John Constantine, Hellblazer: City of Demons (2011)

"Did you hear something?"

"Don't jinx us babes. You'll be twisting your ankle next."

This collects the recent five issue mini-series. It was written by Si Spencer who is another graduate of the 2000AD as well as being a TV script writer - most notably on the soap Eastenders (something I never thought would be mentioned in my blog). The art was by Sean Murphy who work was probably last seen on the Joe the Barbarian series that also came from Vertigo. The book also contains a short prose story from Winter’s Edge 3 written and illustrated by Dave Gibbons.

John Constantine just wants to have a quiet drink but when he goes outside for a cigarette, a chain of events leads to him dealing with an outbreak of demonic possession across London. He is taken to hospital after being knocked down by a car. Two doctors recognise the signs of demonic blood in Constantine and intend to use this to bring about Hell on Earth (?!?!? - apparently they just happen to be big occultists). Taking plasma from Constantine's blood to infect blood supplies to other patients, the doctors unleash a spree of destructive violence and self-harming. With the help of his nurse Constantine has to discover what is going on and deal with the infected.

This is a great little story that takes John Constantine back to the dark essence of the character that has been somewhat lost by some of the writers on the main series. He is back in his element on the streets of London dealing with demonic possession in his own inimitable fashion. The blood of Nergal continues to prove to be both a blessing and a curse to Constantine. Of course you need to suspend your sense of disbelief quite a lot for the premise of the story but if you can do that it is a great read. I also like the art in this one - it reminds me of the work of Jock - although in silhouette Constantine is drawn with a very pointy nose which I found oddly distracting.

Si Spencer, as is no surprise from someone who wrote a comic called The Vinyl Underground, has used song titles from British post-punk groups as chapter titles. Sometime after noticing this I noticed that there were at least a few music references scattered in the dialogue as well. I list the titles here and give you the chance to name the groups and beat my score of 4 - although I recognised all the song titles I could not remember who recorded one of them.

• Accidents Will Happen
• Another Girl, Another Planet
• Nag Nag Nag
• Babylon's Burning
• Going Underground

The Dave Gibbons story is a humorous little tale of festive cheer with Constantine on the hunt for cigarettes and a curry ending up tackling a resurrected plague victim dressed as Santa Claus.

First published on RevolutionSF on Saturday May 28, 2011