Why are you punching yourself?
Creative Staff:
Story: Ming Doyle, James Tynion IV
Art: Travel Foreman, Joseph Silver
Colors: Ivan Plascencia
What They Say:
Neron’s hostile takeover of New York City has left thousands of magical folk homeless, including John Constantine! But just when the Hellblazer has resolved himself to life as a refugee in Los Angeles, a relentless supernatural force attempts to compel him out of the City of Angels and back into the fight: Boston Brand, a.k.a. Deadman!.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Constantine has been a mostly fun and engaging ride so far with what Doyle and Tynion have been up to in putting our John through the wringer. Seeing the way things went south so bad for New York and for himself while dealing with Papa Midnite and then events with Neron just reinforced that things are going bad in a big way. Each push just made things worse and worse for him and it kind of ended up over the edge a bit when it came to Oliver and what he learned about him and his daughters. With his own history related to kids and things that have gone wrong there, it wasn’t a surprise to see him throw a wall up as fast as he did and move on. Even if that moving on meant he ended up in Los Angeles.
This installment wants to work two different angles of the story in a really interesting way. Constantine’s not intent on going back to New York at all and is looking to find a way to help those creatures and users being ousted from New York to find a place to go. LA isn’t exactly his top choice, but with Gabriel operating out of there with his own twisted view of the good he’s doing, it makes the most sense. That Gabriel won’t have any of it because he’s doing so much good work for people is just kind of hilarious in his own way. Especially when he starts going on about how bad things would get of the types from New York got involved in the film and TV industry and really had a foothold on propaganda with your average human. The time between Gabriel and Constantine is a lot of fun, especially the whole putting on of airs that Gabriel does in his appearance and with the reactions to Constantine’s smoking. It reinforces his own position and just makes you not like him in the same way John doesn’t like him.
The other side is that Constantine does his best for a little recovery and downtime after what he’s been through but it’s hell to do right in LA compared to New York since everything is so bright. Even worse is that he ends up accosted by Boston Brand. Brand, aka Deadman, is so intent on getting Constantine back to New York to do what he needs to do there since the topline heroes can’t punch their way through this, that he essentially kidnaps him. It makes for some great humor and visuals which Foreman and Silver pull off beautifully, but the story aspect of it just made me cringe. Deadman has always been a difficult character to bring to life well and the playful adversarial angle this time just makes him really, really, off-putting in a way that makes me not want to see him for a while.
In Summary:
As much fun as I had with parts of this book something still just felt off about it. I totally get what Constantine is doing in trying to take himself out of it because it’s not his fight and he’s not the crusading type, though as we see he is trying to help out some of those affected. But when you know the scale of the problem is going to impact everything eventually, he is the type that will try and deal with it sooner rather than later – at least with this. The book has its moments and I delighted at a little Gabriel time, but with the odd feeling and the Deadman problem combined, the book wasn’t quite as strong as it could be.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: April 13th, 2016
MSRP: $2.99
