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Hellblazer
Lilithium
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So, I'm up to Hellblazer #87 right now. This is the best comic series I've read! The Skrull Invasion arc can't compare to this, nor can any of my most coveted Batman arcs. How awesome can one series get? I don't know!
I'm looking for Silk Cuts as I type this out.
I'm looking for Silk Cuts as I type this out.
What's that ringing? Ting-ting-a-linging in my head~? Oh, you're always there, making me whole. You're always waiting up for me. You're my first kiss, ever so pure, and ever so defiling, once lost, can never be the same. Fuck me. Violate me. Deny me.
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But yes, Hellblazer is quite amazing. If only the movie Constantine was as good as he was in Hellblazer.
Judging from the trailers, the movie looks like End of Days, and is not interesting to me at all.
As for the book, I've seen the character occasionally in Moore's Swampthing, and I think I saw it mentioned here that Ennis wrote some of it.
I thoroughly enjoyed his Punisher and The Boys, and have read the first trade of Preacher which left me moderately entertained, but the demon/angel shit left me less interested. However, I liked it enough to want to eventually read more of it.
Taking that into consideration, is Hellblazer good enough to justify reading even though the demons/supernatural stuff really bores me? and, if so, is it worth starting from the beginning, or are there significantly better arcs later on that can stand alone?
Oh? You say that about the greatest retcon plot of all time? Shame!
Almost every major UK comics writer (and several American ones) have had a crack at Hellblazer, with varying degrees of success. You can't go wrong just finding a writer you like and checking out his run on the book; rather than keeping strict continuity, each writer tends to rework the character's major themes in their own way, and there's very little that you need to know to get into the book - you're not going to be going "wait! who's that guy?" every five minutes.
I don't know if you mean that the demon stuff in Preacher bores you, or that supernatural stuff in general bores you. As for the first, Ennis doesn't take supernatural stuff very seriously, so tends to use them to comic (as in ha-ha) purposes rather than dramatic ones, but his Hellblazer nonetheless has some great creepy stories that are massively unlike what you've seen in Preacher. For the second point - well, Hellblazer is a supernatural book. There's no way around that. However, its focus is on telling serious, adult stories where the horror is there to supply flavor and atmosphere to the larger themes: a classic early story, for instance, is a vicious sendup of 80s yuppiedom where upwardly-mobile types sell their souls for eternally thin bodies and stock options.
As for the best runs - Ennis's is good, and Warren Ellis's brief run nonetheless had some high points. A lot of people are fans of Brian Azzarello's stuff. For my money, though, the best Hellblazer writer is the first one: Jamie Delano, who did the first thirty or forty issues and really defined Constantine as a character. He's never really made it big anywhere else, partly because his work is intensely cynical and bleak, but it's also brilliant, and his style is a perfect fit for the character, and all the subsequent interpretations almost necessarily riff on Delano's at some point.
Hey, this is a Hellblazer topic. I know you planted this seed in the OP, but let's drop it.
Constantine cannot get away from the horror and bloodshed; it follows him wherever he goes. In fact, whenever he tries to make a life for himself outside the supernatural, he always ends with everyone he cares for dead. Everyone except himself, that is. Constantine is a survivor, at the expense of everything else.
Constantine is also a cynic and, some claim, an utter bastard. It's his way of dealing with a world that wants nothing more than to see him shrivel up and die. He is followed a train of dead friends, lovers, and family. He is wrecked with guilt, most of which he entirely deserves.
While this is true, Constantine is also the man in the streets. He is constantly at the mercy of forces far beyond him, whether it be Thatcher or demons. And like all peasants, he rolls with the punches. Instead of complaining, he does his best to create his own space in an unforgiving world, trying to find a measure of happiness. He has his "mates," a number of faceless barflies (or possibly pubflies), who can be counted on for a good time, to distract him from his woes with good beer and good company.
There is no black and white in the Hellblazer universe (which is thematically different from the Vertigo universe). Nothing Constantine builds ever lasts. No victory is every without cost. The only way for Constantine to survive in this bleak and dystopian world is by playing unfair, cheating every way possible. It is the essence of his magic.
At least, this is one interpretations. Other writers, especially those dealing with other Vertigo imprints, have also written him as the "Golden Fool," giving him mythical qualities. There, Constantine defies both angel and devil, spitting in the face of heaven and hell. He exists as a reminder to the hobnobs of the supernatural world that no one is infallible. He is the one who can look upon the gods and still laugh.
Now we play the waiting game.
...
The waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos instead.
Swamp Thing, I think. I seem to remember that question being unanswered until I got my hands on ST years later... Let's just sum it up with "it was his fault" (no real spoiler, it usually is, and if it's not, he assumes it is), I don't think it bothered me much when I read hellblazer, or even when I finally read it in swamp thing later.
Yeah, that was in Swamp Thing. Fucking creepy, too.