Looking To The Stars Hellblazer Episode Guide, Part One

Starting this week, I begin a project I’ve had in mind for quite sometime, but never quite felt inspired to start until now.

The leaves have started to turn where I am in The States. Halloween is fast approaching and I’ve had to get the old trench-coat out of storage for the chilly nights. Maybe it’s that garment or the mood of spooks and spirits that prompted it – but I feel like writing a bit about John Constantine. And that’s con-stan-tyne. We don’t care what the movie says.

Some of you may remember, some years ago, I did a sort of “episode” guide for the Kyle Rayner issues of Green Lantern. So big it required a Part One and a Part Two And way back in the Fanzing days, I did the same for the first volume of Green Arrow. Well, now, slowly but surely – and likely not all in one go – I am going to do the same for Hellblazer.

And just so we know what the score is, here’s a list of things we’ll keep track of as we go along. Just for laughs, eh?

Plot - What happens in the story worth noting, without giving away too much. Our job isn’t to tell you the story. It’s to help those who read the story keep track of the details. Go buy the comics and read them yourself, you lazy, cheap wankers!

Prominent People - Characters whom we see more than once. First appearances, mentions of reoccurring characters, anything on the hierarchy of Hell and real life figures drawn into the story and anyone else who deserves noting.

Deaths - Any deaths of prominent people or any particularly gory and interesting ways of dying. This is a horror book, after all. Also, a running tally of all the times John has directly been involved in a friend or family member’s death. Instances where it is unclear if the person died (Talbot in Issue #22) or where they probably would have died with our without John showing up (i.e. Una in Issue #25) are not counted.

John Screws Up - This happens quite a bit, but anytime John is directly or indirectly responsible for some bad thing or another happening, we note it. We advise not making a drinking game of this for two reasons – first, you’ll get pissed very quickly and be unable to keep reading and second, because you might spill lager on your comics!

Pub Trivia - Anything else worth noting that doesn’t fit one of the other categories.

Simple enough, right? But before we get into the nitty-gritty, I need to say a few words about what is broadly known (apart from three issues in the middle and one toward the end) as...

The Jamie Delano Run

Hellblazer #1-40

Jamie explains the history of Constantine fairly well in the introduction to the first Hellblazer trade-paperback Original Sins. The character was created by Alan Moore during his now legendary run on Swamp Thing. John proved to be a popular character right form the start – popular enough that he won the Eagle Award that year for “Character Most Worthy Of His Own Series" in his first year of existence. John is described as “an insouciant, somewhat amoral occult dabbler and “psychic detective” with a British working-class background.”

Short but pat, that is our Johnny-Boy. On paper, at least. The truth is, as always, a good deal more complicated.

Whoever and whatever he is, John proved very popular and it was decided that he was enough of a character that he warranted his own book. Delano was recruited as a writer and went on to establish the foundations of a character that still maintains a loyal fanbase nearly 20 years after the publishing of Hellblazer #1.


Hellblazer #1 - Hunger

Plot - John returns home to England, following the events of “American Gothic” in Saga of the Swamp Thing. He quickly finds himself hoping the globe again, as he tries to help his former band-mate contain the Famine Demon Mnemoth that he accidentally released.

Prominent People - First appearance of John’s landlord Mrs. McGuire, his cabbie friend Chas Chandler, former band-mate Gary Lester and voodoo king Papa Midnite.

Deaths - 4, counting what happened in Sage of Swamp Thing. Nobody important dies this time around, but John’s dead girlfriend Emma turns up as a ghost and reference is made to John’s friends who died in “American Gothic”

Pub Trivia - Chas Chandler is named for Jimi Hendix’s manager and ex-rocker Bryan “Chas” Chandler. He was born in, and went on to develop an arena in ...Newcastle.



Hellblazer #2 – A Feast of Friends

Plot - John forms a reluctant partnership with Papa Midnite in order to save the world from Mnemoth.

Prominent People - The Ghostly Horde of John’s friends he was responsible for the deaths of appears for the first time. Currently made up only of Frank North, Benjamin Cox, Sister Ann Marie and Emma, Gary Lester will join it at the end of the issue.

Deaths - 5, Gary Lester

John Screws Up - It’s not really accidental, but John gives in to the idea of having to use Gary Lester as bait for Mnemoth knowing full well it will mean his death without even considering any alternatives.



