|
June 2008 |
By
Alex Boney
Most of
us have friends with whom we don’t talk nearly as often as
we’d like. In most cases, we’ve known these friends for
years and, for one reason or another, we’ve fallen out of
contact for long stretches of time. But it’s always good to
give these friends a call or pay them a visit, even if it’s
only every year or so. They add something to our lives, and
we’re always reminded of this when we talk. For me,
Hellblazer
is one
of these friends. I’ve been buying an issue of
Hellblazer
every
month for the last 15 years. It’s the only periodical comic
book I’ve been buying continuously for this long, and by
now I’m determined that I’ll never stop following the book.
I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t read
Hellblazer
every
month; rather, I’ll stockpile a stack of them over the
course of a year (or two) and then, in one day, catch up on
what’s been going on. I’m seldom disappointed with what I
find. In fact, the only real disappointment I’ve ever had
with this book was last year, when I read all 13 issues
(#216-228) of novelist Denise Mina’s run in one sitting.
After that letdown, I wasn’t exactly inspired to start
reading the book monthly again. But recently, I read
through the entire 13-issue run of Andy Diggle’s most
recent run on the title. And I was pleased to find that my
old friend is fully back to form.
After 244 monthly issues (not counting the dozen or so
miniseries, spin-offs, annuals, and specials), it still
amazes me that the editors and creators of
Hellblazer
have
anything new to say about the book’s protagonist, John
Constantine (whose last name is pronounced “con-stan-tyne”
for the yanks among us). But nearly every time a new
creative team takes over the reins of the book, they add
something new—not just to my understanding of the John
Constantine, but also to the character’s understanding of
himself. The alumni list of past Hellblazer
writers
reads like a veritable Who’s Who list of today’s top-tier
comic book writers. Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Brian
Azzarello, Mike Carey, Paul Jenkins, Neil Gaiman, Grant
Morrison, and Eddie Campbell have all put their stamp on
this book at one time or another. But as much as these
creators have added to the Constantine mythos (I started
reading regularly during Garth Ennis’ run, which is widely
considered the most definitive Hellblazer
arc in
the history of the book), I still have the most
admiration—not just nostalgia, but true admiration and
respect—for the book’s initial 40-issue run. Jamie Delano
has only been writing comic books sporadically for the last
20 years, but his work on Hellblazer
should
be considered the book’s highest creative achievement. Alan
Moore may have given John Constantine his first words
in Swamp
Thing, but
Delano actually defined the character more than anyone had
before or has since. Maybe this is why Andy Diggle’s recent
run has pulled me in so quickly and so completely. To set
up the direction of his story, Diggle has reached far back
into John Constantine’s past—as far as the title’s very
first issue—to give relevance and meaning to the
character’s frightening present.
At its core, Hellblazer
is a
horror title. The book was originally supposed to be
called Hellraiser,
but DC had to scramble at the last minute to rename the
book when Clive Barker’s first Hellraiser
film
debuted at roughly the same time the John Constantine comic
book was about to go to press. The two projects diverge in
media and thematics, but they share both genre and
resonance. I’ve long thought that the slogan used for an
early Sandman
house
advertisement (“I will show you fear in a handful of dust,”
cribbed from T. S. Eliot’s The
Waste Land) should
have been redirected to house ads for Hellblazer.
The primal horror of Hellblazer
has
swelled and waned over the years, but its current
incarnation provides one of the most frightening and
disturbing books I’ve read since Delano’s initial stint.
When Delano first started writing Hellblazer,
he made no secret of the fact that he was trying to expose
the real-life horrors of life in England under Margaret
Thatcher. Similarly, Andy Diggle is currently reaching into
today’s headlines, international politics, and current
events to expose the horrors of life at the beginning of
the 21st century. In the last year alone, Diggle has
fictionalized the often-inhumane tactics of real-estate
developers, the very personal tragedy of genocide in Sudan,
and the internal turmoil of the Catholic church.
