The Ugly American Report Column 3: Ode to a Bastard

DC announced that Hellblazer will be cancelled with issue 300. As a fellow bastard, I feel it my duty to send John Constantine off proper like.

I love Constantine, as much as anybody can love the sodding prick. He came to me in a little slice of providence, spring of 1991. I was fresh out of high school, convinced of my own brilliance, damaged, angry. In one of those lucky strokes of universal synchronicity, I hit the comic shop that Wednesday looking for anything that wasn’t a Ghost Rider crossover and picked out a Vertigo book because it had the oddest, most pretentious cover on the rack.

It was Hellblazer # 41, the opening salvo by some upstart you might have heard of named Garth Ennis. Dangerous Habits, indeed. Here was a guy that could beat cancer and his own damnation by playing the devil himself. Not in the comic book way that ends in a Superboy punch. Everybody has weakness. Constantine could see straight into your black heart, because his was blacker, and then he beat you with it. The arc ended with John giving the Lord of Hell the middle finger, and it felt earned – how was I not going to be in love for life?

I smoked cigarettes for the better part of 20 years because of that character. How’s that for dedication. Sometimes they were even actual Silk Cuts, purchased at a smoke shop that did imports. So not only was I killing myself, but I was doing it for three times the price, and it was a bargain in my head. Closer to hell. Closer to my anti-hero. Now that’s dedication! (John would certainly sneer over this, of course)
So yes, Constantine will be missed, but I will shed no tears, if for no better reason than John isn’t interested in anybody’s pity. That’s not the Hellblazer way. I don’t see it as a sign of the four-color apocalypse, either, although it is getting embarrassing/unsettling that nothing at the Big 2 seems able to run more than 18 consecutive issues without hitting the defibrillator. But nothing lasts forever. Except maybe the Simpsons?

They tell me that the character will survive in the DCU proper under the guidance of Robert Venditi. I don’t feel betrayed or upset about that, even though that character will most certainly not be my Constantine. My guy had actually been allowed to get old and scarred in the Vertigo series. That other guy will be a poncey little twat of a Constantine, shackled with a teen+ rating where exposed tits counts for “edgy”.
And listen, I like Venditti’s work on X-O Manowar, but if I were emperor of comics I would have begged Gail Simone to pitch me a Constantine series. Gail knows wicked, funny, and wickedly funny. But that’s not going to happen, and in any case, that’s not my Constantine any way.

It should come as no surprise that John would leave before we’re ready. That’s what bastards do, and if we’ve learned anything in the past 300+ issues, getting close to John is a recipe for pain. It’s natural, and when exactly would I be ready to have that band aid ripped off any way? At what point was I going to tire of disrespect for established authority? When precisely was I going to stop identifying with a world class arrogance carrying a secret fire, sneering at a pedantic culture he despised? Was there ever a chance that British people saying Britishy things would ever get old? I say thee nay! I would never be ready to say good-bye.

So go ahead and cut my heart out, if you can find one. I’ll be concerned for the always under-appreciated Karen Berger. Seems to me that DC should be learning from Vertigo, not shuffling it into the scrap heap. And I’ll be concerned for Vertigo, which is pretty much down to a Scott Snyder vampire vehicle and the Willingham Fables collective. Will the next Y the Last Man be able to swing those upfront costs to publish at Image, or are we primed to lose those future classics? I dunno.

Hellblazer is dead, but there will be no crying. Join me now in hoisting one last middle finger to the Powers That Be. Don’t do it because you feel cheated or beaten. Do it because it’s the right thing to do. Do it because it’s fun.

See you in hell, John. Bollocks.