Hellblazer #3 – Going For It

Plot - It’s Election Day 1987 and what starts out as a simple investigation of weird yuppie murders drags John into the middle of a plot involving demon yuppies from Hell and a stock market for souls.

Prominent People - We meet Ray Monde (a gay shop owner with a nose for magic) for the first time. Margaret Thatcher cameos. We also meet Blathoxi, Lord of Flatulence, who is backing the group of demons going after Yuppie souls.

Pub Trivia - This is the first time in the series we see John do overt magic, transforming a medallion into a necktie.



Hellblazer #4 – Waiting For The Man

Plot - John’s having a lucky day – he cleans up at the pool hall and meets a gorgeous, magically inclined pavement artist. But can his luck hold out when a demon-worshipping madman kidnaps his niece?

Prominent People - Gemma Masters (John’s niece), Cheryl Masters (John’s older sister) and Tony Masters (John’s brother-in-law) are seen for the first time. Zed makes her first speaking appearance and we also get out first glimpses of The Resurrection Crusaders, their leader Elder Martin and the Damnation Army, who will figure prominently in the next few issues.

Pub Trivia - Zed makes her first speaking appearance here. She did a brief cameo in Issue #1, doing graffiti art outside John’s window.


Hellblazer #5 – When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Plot - Traveling through America, John stumbles upon the town of Liberty, where the Resurrection Crusaders have promised to use their power to bring back the sons of Liberty lost during the Vietnam War. And they do – but in a fashion that nobody expects and John is powerless to stop.

Deaths - Some rather horrific ones here as a group of time-displaced spirits see their loved ones as Vietnamese villagers and set about committing a war crime.



Hellblazer #6 – Extreme Prejudice

Plot - The Damnation Army is at work in London and while the cops think it’s all anarchist pranks, John thinks different. His suspicions are confirmed when both the Resurrection Crusaders (who call Zed Mary, for some reason) AND the Damnation Army go after Zed.

Prominent People - The Demon Negral appears for the first time. John also calls a reporter named Tony Baxter for information about the Damnation Army.

Deaths - Cool moment here with John’s rather ingenious way of getting the hybrid demon made from the four Nazi lads (two of them Arsenal fans, two of them Chelsea fans) to literally rip itself apart.



Hellblazer #7 – Ghosts in the Machine

Plot - Looking for more information on the Resurrection Crusaders, John turns to an old friend, who discovers that The Crusaders are tapped into some kind of magical power. Zed is kidnapped by the Resurrection Crusaders and is revealed to be the daughter of their leader. Confronted by the ghostly horde about his sins, John jumps off a moving train.

Prominent People - First appearance of Richie Simpson (last survivor of The Newcastle Crew, apart from John)

Deaths - 8 on the dead friends tally. See below for details.

John Screws Up - John sends Richie to his death (or at least the destruction of his physical form) and pulls the plug on Richie’s computer rather than tell him what happened. He’s also indirectly responsible for Ray’s death, having left Zed with him hoping she would be safe there. Ray is beaten to death by the Resurrection Army.



Hellblazer #8 – Intensive Care

Plot - Zed/Mary is prepared for some sort of ceremony meant to bring about the birth of a new Messiah. Meanwhile, a hospitalized John Constantine suffers nightmarish visions of his past and is forced into an unholy alliance with the power behind the Damnation Army.

Pub Trivia - Quite a bit in this one. This is the issue where John gets his demonic blood-transfusion, which will figure prominently in future stories. Negral also refers to having met John twice before. Once when John was “an insolent child” whom he gave a lesson in manners and once during The Newcastle Incident, though John doesn’t making anything of this until Issue #10 Negral speaks of a war between humans and demons in Hell, the events of which were also covered in the Saga of the Swamp Thing story “A Murder of Crows” (#43-50) and of a prophecy of a marriage between natural and supernatural that WILL take place to give birth to a savior – but what manner of savior is up in the air.




Hellblazer #9 – Shot To Hell

Plot - Psychically poisoned by the demon blood infusion, John wanders a city in America waiting for the end. Haunted and then inspired by a ghost of himself, John cleans up, returns to England and sets about foiling The Resurrection Crusaders.

Prominent People - Ray appears as part of The Ghostly Horde and tries to talk John out of self-destruction.

