DC
pulled and changed a cover of Connie smoking, printed the unchanged smoking cover as a variant. I get to see a bunch of people complain that Connie should never be smoking. Because smoking shouldn't be depicted as "cool" and smoking just makes Connie look like an a*****e.
stare rolleyes
Then someone, who has clearly never read Hellblazer, makes a crack about Connie being gay.
stare rolleyes
Visually, this comic is not special. It fits right into the house style and that's problematic for a gritty character. The lines are too clean, the scenery too bright and there are an unacceptable number of splash pages for any story. The color palette does not help the art and there are no true black anywhere. The lack of contrast makes pages appear muddy.
For the writing, I found the whole affair bland. It swings wildly between Constantine being a huge a*****e
just to be a huge a*****e, and him being all about helping people who need someone who "cheats" (take a shot every time this word is used). Despite this Constantine having an honest to god superhero mission statement, he murders a stewardess on panel. He also leaves a friend of his to die (he does die, horribly), without ever trying to save him. This is doubly problematic because the entire first half of the comic set this kid up and John's friend who came to PI Constantine (yes he's a PI now) for help. And John says "I will help you" and instead leaves the kid to die. Because reasons.
And despite all this callous bullshit, it feels like a much tamer character by way of a bad Dresden Files fanfic. Though Constantine monologues throughout, he feels flat. There's no range of emotions, it's all exposition, and he shows no affection for those of his "friends" we are introduced to. We are given a mystery we don't care about, because there are no stakes. It's "John find this thing or your friend will die," the friend dies, and now it's just "John find this thing." John now has no reason to find the thing/solve the mystery.
I tried. I did. Now let's all take bets on how long until it gets canned. I say 16, and by that point there will have been at least three creative shuffles.
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