A review by notagreatreader
Hellblazer, Vol. 9: Critical Mass, by Eddie Campbell, Paul Jenkins, Jamie Delano

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Another solid volume of Hellblazer. Although I'm pretty bad at critically evaluating comics, I enjoyed the twists and turns of the stories in this volume.

Warped Notions was just a bit of a lark.

In Dreamtime, the writers were treading a very fine line and dipped their toes into the 'white savior' trope, but at least it appeared self-aware and even called the trope out a few times. So, it all comes out as a wash, I guess.

Critical Mass was back to the typical Constantine story - his past bullshit and mistakes are catching up to him and he's got to weasel his way out again. I felt like this one was quite light on self-pity/manpain which I appreciated. I always love seeing Constantine go toe-to-toe trying to outsmart demons. While he is always a trash fire of a human being and often a jerk, demons are still worse and it's fun xD

Spoiler

It's also hilarious and appropriate that while John manages to apparently have his cake and eat it too, he's back to mucking things up again like two hours after his fresh start. I mean, there wouldn't be anymore Constantine comics without that driving force.