Aging Along With John: 20 Years of Hellblazer, Part 1
By David DelGrosso
On connecting the contemporary horrors to explore for his first Constantine story in almost ten years, Delano says, "When it comes to ugliness, things just keep getting bigger and better, don’t they? An economy fueled by cultural fear, power-blocs desperately competing for diminishing resources, populations sleep-walking into post-democratic surveillance states, grateful for the efforts of their 'security services' and the tortures they inflict to keep them 'safe.' Feels increasingly to me that the post-WWII hiatus of 'democratic enlightenment' was just an aberrant blip on history’s dark radar screen, and the world is giving up the pretense of resisting its innate Darwinian brutality. But then, I’ve never been much of an optimist."
Hellblazer: Pandemonium is expected later this year, with art by Jock, who is best known for his work on the Vertigo series The Losers, which also has a lot of action set in the Middle East.
Garth Ennis: Friends, Love and The Pub (H. #41-83, 1991-1994)
With Delano's departure, Hellblazer would allow another talent to break through to a larger audience: Belfast-born writer Garth Ennis. As the title had already built a loyal following, taking on Hellblazer provided Ennis a great opportunity so early in his career, as Ennis acknowledged in his 1993 introduction to the trade paperback of "Dangerous Habits," his first story. "This was a real bit of luck, I can tell you...The canvas before me was vast: I could tell stories about ordinary people and the lives they lead, their feelings for their friends and their reactions to events that overtook them. Here was a comic without an agenda, without some loathsome morality at its core, but instead with a central character who made and broke his own rules as he staggered through life, and could only face the consequences of his actions with the same frail, human defenses that are available to you and me. And not only that, but I'd be able to use horror fiction to plumb the depths of evil and explore the dark underbelly of human life, which is always a bit of a laugh."
With that humanistic idea of ordinary people reacting to the extraordinary, and with a strong sense of gallows humor, Ennis began his era with a splash. That first story begins with John finding out that he has advanced, terminal cancer and only a few months to live. Ennis stories are often about consequences, and in that first issue, John Constantine, who has survived so many infernal and supernatural threats, has been struck low by his own sixty-cigarettes-a-day habit. He embarks on a journey to make peace with old friends.
Hellblazer writers often play to their strengths by incorporating personal experience into their stories, and Ennis does this by sending Constantine to Ireland for the first time in the series to visit his old friend and fellow magician, Brendan Finn. Brendan, who is himself near to death due to self-destructive habits, has made a dangerous bargain, and John soon finds himself facing off against the Devil himself, known as The First of the Fallen, for his friend's soul. I won't spoil exactly how John saves Brendan and later himself from the spited Devil. But I will say that John succeeds in a particularly daring gamble, bluffing his way to victory against the Triumvirate that rule Hell, and getting a new, cancer-free body in the bargain, which he almost immediately begins damaging, of course.
This first Ennis story represents a strong change in tone from the Delano years. By the end of the story, John is victorious, but rather than sacrificing someone, he has actually saved a friend's soul. Not only has he beaten his opponents, he has humiliated them. He has gotten himself in great trouble with the Triumvirate of Hell, sure, and The First will be back for revenge, but at the moment he has won without killing any of the people near him. In the story's epilogue, he reconnects with Brendan's ex-girlfriend, Kit Ryan, a beautiful woman from Belfast with a will and personality as strong as John's, who brings the potential for new love.
It is a rare moment in Hellblazer when you want to be John Constantine, but there are many more of those moments to be found in the Ennis era than in any other. Perhaps it was the post-Cold War, post-Thatcher/Reagan hopefulness of the early 1990s, or the youthful enthusiasm of the writer (as Ennis was only in his early 20s at the time), but what follows "Dangerous Habits" is a period that reads like a new prime for John Constantine, including times when he is in love with Kit, nights telling stories as the pub with Chas and other friends, and often finding opportunities to stick it to authorities, both earthly and beyond.
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