John Constantine: Hellblazer, Volume 1: Marks of Woe is another really poor Constantine book without any interesting stories. The opening oversized issue and the second one both repeat themselves: Timothy Hunter (the OG Harry Potter) grows up to be evil for some reason. Ok - but that goes nowhere and seems to hint that we need to read the Books of Magic series to find out why, so… that’s unsatisfying. I mean, why have this much space in a Constantine book for what amounts to a trailer for another series?
Then we’re into the main series which is a confusing mess. Some homeless jingoistic nutbag is using magic against foreigners because this is the post-Brexit world and every bad guy voted Leave, apparently. I had no idea what was going on and didn’t care to know either. William Blake is mentioned - whatever. Aaron Campbell’s art is skilful; it just wasn’t for me.
John encounters a New Age-y fanboy of his and together they fight more nationalistic magic - yawn. Har har, New Age-y stuff is stoopid. And look - a poo monster! Yeesh… And then we close on another dreary story about a ghost wandering a hospital because she was lonely in real life or something rubbish. There also seems to be a future version of John roaming the land doing evil - so all of these Vertigo magic characters turn evil as they get older for no reason??
I’ve never been taken with any of the few Simon Spurrier comics I’ve read and Marks of Woe joins them as yet another unimpressive, boring read. None of the stories were interesting and Spurrier’s got nothing to say about Brexit besides “nationalism = bad” which is an inane point to say the least. Another terrible book in the new Sandman Universe line.
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