Mike Hoffman

I see this as almost an alternate reality artifact wherein Neil Gaiman was a fairly decent comic book superhero writer laboring in the shadow of Alan Moore instead of the major fantasy writer he showed himself to be through Sandman and his subsequent novels. Thank goodness this material is just a footnote and not the road taken.

On the run for murder, Constantine connects with a group of new age travelers whose psychic abilities will be exploited by a defense contractor out to create a Fear Machine. Even if John Constantine as a hippie is on the unlikely side, it's still entertaining to see his acerbic self mingle with more earthy people. Mercury is also a great character and it is interesting to see how Constantine connects with her without being flippant. The first half of the volume is a little slow as show more Constantine is such a passive character and some "real" magic and action would have kicked the pace up, but after the train "incident," the story picks up properly and comes to a very convincing resolution (other than the absolutely ridiculous egg-situation at the end!). Constantine is one of my favorite comic book characters, though, so I have a hard time faulting his sarcastic, witty self regardless what he does, but I think the story is universal enough to be interesting to all fans of good-versus-evil comic book readers. show less

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 show 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 show less

Me gustan las historias enroscadas, donde se explican ciertos conocimientos teóricos sobre ciencia y/o magia para darle mayor sustento a la historia. Pero esto fue demasiado.

Creo que Jamie Delano (me disculpará que no pueda evitar hacer rimas con su apellido. Soy feliz con muy poco) quería abandonar este tramo de la serie con un guión profundo y monólogos muy estetizados. Y que se le fue la mano. No, no me convenció. No, no, no.

Me gustó. Fue lo que menos me gustó de esta relectura show more ordenada que hago. Es un "no está mal". Y ya. show less