Rake at the Gates of Hell
Issues 78 – 83, 1994
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Steve Dillon
Ingenious Pogues reference aside, Garth Ennis wraps up his tenure on Hellblazer in grand fashion, as the First of the Fallen finally enacts his revenge. It’s a big, brash production that weaves all of the extensive threads Ennis planted throughout his three years on the title into one searing climax. Astra, the little girl engulfed by hell after Constantine botched her exorcism, returns in an unexpected way along with such mainstays as Gabriel and Chas while England and hell erupt in chaos. Aside from divine warfare, Constantine also attempts to reform an ex-girlfriend turned junky prostitute while racist militants burn down London. A lot happens and not everyone survives (check out the introduction of the arc’s first chapter). Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s run on Hellblazer is only eclipsed by their subsequent work on Preacher, as both injected a resonant mix of characterization and drama into a book that relies primarily on supernatural fireworks and horror pastiches. That insightful approach made all 42 of their issues truly magical.
4. Original Sins
Issues 1 – 9, 1988
Writer: Jamie Delano
Artists: John Ridgway, Alfredo Alcala, Others
The very first Hellblazer issues weren’t organized into tight arcs, but took on the sprawling soap opera format popular in the eighties and early nineties. A veteran of the gritty 2000 AD imprint where Vertigo adopted most of its writers, Jamie Delano introduced John Constantine’s solo title with breathless pace and little mercy. His introductory chapters gave us giant hunger bug gods, a racist cult of demon fetishists, and delusional Vietnam Vets burning a swath through Middle America. Each issue opened a new avenue in a world teeming with mystique and myth, and these inaugural adventures laid the foundation for some of the title’s most memorable characters. Of special note is Constantine’s battle against the demon Nergal and his Damnation Army, a dual that turned the very real issue of London’s racism epidemic into a biting and occasionally hilarious allegory. These first stories can feel a tad busy and the prose narraration overdone, but the underlying plots and relationships set a lasting foundation for the next 291 issues.
3. Hard Time
Issues 146 – 150, 2000
Writer: Brian Azzarello
Artist: Richard Corben
This story arc will make you want to bathe in rubbing alcohol after you’re done. It’s that filthy. In Hard Time, an incarcerated Constantine navigates an American maximum prison brimming with destitute mob bosses and sexual predators. This new scenario forces Britain’s favorite conman to rely on slight-of-hand manipulation to rule a savage ecosystem built on submission and brutality. The first American Hellblazer writer, Brian Azzarello brings the greasy noir he honed in 100 Bullets. He ditches the supernatural and gothic elements to focus on bad people doing worse things to other bad people in clever ways. This arc also marks the return of Constantine as self-destructive wild card, the same trickster god hiding behind a mental wall of self-loathing last seen Garth Ennis’ fantastic Tainted Love collection. The moral corrosion of “Hard Time” takes on a special sheen with Richard Corben’s decaying textures and menacing expressions, conveying the atrophy with a stylish hi-def clarity that makes it all too easy to look at.
2. Haunted
Issues 134 – 139, 1999
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: John Higgins
After wrapping his political cyberpunk epic Transmetropolitan, Warren Ellis took on Hellblazer and created one of the most merciless villains in Joshua Wright, a sociopathic magician who uses one of Constantine’s ex-girlfriends as his personal “Whore of Babylon” before murdering her. (The Mortician’s report of her corpse is nauseating in ways that pure prose shouldn’t be). Wright’s crimes feel invasive and personal and help define what little sentimentality Constantine hides. Ellis juxtaposes the fragile innocence and wonder of Constantine’s former relationship with her degradation at the hands of a masochist. Constantine gets his vengeance by forcing Wright to ingest acid before locking him in a coffin with the corpse of his victim. But the real climax hits when the mage enlists a friendly spirit to escort his deceased lover into the afterlife. It’s as happy an ending as anyone could expect in a Hellblazer yarn, and it certainly lives up to this resonant story’s namesake.
1. Dangerous Habits
Issues 41 – 46, 1991
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: William Simpson
Garth Ennis’ debut arc on Hellblazer is possibly the most intimate story in the title’s epic history, but that doesn’t make it any less intense. Ennis begins with one hell of a cold open: John Constantine has terminal lung cancer. For a character who routinely battles mages, vampires, and rebel deities, this twist adds a biting layer of humanity that dwarfs his previous struggles. Constantine spends the rest of the story pondering the significance of his existence, getting dangerously drunk on magical stout with another terminally-ill buddy, and making friends at his local cancer ward. Ennis does such a fantastic job of immersing the reader in the character’s domestic struggles that when Satan and his lords show up to collect his soul, the spectacle feels that much bigger. Dangerous Habits reinterprets Faust for the 20th Century, and its strengths should neither be confused or underestimated. This isn’t the super man, but the common man defying the super; resistance to the amorphous powers that rule on high and a celebration of defiance. This is also the quintessential thesis statement of Hellblazer and required comic reading.