studaslop's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Hellblazer is a bold debut for Constantine’s solo comic, and even 30 years later I see why it was such a success. The stories remain compelling, with interesting characters, clear messages, and phenomenal artwork. Still some of the most interesting layouts I’ve seen—very reminiscent of Moore’s Swamp Thing run. Despite being forward-thinking for its time in some ways, it also very much shows its age and the limits of its writer in a way that would reasonably put off some readers. It’s tie-ins with Swamp Thing also may be confusing to those who haven’t read ST, but this collection at least does include the most relevant Swamp Thing issues.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Death
Moderate: Misogyny, Homophobia, and Child abuse
Minor: Xenophobia, Religious bigotry, Racial slurs, and Racism
storyorc's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Joyously political. We've got literal demon Tories and skinheads defeated by football team allegiance. Hellblazer is relentlessly about the (mostly-white) working class and unafraid to alienate anyone who would vote to make hard lives harder. Something modern progressives could take from Hellblazer however is that despite our hero being socially progressive (for the time), he is an asshole! A lot of the dark shit he instigates is up in the air whether it was the lesser evil or a failing but sometimes he's just selfish too. The two flavours of assholery feed off each other, creating an moral ecosystem you wouldn't get from a character under pressure from the modern world to be the perfect representation of one thing or another. Ugly is interesting!
Will return to bump up the rating if future issues demonstrate awareness that L'Adoration de la Terre was a rape story*. One of the perpatrators has even been the victim of a similar bodysnatchy rape and mentions it, and so really should know better. Infernal Triangles, right after, is charming and sweet and all the more dissonant for it. Unpleasant aftertaste to what was otherwise a riot.
*He gets a line showing he feels used by this in volume 4, but not enough to bump up the rating.
Will return to bump up the rating if future issues demonstrate awareness that L'Adoration de la Terre was a rape story*. One of the perpatrators has even been the victim of a similar bodysnatchy rape and mentions it, and so really should know better. Infernal Triangles, right after, is charming and sweet and all the more dissonant for it. Unpleasant aftertaste to what was otherwise a riot.
*He gets a line showing he feels used by this in volume 4, but not enough to bump up the rating.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia and Rape
Moderate: Racial slurs and Racism
dosymedia's review
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Original Sins starts as a monster-of-the-week hardboiled horror comic that frankly put me off from its dated and distasteful takes. I've been Twitter-adjacent too long to be anything but annoyed at this particular combination of the abrasive & crass with progressive politics as told through a white lens because so often, that particular perspective hurts and/or excludes those they claim to ally with and then shields itself by claiming that authenticity, realism, or grit excuses the narrative of whatever harm it might cause.
The treatment of characters of color is particularly bad; the only character with agency is Papa Midnite, a Black Haitian voodoo practitioner who helps Constantine stop a plague demon originating from Sudan (in issues #1 and #2, "Hunger" and "A Feast of Friends"), and if it isn't obvious from those set of words alone, a Black dude named MIDNITE (is it because his soul is dark or just his skin?) that practices VOODOO (makes him evil, obviously) is insulting when he is the only Black character to be found for 200+ pages. In the same story arc, there's a wise, old Sudanese shaman that Constantine seeks out to info-dump lore on his pretty blonde head; this shaman isn't a character, he's a requisite plot point. Every other character of color is only paraded on-page so they can be victims of racial violence; Vietnamese (in "When Johnny Comes Marching Home") and British-Pakistani characters (in "Waiting for the Man" and "Extreme Prejudice") are both mentioned and shown <I>only</i> to illustrate that a white character is racist. They aren't given names, let alone a life outside of these moments.
And with a hardboiled hero and structure, that is, with the issue template of a dark, but righteous man who does what needs to be done in an unfair world in order to set things as right as they can be by the end of the issue, I was bored up until "Ghosts in the Machine" (issue 7 of 9), where the disparate gold began to work in unison.
The cast had been established, the overarching plot had been sufficiently set up, and Delano's prose got a bit more punchy, altogether making the last few issues a delicious unfolding of Constantine's mounting troubles as he happened from one bad situation to another. There are still tired tropes in those issues around the depiction of women and gay men, but because the rest of the issues scraped together a strong voice, I was able to better forgive them of being so of their time.
I'm excited to continue the series despite a bad first impression. Knowing the imprint, the publication period, and the way these things go, I'm prepared for more bitter to go alongside the sweet morsels of the laughing magician.
The treatment of characters of color is particularly bad; the only character with agency is Papa Midnite, a Black Haitian voodoo practitioner who helps Constantine stop a plague demon originating from Sudan (in issues #1 and #2, "Hunger" and "A Feast of Friends"), and if it isn't obvious from those set of words alone, a Black dude named MIDNITE (is it because his soul is dark or just his skin?) that practices VOODOO (makes him evil, obviously) is insulting when he is the only Black character to be found for 200+ pages. In the same story arc, there's a wise, old Sudanese shaman that Constantine seeks out to info-dump lore on his pretty blonde head; this shaman isn't a character, he's a requisite plot point. Every other character of color is only paraded on-page so they can be victims of racial violence; Vietnamese (in "When Johnny Comes Marching Home") and British-Pakistani characters (in "Waiting for the Man" and "Extreme Prejudice") are both mentioned and shown <I>only</i> to illustrate that a white character is racist. They aren't given names, let alone a life outside of these moments.
And with a hardboiled hero and structure, that is, with the issue template of a dark, but righteous man who does what needs to be done in an unfair world in order to set things as right as they can be by the end of the issue, I was bored up until "Ghosts in the Machine" (issue 7 of 9), where the disparate gold began to work in unison.
The cast had been established, the overarching plot had been sufficiently set up, and Delano's prose got a bit more punchy, altogether making the last few issues a delicious unfolding of Constantine's mounting troubles as he happened from one bad situation to another. There are still tired tropes in those issues around the depiction of women and gay men, but because the rest of the issues scraped together a strong voice, I was able to better forgive them of being so of their time.
I'm excited to continue the series despite a bad first impression. Knowing the imprint, the publication period, and the way these things go, I'm prepared for more bitter to go alongside the sweet morsels of the laughing magician.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gore and Death
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Sexual assault and Sexual content
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