Pub Trivia - This issue indirectly crosses-over with Saga of Swamp Thing, with John having the idea to talk to Swamp Thing as it also comes to Constantine to ask for a favor. Jamie Delano explains the favor in the introduction to the Original Sins trade-paperback, which only covers the first nine issues of Hellblazer and ends on a sort of odd note. I’ll explain it more in the next entry.



Hellblazer #10 – Sex and Death

Plot - Trapped on the astral plane, John sees his plans come to fruition and discovers the past connection between himself and Negral.

Deaths - Well, John indirectly kills all of the Resurrection Crusade leadership present for the disastrous attempt to mate Zed with an angel. He’s also indirectly responsible for Negral killing everyone in his building.

John Screws Up - John commits a rather serious psychic faux pas jumping back into his own body at the...uh... climax of the story, as he does.

Pub Trivia - This issue marks a bit of an odd-crossover with Swamp Thing. John needs to help facilitate a marriage between the natural and the supernatural in order to fulfill the prophecy just in case his plan with and in last issue was about to contact Swamp Thing about this at the same time that Swamp Thing comes to ask Constantine if it can borrow his body so that it may conceive a child with it’s wife, Abby. This allows the birth of a child that fulfills the prophecy without tipping the balance in the war between Heaven and Hell.



Hellblazer #11 – Newcastle: A Taste of Things To Come

Plot - John returns to Newcastle and relives the events at the Casanova Club that set him down the dark path he now walks.

Prominent People - First appearance of Astra Logue.

Deaths - 9, for John’s bungling his attempt to save Astra.

John Screws Up - Here’s the biggie. John fails to get Astra out of Hell and the event drives him mad, resulting in him being committed, blamed for the murders at the club, and abused by the staff at the Ravenscar Asylum.

Pub Trivia - Oddly, this was never collected until recently (Rare Cuts TPB) despite being one of the most important Hellblazer issues historically. Many references made in earlier issues are explained in this issue.



Hellblazer #12 – The Devil You Know

Plot - Negral needs to deliver John’s soul to Hell or face severe punishment himself. As he searches, John meets up with the spirit of Richie Simpson on-line and begins to plot a way to fight back.

Prominent People - Agony and Ecstasy, twin demons of Hell’s inquisition, are introduced for the first time.

John Screws Up - John’s problems, save finding Richie a new body, would actually have solved themselves had he not gone looking for Negral in this issue. Typical Constantine Luck. Also, John winds up doing worse than killing Richie here trying to save his own skin – allowing Richie to be turned into a demon and then being doomed to 10,000 years of training in Hell to become official.

Pub Trivia - By some obscure law of Hell, any mortal who can best the forces of Damnation three times is granted a reprieve from punishments due to The Rule of Insult. John does this by crashing the soul stock market (Issue 3), besting a demon (Issue 6) and eluding Negral after blocking their attempts to birth a hell-controlled Messiah.



Hellblazer #13 – On The Beach

Plot - John’s trip to the seaside to escape from his troubles only results in horrific, and possibly prophetic, visions of a future ruined by pollution.



Hellblazer #14 – Touching the Earth (The Fear Machine, Part One)

Plot - Now wanted for the murder of everyone in his old home, John finds more than he bargained for as he flees London and falls in with The Freedom Mob as they travel to Salisbury Plain.

Prominent People - First appearance of teenage psychic Mercury, her mother Marj, shaman Eddy, music fan Errol, strong-woman Sam, Jo and the rest of The Freedom Mob.



Hellblazer #15 – Shepherd’s Warning (The Fear Machine, Part Two)

Plot - Wandering in the woods, John and Mercury uncover armed men guarding a fenced in set of standing stones. And while under the influence, John has a revelation regarding a feeling of fear.

Prominent People - First appearance of Myra, Officer Davis (the security man around the stones), Doctor Fulton (aka Fungus Face)

John Screws Up - John attempts some mind magic on Myra when she recognizes him from the paper, but winds up blowing the spell. This leads to Myra spiking his tea with Fly Agaric – the same substances used by Vikings to go berserk. Also, it is revealed that Zed is apparently alive and well and back to her old self.



Hellblazer #16 – Rough Justice (The Fear Machine, Part Three)

Plot - With the police called in to raid the camp, and Mercury captured for unknown reasons, John hits the road to do some investigating.

Pub Trivia Mercury shows signs of having a crush on John and is about to slip into bed with him (after John slept with her mother!) when the police raid occurs.



