku vormis.
Klassikaline 'Blazer. Olles üsnagi kallutatud - Hellblazer on mu lemmikkoomiks - ütlen hinnanguks ainult kaks sõna - "Puhas kuld"! :)
Klassikaline 'Blazer. Olles üsnagi kallutatud - Hellblazer on mu lemmikkoomiks - ütlen hinnanguks ainult kaks sõna - "Puhas kuld"! :)
April 20, 2015
This was pretty weak. I *really* hate what Jenkins elected to do with Ellie; in more deft hands it would have been ok, but it came off as distressingly misogynistic, with no trace of the affection that Constantine has shown toward Ellie in the past. Most of the rest of the stories are just ok; not bad, but not all that great, and often seemingly lacking in focus.
October 7, 2017
Un coleccion de historias, en su mayoría autoconclusivas, que son muy efectivas. Jenkins hace un buen trabajo a los guiones y Phillips siempre cumple al dibujo. Lo que no me termina de convencer es el color, pero probablemente tenga que ver con que son historias de hace 20 años. Me quedan ganas de conseguir el próximo tomo.
October 11, 2015
Really sad to wrap up this series. This collection, in general, was a letdown, only because I wanted MORE from the last chunk of the series. What I wanted was some epic storyline or showdown. What I got were a bunch of tiny, unrelated stories (for the most part).
December 11, 2018
I thoroughly enjoy Paul Jenkins’s writing, and I look forward to the next volume. After a cursory glance, it seems like he’s mostly done superhero books, which is a shame. I’m still curious to read his other works though.
February 26, 2017
Different writers, same old Constantine. He's a bad lad.
March 10, 2015
God I love this series so much and Jenkins does such a lovely job at his run as Hellblazer too.
March 29, 2015
A collection of shorter stories but still quality nonetheless.
December 9, 2016
The Difficult Beginnings story arc looks great, but the rest of the stories were a little flat.
May 15, 2017
REVIEW TO FOLLOW
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