Pulp #623

By now, I think my love for DC’s master of magic – and king of the bastards – John Constantine is pretty well documented. His original series – the classic Hellblazer – might be dead and buried, but courtesy of the New 52 reboot, ol’ John is still kicking along, only this time he’s rubbing shoulders with the likes of the Justice League. It seems weird to think that in a way, he’s been there and done that before; while the Vertigo universe was still relatively separate to the main DC universe, the superheroes still existed in some fashion – Batman and Martian Manhunter (among others) made cameos alongside Constantine in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman Chronicles.
Since then, of course, the DC universe has undergone something of a rework – Flashpoint happened, and merged the three universes into the slightly messy conglomerate that was the New 52, which has since been sort-of-rebooted into the New 40-something. The main Constantine series finished up earlier this year, and is now titled Constantine: The Hellblazer, though the jury’s still out on the change up. That said, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here – that series is only a few issues in, and you can be sure that I’ll get to that in good time!
The first volume of Constantine, The Spark and the Flame, is something of a magical take on Indiana Jones: it sees John racing against time to recover the pieces of a magical compass that can lead a mage to any magical artefact they desire, no matter how powerful. The Cult of the Cold Flame, a sinister cabal of magic users led by three of the most powerful mages in the world, seeks the compass to gain even more power. Constantine, frantically trying to maintain the magical balance, has to recover the compass before the cult can get their hands on it – or him.
As it stands, The Spark and the Flame isn’t too bad. It’s certainly not at the level of the classic Hellblazer stories, but I never expected it to be; Vertigo has always been a playground for DC’s best and brightest writers, and moving John from that dark and foreboding world into the suits-and-spandex main DCU was always going to restrict the series in terms of plot. That’s not to put down Jeff Lemire’s writing, of course – he singlehandedly revived Green Arrow, don’t forget – but I think it’s fair to say that DC is yet to emulate Hellblazer’s success thus far. Despite DC splashing Lemire’s name over the book, Lemire was actually co-writing the book with Ray Fawkes, who you might know from Gotham by Midnight. Renato Guedes’ art is really solid, too; the character designs are great, John looks as haggard as ever and John looks amazing as Shazam. Speaking of: while I understand that tie-ins are great for sales etc, but shoehorning a Trinity War tie-in into the middle of an ongoing story is never really going to work. While the events of the tie-in are cool – hell, John becomes Shazam – but it feels really out of place and kind of ruins the flow for me. That’s more of an editorial issue than a creative one; it seems that DC didn’t really think it through, and probably would’ve been better off tacking it onto the end of the trade (rather than shoving it in the middle) or just omitting it completely.
Despite a few gripes, John Constantine’s New 52 debut is an entertaining – if slightly flawed – book. It’s a good introduction to the character, and sets him on his way to tearing the DCU a new one.
Written by Alastair McGibbon