Hellblazer #17 – Fellow Travelers (The Fear Machine, Part Four)

Plot - John’s trip takes a turn for the worse as everybody on the train suffers a panic attack – the result of a targeted blast of Dr. Fulton’s device, which uses the ley lines of England and psychic people as a weapon to cause fear.

Prominent People - First appearance of Officer Beale (leader of the cops working with Dr. Fulton), Mr. Webster (head of security for Geotroniks and Hangman for the Freemasons), Sergei Antonov (a KGB agent and agent of the Leninegrad Institute of Paranormal Research)



Hellblazer #18 – Hate Mail And Love Letters (The Fear Machine, Part Five)

Plot - We John’s investigation continue and learn of what he, Marj and Mercury have been doing through letters and diaries.

Prominent People - First appearance of Ken and Hal (John’s temporary landlords), Detective Chief Inspector Geoff Talbot (retired cop who investigated Officer Beale and his bent cops) and reporter Simon Hughes (who is investigating the suicides of Geotroniks scientists).

Pub Trivia - Zed is confirmed alive and turns out to be Errol’s old girlfriend. John confirms he’s not wanted by the police and that what was in the papers was all sensational reporting.



Hellblazer #19 – The Broken Man (The Fear Machine, Part Six)

Plot - Having saved Simon Hughes from an early grave, John learns about Geotroniks and how their leading scientists seem to keep killing themselves.

Pub Trivia - This issue crosses over with Issue #3 of The Sandman, as we see John return from his business with Morpheus.



Hellblazer #20 – Betrayal (The Fear Machine, Part Seven)

Plot - The pieces come together as Simon Hughes, Inspector Talbot, Sergei and John come together and pool information – a secret branch of Freemasons plan to use the Fear Machine to topple the government. Meanwhile, Mercury has turned the tables on one of her captors and escaped. But is she, or anyone else, really safe?

Prominent People - First mention of the name Jallakuntilliokan.

Deaths - Dr. Talbot is hung by Mr. Webster- a death that was foreshadowed in a vision that Mercury showed him earlier.



Hellblazer #21 –The God Of All Gods (The Fear Machine, Part Eight)

Plot - Mercury is safe and John returned to the Pagan Nation and Freedom Mob. But John’s allies in London have been captured by Webster and his Freemasons, to be sacrificed to further empower the Mason’s God of All Gods.

Prominent People - First appearance of Parliamentary Under-Secretary Bartholomew Carter-Browne

Deaths - Simon Hughes is the first of the five captured (Hal and Ken, Sergei and Talbot being the other four) to be sacrificed by Webster.



Hellblazer #22 – Balance (The Fear Machine, Part Nine)

Plot With Jallakuntillokan drawing power and riots rising up around the Isle, it falls John, the Pagan Nation and the Freedom Mob to save the world.

Deaths Hal and Ken were killed off panel, along with all the other people captured by Webster’s men. Sergei is killed on panel. Officer Davis is strangled by Talbot. It is unclear if Webster or Talbot both die or not.



Hellblazer #23 – Larger Than Life

Plot - John visits his old friend, the die-hard collector and dealer Jerry O’Flynn; a larger-than-life character who claims to be haunted by the spirits of famous fictional characters.

Prominent People First appearance of Jerry O’Flynn

Deaths Not quite a death in the traditional sense, by Jerry being dragged away by Winnie the Pooh to “wait for his copyright to expire” is one of the series more comedic and disturbing images.



Hellblazer #24 – The Family Man

Plot - Crashing at one of Jerry O’Flynn’s other pads, John stumbles across another of Jerry’s side-lines- finding victims for a serial killer and then selling off serial killer belongings.

Prominent People First appearance of The Family Man.

Deaths A nice little scene where we seen the latest victims of The Family Man.

John Screws Up Without knowing what is going on, John hands The Family Man the information for his latest victim.



Hellblazer #25 – Early Warning

Plot - John journeys northward to Thursdyke- a town where strange experiments are conducted at the nuclear power plant. Experiments meant to unleash the beasts within the human psyche.

Prominent People First appearance of Una, a schizophrenic psychic John met while in Ravenscar. John also dons a Margaret Thatcher mask.

Pub Trivia - One of the two Hellblazer issues written by Grant Morrison.



Hellblazer #26 – How I Learned To Love The Bomb

Plot - Chaos envelopes Thursdyke, but it may have nothing to do with the experiments at the nuclear plant. This begs the question; can a town commit suicide?