Hellblazer
hasn’t
simply become a book about socially-conscious grievances,
though. This would be hard to pull off with a protagonist
whose defining characteristic is that he has no real
conscience. Diggle’s story is still essentially driven by
John Constantine—a man who can’t escape his past no matter
how many times (and places) he tries to bury it.
Constantine is the modern embodiment of the best literature
of the British Romantic Age. He isn’t just a Byronic hero
in the mold of Victor Frankenstein and Heathcliff; he is
the Byronic hero re-imagined for the modern age. George
Gordon, Lord Byron is a 19th-century British poet best
known for his long works Childe
Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818)
and Don
Juan (posthumous).
But Byron’s strongest and most important work is
Manfred
(1817),
a closet drama in which the title protagonist, having
unwittingly damned a lover to an eternal afterlife in Hell,
refuses to align himself with any of the factions and
forces of terrestrial life or the afterlife. Manfred
refuses to be courted by Heaven and Hell alike, and his
final declaration of self-determined autonomy (for better
and for worse) echoes throughout the entire series
of Hellblazer—most
notably when Constantine gives The First of the Fallen the
finger at the end of issue #45.
Diggle seems to be aware of his character’s Byronic legacy.
In the second story in his current run, Diggle has
Constantine revisit an asylum he had recovered in years
earlier, exorcise all the ghosts that haunt him, direct
them into a physical manifestation of his guilty
conscience, and toss the fetus-like form from a cliff into
the sea. In that moment, Constantine frees himself from
many of the burdens that have weighed him down for the last
20 years. It’s a clever move for a writer seeking to forge
a new direction for a character so familiar and well-drawn.
And while it’s an interesting realignment, readers familiar
with the character type will find it more interesting
seeing how Constantine gravitates back toward the guilt and
ghosts that have always simultaneously girded and guided
him. Diggle has created two horrifying antagonists, each of
whom seeks to lay claim to Constantine’s soul. And the
dramatic tension has been raised to such a level
that Hellblazer
has
become the book I’m most looking forward to next month.
Of all the high-profile Vertigo books that have been
published over the last 15 years (Sandman,
Swamp
Thing,
Doom
Patrol,
etc.), Hellblazer
strikes
me as the title least likely to survive this long. But it’s
precisely this duration that creates one of the book’s
largest burdens. One of the major difficulties with
recommending Hellblazer
to
potential readers is that, despite its consistent and
enduring quality, it has been running for so long that it
would be hard for completely new readers to jump on and
understand exactly what’s going on. Newcastle, Nergal,
Ravenscar, Chas, Ellie, Astra, and Kit—these names all are
integral to understanding the full scope of Constantine,
but some or all of these names are unfamiliar to a reader
picking up a new issue for the first time. Vertigo hasn’t
helped matters much with its reprinting of the series in
trade paperback form. Runs from writers with the biggest
names (Ennis, Ellis, Azzarello, and Carey) have been
collected in their entirety, but these volumes carry no
clear reading-order numeration or chronology. Paul Jenkins’
excellent—if tonally unique—run (#89-128) has been
completely ignored, while Jamie Delano’s stint has earned
only two collections to date.
But despite my reservations, I still find myself lending
bits and pieces of my collection to friends looking for a
quality comic book experience. A good place for the
uninitiated to start is with Hellblazer:
Original Sins, a book
that reprints the first eight issues of the series. Then
comes Garth Ennis’ Hellblazer:
Dangerous Habits—the
definitive single story arc from the series that also
served as the primary inspiration for the 2005
Constantine
film
starring Keanu Reeves. (The film was good. It wasn’t
a Hellblazer
movie,
but it was a good film that adequately captured the feel of
a Vertigo comic book.) After this, I would continue to lend
or recommend the book in chronological order. But I would
absolutely try to catch the reader up as quickly as
possible to Diggle’s current run. After two decades of
continuous publication, Hellblazer
has
emerged as the best, most relevant and entertaining book in
the Vertigo stable. And after catching up this time, I
intend to stay in more frequent contact with my long-time
friend.
