Comic review- Constantine: The HellBlazer #4- Sad John Goes On a Bender

Writers: Ming Doyle & James Tynion IV
Artists: Vanesa Del Ray & Chris Visions
Publisher: DC Comics
Released: 16th September 2015



If you’ve read any of my previous reviews then you’ll be aware that I reserve my best ratings for comic books that deal with real world concerns. Constantine ‘The Hellblazer’#4 doesn’t do that, but it’s a decent enough distraction for those uninterested in the world around them.

I can understand why people would want to hide, at least for a while, and this book gives you ample opportunity to do just that. The story is about the individual, not the world around him. John Constantine is on a bender, drinks and magic, and he’s doing what a lot of people do on benders, going around at night, annoying people and being all smart-arse with it, thinking that everything is funny when inside he is screaming with loneliness and self-hatred.

The book is a decent portrayal of a man alone, drinking too much, and refusing to address the issues from his past that have caused him so much emotional distress. The book has wonky, whirly, messy, disorganised art, and it’s perfect for a book about a man on a bender.

The story zips between now and then, and is set in comic book nowhere land. There are no mobile phones, no computers, no recognisable landmarks and the clothes that people are wearing don’t really connect it to any particularly time or place either. John is seen, bottle in hand, annoying a clerk in a record shop, the kind of shop that hasn’t existed in my own town for over ten years now. From there he goes to a generic ‘club,’ and onto a Gothic looking library.

It’s supposed to be England, but I live in England, and it could be anywhere. I saw nothing in the book that gave it any relevance to the world of 2015, it was nowhere, it was about John, it is a distraction book that is all about his personality, and everything else is secondary.

In that sense Constantine #4 is your typical DC comic book. It’s all about personalities, and has nothing to say about reality. The book is refreshingly free of identity politics issues, so it has that going for it, and for a personality book, a book about a man unable to deal with the mistakes of his past, it makes for a slightly above average ten-minute distraction from real world concerns.

I enjoyed the book, but don’t expect anything particularly memorable or game changing from it. I like the character of John Constantine, but he needs to be updated in order to make him relevant to the post 9/11, surveillance state world.

John as a ‘conspiracy’ guy would be fun, it would be controversial, and it would be relevant, but would it be allowed in a mainstream comic book? Probably not, so for the time being all you are going to get is John on a bender. It’s not bad, but is it saying anything about the world that we live in? No, it’s not even trying to.


Rating: 6/10 (Bloke on a bender, with a bit of magic thrown in)