Deaths - Pretty much the entire town, including Una, is nuked.

John Screws Up - John is rather embarrassed by how easily he was taken over and that his inner demons manifested as a desire to dress as Margaret Thatcher. Can’t blame him, really.

Pub Trivia - The second of the Hellblazer issues written by Grant Morrison.



Hellblazer #27 – Hold Me

Plot - John confronts a zombie who just wants to be loved and a woman who just wants him for his sperm.

Prominent People - First appearance of Anthea, a lesbian friend of Ray Monde.

Pub Trivia - This story is collected in the Neil Gaiman’s Midnight Days TP and is reportedly based on something that really happened to Mr. Gaiman. (No word on if it was the lesbian wanting him to father her child or meeting the cold-radiating zombie of a homeless man). This is the only issue of Hellblazer he ever wrote and, probably because of his fanbase, one of the most popular and valuable.



Hellblazer #28 – Thicker Than Water

Plot - After three months of avoidance, John finally gets to work on hunting down The Family Man. Unfortunately, The Family Man is also hunting him.

Prominent People - First appearance of John’s father, Thomas Constantine.

Deaths - 9 on the dead tally. The Family Man kills Thomas in order to get back at John.



Hellblazer #29 – Sick At Heart

Plot - With The Family Man on his tail and his dad’s death on his conscience, John begins making plans to fight back.

Prominent People - First appearance of Chas’s cousin Norma, a girl who is “on the game” with whom John spends the night.

Pub Trivia - John is given an invitation to a serial killers convention meant for The Family Man. This refers to the now famous Serial Killer Convention shown in Sandman: The Doll’s House, which was published at the same time.



Hellblazer #30

Plot - The Family Man is closing in and John’s only way out may be to cross a line even he’s never dared crossed.

Deaths - 10 on the dead tally. John kills The Family Man.

Pub Trivia - This is the first time John has willingly murdered someone. It is also the first untitled Hellblazer story.



Hellblazer #31 – Mourning of the Magician

Plot - Gemma Masters is being haunted by the ghost of her grandfather and it’s up to Uncle John to put the dead to rest.

John Screws Up - We find out in this issue that John put a curse on his father as a teenager – one that linked his father’s soul to a dead cat and caused him to weaken as the cat decomposed. Relenting, John couldn’t break the spell but he did find a way to slow it by preserving the cat in a jar of formaldehyde which he buried by his mother’s grave. In this issue, he burns the corpse and frees his father’s spirit.



Hellblazer #32 – New Tricks

Plot - John investigates a series of odd disappearances only to find they are the work of an old Bulldog – a cop, that is - who found a found a way to bring himself back as a real old Bulldog, with the power to control other dogs...

Prominent People - First appearance, in the flesh, of John’s reporter contact Tony Baxter

Pub Trivia - Despite what the cover says, this actually was actually guest-written by Dick Foreman.



Hellblazer #33 – Sundays ARE Different

Plot - Another ecological metaphor tale – John has a surreal Sunday after running into an old friend who has become a 90’s man.

Prominent People - First appearance of Patrick McDonell, a reformed friend of John’s.



Hellblazer #34 – The Bogeyman

Plot - With recent events disturbing him, John tracks down Marj and Mercury for some healing, sexual and otherwise.

Prominent People - Marj and Mercury return. Reference is made to Zed and Errol appears in a brief cameo.



Hellblazer #35 – Dead Boy’s Heart

Plot - A flashback issue, we see a young John take his first steps towards using magic.

Prominent People - A teenage Cheryl Constantine is seen. We also see John’s Aunt Dolly for the first time.

Deaths - 11 on the dead tally. John accidentally kills “The Bogeyman”.

John Screws Up - Little John learns why you shouldn’t ever throw rocks.



Hellblazer #36 – The Undiscover’d Country

Plot - Angered by her view inside his soul, Mercury helps John astral project into a future incarnation of himself, so he can experience his death

Prominent People - The first appearance of an 80-year old John Constantine. Delano would do more with this idea in the Hellblazer: Bad Blood mini-series.

Deaths - John’s future self dies – drowning while trying to escape from a wild-dog pack.

