John Constantine Confronts His Inner Demons...Again: Review of Hellblazer # 233

Yes. It's true.

I only met John Constantine a short while ago. My husband has been almost as in love with him as he has with me ever since we met (he was definitely more in love with John before that), but somehow it took twelve years for me to break into his stash of Hellblazer comics. I often wish my contrary nature didn't screw me up so much, but there you go, and I have been deeply sorry I didn't pick up this series sooner. Exploring magic, exorcism (John's inevitable calling), and the twisted depths of the human psyche, Hellblazer could be said to explore what life would be like if everyone's fears and rages actually took physical form and had to be fought or placated. And John Constantine is who we wish we would be if that happened.

Nevertheless, I had lost touch with John for a while. Our collection (and it is our collection, now) only runs up to issue #190, and I just haven't gotten around to completing it. Walking into the comic store today, I couldn't resist checking in to see what he's been up to. As anyone who has read Hellblazer knows, 43 issues in this series is a lot of water under the bridge, and the plotlines tend to be convoluted enough that I wasn't even sure I would be able to understand what was going on. Fortunately for me, I happened right into the beginning of a new phase in John's life, so it was relatively easy to keep up. Folks are always more talkative when they are in transition.

In the previous issue, Constantine had returned to Ravenscar, a "secure facility for the dangerously deranged" in which he was held for two years earlier on. Now, however, the government has taken it over and turned it into a mega-casino complete with mustachioed guys with bowties and cute girls ready to cave to Constantine's charms. Pulling a little perceptual slight of hand (after a fair amount of classic Constantine bravado and bull@!$%#), he manages to win the deed to the entire estate in a game of roulette. The issue closes with his kicking out all the hotel staff and pondering his mysterious "unfinished business" at Ravenscar, while standing at the edge of a cliff (where else would he be?).

Issue #233 opens with his memories of being an inmate in this place, drooling and screaming while trying to grapple with his own guilt over an exorcism gone horribly wrong which resulted in the deaths of four people, including a little girl. As he runs through his past, he reveals that what had happened to him in that place was not a "curing" of his insanity, so much as the theft of it. He has come back to Ravenscar to get it back. Of course it's a loopy notion...and it's also something so damned ballsy that even if we found ourselves in his shoes, able to believe such a thing had happened, most of us would never undertake the task he sets for himself. Naturally. That's why we love him.

As usual, however, his plans go awry and he finds himself confronting a much greater and more frightening opponent than he had counted on. He always does. With typical aplomb, he navigates throughout the entire comic with such narcissistic obsession that it is hard to feel sorry for him when he looks like he is about to go down. And as usual, you somehow also can't help loving him for it.

He, himself, sums the situation up nicely in issue #232, when he states:

People think magic's a way of transforming reality -- but in the end, you find out that all you've really changed is yourself. Which probably explains why every magician I've ever met's a self-absorbed arsehole."

Andy Diggle gives Constantine a solid voice through his writing, and as usual the plot is both intense and satisfying. The artwork, provided by Leonardo Manco, is pretty good, managing to capture plenty of detail while still leaving enough room for our imaginations to always make it a bit more horrifying. While not necessarily one of the best Hellblazer comics of all time, #233 manages to pull off the transitionary period it is clearly aiming for, bringing Constantine from whatever hell he has been trifling with lately into a position where he clearly believes he has regained a great deal of strength and control. Of course, he always thinks he is on the mend, and it never really is enough, and one has to wonder what he has gotten himself into, this time.

My Superhero Is Better Than Your Superhero Series

Check the "superbattle2007" tag for everything in this series

Spiderman: Oh, come on. Constantine would totally just summon some horrific arch-demon, promise his soul if the thing takes Spidey out, and that's it. Game over. 'Course, finding one he hasn't already promised his soul to could prove a bit difficult...

Catwoman: Hard call here, whether he would manage to seduce her or she would manage to seduce him, first. Either way, they are winding up in bed, and then it's a matter of who managed to stab the other in the back first. I am going to have to go with Constantine on this one, too, figuring that while Catwoman's hot, she also tends to enjoy herself a little too much.

Batman/Superman

Punisher

Daredevil

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