The second volume of Hellblazer has its hits and misses. The first half of the book is really good and the second half is just ok.John Constantine had a rough first volume. He's on his way back to life, but still has some issues to resolve. They range from the Swamp Thing to Nergal. This is the first half of the volume detailing JC's adventures. I rather liked this part and the JC/Nergal interactions, as well as the background as to what happened to Constantine in Newcastle when he was young. I

This 2nd Hellblazer collection is all over the place. The first three issues wrap up the story started in Original Sins quite well. The next two are just puzzling and completely lost my interest. Then it wraps up with a 2-parter that has beautiful art, but the story feels like a cliche.

Nergal & Newcastle (10-12). These three issues really form the conclusion of the major arc from volume 1, and so should have gone there, especially the Swamp Thing related issue. Ah well. 10 and 12 focus on the Resurrection Crusade and Nergal and are nice issues. There's a bit too much philosophical wankery in issue #10, of the sort that sometimes spoils Delano's writing. However in the end it offers some nice closure, and #12 does so even moreso. They're good plot-heavy issues [7/10]. On the ot...

The varied stories and breathtaking art in this collection of Hellblazer were far more intense than I was prepared for. It's hard for me to digest the density and weight of each story found in a picture book just over a half inch thick, but it has confirmed my growing opinion that Jamie Delano's entire run of Hellblazer was the best, even considering my love and respect for Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, and Garth Ennis.When I can afford to start collecting the trade paperbacks of my favourite comic...

Good collections of short run (2-4 issue) story arcs, not needlessly complicated by an overarching narrative.

It's a challenge to plug into Delano's wordy stream of consciousness style when the trend in comics writing has gone in a very different, minimalist direction since this was published, but it's worth the effort. What's striking is exactly how dark and casually transgressive the book is, and how politically engaged and angry it is. These are certainly qualities lacking in the rather gelded modern iteration of Constantine, and it's rewarding to go back to a time when the character wasn't essential...

This one is really kind of a mixed bag. Issues 10 and 12 are fine. 11 is fantastic. 13 is really stupid and is meant to convince people that nuclear power is bad, but I've always understood it to be better than coal or other sources, so I don't get the agenda behind it. The Annual is pretty weird because 2/3rds of it is about one of Constantine's ancestors, while the first and last few pages are about John himself and has nothing to do with the ancestor story. The John stuff is really great, but...

In late August of 2018, my beloved old dog had her first seizure. Right there and then, I knew the clock was ticking and whatever she had would eventually kill her, which it did a year and four days later. During the time before her death, I went on a wild eBay and Amazon shopping spree. Some of the things I bought were Hellblazer graphic novels, such as Hellblazer: The Devil You Know. Why? Because when you're miserable, John Constatine makes for good company.Honestly, when you're greiveing or d...

This was more hit-and-miss than volume 1, IMO, but I still loved quite a lot of it, and liked nearly all. You know you've found an author you connect with when the middling-to-negative reviews are criticising things you consider good features, not bugs. Volume 2 is an odd compilation, made up of four single issue comics, #10-13, from late 1988, a 1989 annual (which if it was like 80s annuals for more innocent kids' publications, means produced in late 1988), and The Horrorist, a two-issue specia...

After reading volume 1 of Hellblazer, I decided to read Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run before going any further because it fills in some of the blanks from Constantine's past that are otherwise a little confusing (such as why he has a group of ghosts following him around everywhere and how his girlfriend was killed).Doing this also had another benefit, however, because I got to directly compare the two books back-to-back. While Moore's book was pretty trippy and revolutionary, it doesn't hold a ca...

One review I read about Jamie Delano described how he talks and talks but it feels like he is never getting to the point, or perhaps there isn't a point to begin with. This writing style existed since the first issue, but it continued to grow worse and worse. The second volume is still bearable, but it definitely is harder to read than the first.The stories of the second volume are generally just fine, zed's story concludes in the first issue, followed by 3 one-shots. The only story that really

2 of the stories were good the rest seemed to be bleak for the sake of bleakness....

"The Devil You Know" collects Hellblazer issues #10-13, plus the "Bloody Saint" from the Special, and both issues of The Horrorist. Overall, this is a solid collection -- if for no other reason than it's great they're finally making an effort at collecting the earlier issues in a mostly complete way. It's only four issues, but it's a fairly important and interesting four issues, and it's padded with some good Hellblazer miscellany. The writing and storyline is good, and improves slightly from Bo...

Boy howdy is this trippy and certainly different from the more down-to-earth take that Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis brought to "Hellblazer". One of the stories here has been reprinted in the "Rare Cuts" anthology featuring stories through the comic's entire run: The one detailing the Newcastle Incident, which ended up traumatising John Constantine psychologically for the rest of his life to the point of still being brought up in new stories to this day. It's also by far the most conventional sto...

Dear Vertigo: comics have little numbers on them. You'll note that they start at #1 continue on up to two hundred and something. When collecting them into graphic novels, start with number one, and go in sequential order.In terms of content, this is a solid four or five stars. I've always had as much fondness for Delano's Constantine as for the more heralded Ennis and Ellis stories.But oh lordy does this get deducted for continuing Vertigo's incredibly asinine decision to collect the Hellblazer

This collection contains three flavors of nihilism for your self-hating pleasure, three tones of world-weary disgust for your cynical, comic-book reading mind.The first selection is my least favorite. Even though it seems like forever since I finished the previous Hellblazer collection, the conclusion of the carrying-over storyline still seems abrupt. What really bothers me about this selection though is the art. It seems Richard Piers Rayner is hell-bent on depicting every stupid, awkward, obno...

It is not often I cannot rate a book, comic book or anything similar - but this is one of these cases. Reading this volume was like tripping: good trips, bad trips, crazy highs, desperate lows and so, sooo much weirdness. Maybe it's the fact that I read it in a weird state, some 6 months into pandemic lockdown, while keeping crazy hours.In any event, this comic talks largely about Thatcherian England, the yoke of religion and fanaticism, the indifference of consumerism and generally everything t...

I didn't read these when they originally came out, mostly backtracking right now. I think i finally understand what/who john constantine is now. What if a (mostly) immoral con man became a magician and suddenly had to deal with demons and giant celestial issues? The comic itself refer to him as the 'laughing magician', but his humor isn't that funny. Its more about cynicism and mockery. So why the hell am I reading these when I'm not very happy with them or the main character? I'm not sure. I'll...

Original SinsSo we pick up from where Original Sins left off and come to an end of Jamie Delano's first major storyline in the Hellblazer series. So let's go....Sex and Death: John and Swamp Thing have come upon a way to fuck over both the Resurrection Crusade and the Damnation Army. But that'll involve a trip to the Astral Plane for John and a bit of rumpy-pumpy for Swamp Thing. Now if only John can avoid the fallout. This is the first comic we see where there is a massive shift in the art styl...

I enjoyed volume one of Hellblazer so much that I immediately picked up volume two, and though I didn’t enjoy it as much as volume one, it was still entertaining. I guess the shortfalls of this volume, for me, were in the quality of the stories: with the exception of "Newcastle," I didn’t find them quite as memorable, but your mileage may differ.Things I Liked1. Constantine’s Trauma: Ok, hear me out before you judge. I think this volume did a good job showing the reader the source of Constantine...