Pub Trivia - Mercury makes the first reference to John’s brother. Marj also does a tarot reading about John that proves quite prophetic – “Creative Male Force blocked by Greed for Secret Knowledge – Wants to be a Parental Wiseman and Teacher but subconsciously craves unsymbolic sex. Excited by promise of the future by blocked by obsession and suppression of love. Living in a hopeful vision, passing time waiting for the rule of pattern to exert itself. Reaching for the freedom to experience all of life’s extremes – an outside, hung up trying to find the courage to break the Devil’s block”



Hellblazer #37 – Man’s Work

Plot - Dragged into the country by one of Mercury’s feelings, John wrestles with a broken bus and Mercury finds her first love – a young man in need of rescuing from a brutal father.

Prominent People - First appearance of Martin

John Screws Up - John proves equally incapable of repairing a motor vehicle as driving one.



Hellblazer #38 – Boy’s Games

Plot - Mercury takes center stage as she works her magic to save Martin

Pub Trivia - Along with #37, this marks one of the few times a Hellblazer story has not featured John as the main character or at least as a topic of conversation



Hellblazer #39 – The Hanged Man

Plot - Conflicted and worried about screwing up things for his friends, John goes on a spiritual journey after an unwelcome revelation regarding his past.

Prominent People - First appearance of “The Golden Boy”

John Screws Up - It is strong suggested that John was responsible for killing his twin brother in the womb.



Hellblazer #40 – Magus

Plot - In another reality, John Constantine is a powerful and respected magician. But an evil threatens his idyllic realm. An evil from within.

Recommended Reading

The first 12 issues should be required reading for any fan of the character. Shame that Original Sins only covers the first nine, for some strange reason.

The Fear Machine would really benefit from a TPB edition. In a monthly format, the story goes on way too long and indeed rumor has it that it was originally planned to run for a full year. Still, it isn’t a bad story though it does take forever to truly get started.

The Hanged Man story suffers somewhat for having the three month gap in the middle, but is one of the most effective Hellblazer stories ever, with John having to face a mundane evil that can’t be bluffed.

Grant Morrison has written a lot better than his two issues here. Indeed, this reads less like a Hellblazer story and more like an issue of Doom Patrol or The Invisibles.

Neil Gaiman’s one story depends entirely upon how much you like the idea of John Constantine as a basically decent bloke who acts like a bastard as opposed to BEING a bastard. If you like it, it’s one of the best ever. If you don’t, then it is one of the worst.

Dick Foreman’s one-shot is effective for what it is –a typical Hellblazer one-shot. John wanders in where he doesn’t belong and barely gets out alive.

Delano’s one-shots (13, 23 and 33) are all effective stories, as is the “present, past and future” spread of stories he does in #34-36. And Mercury deserved her own mini-series after the showing she gave in #37-38 – a shame some writer didn’t think to show what happened to The Mob after John’s departure.

I know some readers who are confused by the metaphors of 33 (John’s living nightmare about the 60’s idealism being converted into 90’s capitalism with a conscience) or put off by the environmental message of 13 and admittedly, they can be hard reads. But #23 and it’s tale of a man who becomes too much of a character to live a normal life is a wonder.

Equally confusing is Delano’s closing salvo, which ends with John’s friends in the Freedom Mob finding a tombstone with John’s name on it. I’ve heard conflicting ideas as to what actually happens in the last issue but my personal belief is that the souls of John and “The Golden Boy” twin join and are reborn, giving John a slightly brighter outlook (The John Constantine as written by Garth Ennis was a bit more upbeat) but no less worried about dooming his friends. Hence John leaving The Freedom Mob for a fresh start elsewhere.

The Final Analysis

Other writers may have become more acclaimed than Delano for their work with the character but there is no denying that he was the first and is one of the best to tackle the man and myth that is John Constantine. Garth Ennis, whom a fair number believe to be the best writer to handle the title, once said that his biggest challenge early on was thinking a way to match or top the quality and ideas of the man who had come before him.

In looking at these issues, I agree with Ennis’s assessment and can only imagine how daunting it was for him – who had little experience with American comics - to have to continue on after Delano brought the series to a masterful conclusion of sorts. Hellblazer could well have ended with issue #40 and it would have been a good story told.

But it didn’t stop, and thank goodness for it. For a while Ennis had a thankless task in trying to follow up Delano, he proved an apt successor. Indeed, the apprentice would quickly prove to be a capable magician in his own right.

Tune in next week. Same Matt time. Same Matt website.