Simon Bisley

This is one of the wackier storylines from the saga of Constantine, but readers shouldn't be at all surprised that his eponymous trench coat had a personality of its own. Who really knows which came first (the Constantine or the coat), but they are a perfect pair since John is the only person who the coat doesn't actually correupt or try to kill. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was the toxis psychic energy that Constantine seems to have that really gave the coat a life of its show more own. He does have a flair for spicing up the lives of everyone around him after all - even if it is in the worst way possible and ends in their mortal demise.

After John and his precious outerwear are reunited he gets talked into taking a trip to Hell to set his sister free to go to Heaven. He lucks out (for once) and manages not to get caught too badly (or get anyone else killed in the process), but it's pretty clear that Satan (at least that's who I assume this incarnation is, since it's not Lucifer) has some ulterior motives. He's after the soul of mobster Terry Greaves aka Epiphany's father, and he seems determined to start a mob war with Constantine at the centre. This seems a little petty and overly trite (the mob isn't exactly a magicaly heavy hitter after all), but the storyarc is clearly just getting started. show less

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.

Artwork: 5
Story: 2

A zombies vs. vampires retelling of Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars, which is in turn a retelling of Akira Kurosawa's magnificent Yojimbo which was supposedly inspired by Dashiel Hammett's [b:Red Harvest|386293|Red Harvest|Dashiell Hammett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1403310762s/386293.jpg|2193257]. Our main protagonist is a scantily-clad mute female gunslinger with improbably large boobs called Blondie. She's obviously meant to be a Clint Eastwood composite but show more there's so much fail if you actually just call it as you see it.

The adaptation is rather ham-fisted and juvenile and is only redeemed by [a:Simon Bisley|78730|Simon Bisley|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]'s gorgeous, gritty and gratuitous BSFW artwork (which is exactly what you would expect from him, tbh). I'm sure the story was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, irreverent and a totally OTP but you can't help but feel that as the narrative progressed, Bisley was thinking to himself, "oh, fuck, this story sucks. How can we rescue it? Got it! Bigger boobs!"

The denouement was symptomatic of everything that was wrong with this story - there was no foreshadowing, no logical connection to the ~130 pages that went before, in fact, it seemed like an afterthought. In the space of 4 pages we find out that the whole reason Blondie is in this stupid town is because she's actually an intergalactic bounty hunter?!. show less

Not a bad crossover, but it was overall a very short story. As such, some of the elements did seem a bit rushed. Batman ends up briefly transported to MegaCity One and having to deal with Judge Dredd, who pretty much comes across as a bit of a jerk to be honest. The best part of this volume is the excellent art by Bisley, which does make the volume worth a look. The plot is quick romp at best, a brief read, but not much more. It is over before you know it.