Hellblazer: an End of an Era

And so it ends…..
This is me finally getting round to writing about Hellblazer #300. Not because it made me sad, or angry, but because it’s taken some time for me to get the words right.

Vertigo, for me, always seems like such an underrated publisher, yeah, it’s linked to DC and has writers such as Neil Gaiman and Jason Aaron writing for them, but they always seem to fly just under the radar. This is possibly because they tend to write comics that are primarily aimed towards ‘adults’ with a much more grown up feeling to them, which leads me quite nicely back to the man they call John Constantine.

Hellblazer has always been a series that’s not pulled its punches, it’s always held nothing back and has featured pretty much every different taboo you can think of and the stories have benefited from it! I think that might be why i loved the character so much, yes, he knew about magic and the occult, but he was still just a man and he delt with the real world in such a way that the reader always feels for him, no matter who the writer was. And what writers there have been! Pretty much every well known writer working in the industry today has written Hellblazer over its #300 issue run, and while there has been a few blips here and there, it’s primarily been good!

However……

Now it seems that the next step for John is a stint in DCNu. A younger, fitter, better looking Constantine, that has been featured in Justice League Dark for the last few months, is getting his own series. While, the older, rougher, worn thin Constantine has been laid to pasture.

This young one is not my Constantine. My Constantine is still sitting at a bar, pint in one hand, fag in the other. Waiting. Waiting for a time when someone sees sense and brings him back, and i know i’m not alone in saying, i’ll be here when he gets back, and it’ll be like he’s never left.

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The writer of this piece was:
Chris Bennet
Article: I Hate It Here
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