Customer Reviews

Hellblazer: Haunted

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The most interesting aspect of this book, and several of the others, is the fact that John Constantine rarely uses magic. It's his trademark, aside from arrogance and a trench coat, but I've found the best stories deal almost exclusively with the man.

In this volume, our chain-smoking hero tries to hunt down the killer of one of his ex's, whose spirit is now trapped on earth. Some familiar faces pop up, and John takes the reader on an interesting trip through London's history. The writing here is great, and the art crisp, and the story is self-contained enough that even if you've never read a Hellblazer comic before, you could follow along. A great buy.

Warren Ellis, John Constantine, Hellblazer: Haunted (Vertigo, 2003)

I have to admit-- and this is a painful thing to admit, really-- Warren Ellis has never really done much for me. While I haven't yet read the series everyone seems to consider his magnum opus, his work on other series has always seemed to be phoned in-- especially his work on Hellblazer. Then the library finally, after seven months of searching, turned up their copy of Haunted, and I started seeing what all the fuss is about.

John stumbles upon a murder scene, and the victim is, coincidentally, an old girlfriend. Needless to say, John worms his way onto the case, and the game is afoot. Not terribly much of a plot, but there you go. It's Hellblazer, what do you want?

The focus of the book is a lot more on character than action, which seems to have disquieted a number of longtime Hellblazer fans. I'm not one of them. People sitting around nattering for pages and pages works for me, as long as there's some goal toward which the author is reaching-- even if that goal is just giving the reader more of an understanding of the character who's doing the nattering. We spend time hearing learning about John Constantine as much as we do learning about the case (and its, of course, unsavoury end). Ellis does his thing with a minimum of flash and a maximum of depth here, and it works, as long as you're not looking for nonstop action.

Not as good as Azzarello's run on the series, but certainly Ellis' best work on it, up to par with much of Ennis' Hellblazer work. Surprisingly good, especially given the reviews. *** ½

John Constantine is one of the more unique comic book characters. An anti-hero in every sense of the word. No super powers to speak of Constantine is a foul, and foul-mouthed, chain-smoking part wizard, part detective, part demonologist. His is a world lower than the most seedy underbelly. He's a man who has seen the kind of death, sorrow, and evil that would drive the average man insane, and perhaps has already done so to Constantine.

This Warren Ellis tale tells of an old lover named Isabelle who is horribly murdered. John investigates to find that his old friend had died as a cheap prostitute barely living on the fringes of society. John eventually finds out she came under the domination of a rival mage who did unspeakable things to her before killing her. REluctantly John needs help and calls upon a couple of old friends. The ending...well, to say the ending was one of the more disturbing things I've ever read or seen in a comic would be understating it. It's not pretty, but then that is Constantine's world. The graphic novel was illustrated by John Higgins and while I'm not crazy about some of these more abstract comic artists, his gritty style certainly fit the story.

I've seen people fraked to death and shat into hell for eight quid and change.

That's about the tone of this one, which, I guess is not too big a surprise for an Ellis Hellblazer. Constantine finds out an old girlfriend has been killed - actually, they should probably just tell us when these lovers of his actually stay alive for any extended period of time, it would save a lot of words.

The bad thing is that she was involved with another magician, and a nasty one at that, so Constantine needs to call in some favours.

Warren Ellis has never been anything close to being predictable. The creator of Transmetropolitan and scribe of countless other innovative titles and scribe of mainstream hits, Ellis has always had a penchant for mad ideas that somehow make sense when guided by his pen. While his original ideas tend to fare better than his work on established titles, Ellis' brief, but nonetheless notorious, run on Hellblazer is still something worth reading for both fans of the writer and the series. Haunted begins with chain smoking mage John Constantine learning of the death of a former girlfriend. Upon investigating her grisly murder, Constantine earns a savage beating for his snooping, and soon learns that a rival, Crowley-wanna-be magician is responsible, and the revenge he seeks to inflict is as incredibly brutal as one could expect from Ellis. While Haunted is definitely not the finest Hellblazer TPB on the market, it will leave an impretion on you as you wonder just what Ellis will pull out of his hat next. John Higgins' artwork is servicable, and the nicely detailed gore is a crowning achievement. All in all, Haunted may be unsavory and brutal, but make no mistake that this is pure Ellis all the way, and by the time you reach it's conclusion, you'll realize that this is pure Hellblazer as well.

I'm a fan of the 'Hellblazer' series and John Constantine. I'm a fan of Warren Ellis' work on 'Transmetropolitan' and 'The Authority'. I can't say I'm a fan of John Higgins, but I enjoyed his work on Garth Ennis' 'War Stories: D-Day Dodgers'. But in 'Haunted', there's a problem. Something's missing.

The story is interesting, but not fantastically so. It's a murder, but not much of a mystery. Constantine knows who the killer is pretty soon into the narrative, and we just have to wait to see how he deals with him. 'Haunted' is not a tale for the uninitiated reader. All of the John Constantine stories rely heavily on the rich continuity of the character, and this one is no exception. There are only a couple of characters in this story that aren't loathsome in one way or another. London is pictured as the hell of urban hells, or written that way, rather, since Higgins' art is a bit too clean to comunicate the vision that Ellis seems to have in mind. This book really just gives you an icky feeling.
Overall, there's just not enough impact in this tale. There are a few good moments, but the web that holds them together is weak and ratty, and not really worth following unless you're a dedicated Ellis and/or Hellblazer fan.

Warren Ellis (The Preacher, Planetary, Transmetropolitan) is one of the most prolific and edgy authors we've got today, ranking up there in my book with Garth Ennis, Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller and Grant Morrison.
This time around there was something that just didn't click with me. Yea, the story was great and the imagery was well thought out but John Higgins' artwork kind of ruined it for me. Those of you who are used to seeing John as a ragged, disheveled mystery man will be shocked by the artwork that portrays him almost as a buffed model! His featured are much too chisled and his head is way too pretty for my taste.
This time around we see John pining over yet another girlfriend's death (how many of his exes survive? No wonder Kit left!) (sorry, casual reader. Constantine fans will know what that means.) He feels obliged to poke around to find the one responsible as it was a particularily grisly murder and mutilation. He drags in favors from both the police and his underworld contacts, as usual, and in his usual machievellian manner. He finally realizes that the killer was using the girl as the focus of his arcane power and offed her when she dried up. Tracking him down proves to be difficult when John is beaten up when he gets too close. (The echo of Bugs Bunny's "This means war" comes to mind at this point.) It's a noir tale, a detective story, possibly a Chandler homage, who knows?
The story doesn't really offer many surprises, but it does speak on a noir level, and the atmosphere and ambiance is great to get into. I wouldn't really say that the story is predictable, but it doesn't surpass storylines such as "Dangerous Habits" or even the flawed "Good Intentions". I don't want to give anything away about the identity of the killer, but suffice it to say that the buildup far surpasses the payoff. Constantine's method of retribution is quite clever, not to mention vicious, which is typical of Hellblazer.
Get this book for another great constantine story, but be forwarned: he acts typicallly like, but doesn't really look much like the John we know and love. A good, but not great chapter in the life of everyone favorite chain-smoking sorcerer.

Taken out of context this might seem on the surface to be a prototypical Hellblazer tale of damnation and revenge and John's ex-girlfriends meeting bad ends. Taken in context of coming off of several years of Paul Jenkins uncollected run on Hellblazer, where the character had lost a lot of his original identity, it becomes obvious that this is a homecoming for John, as Warren Ellis dives into London as much as he dives into the character of Constantine, making the two nearly inseperable. Sameul Johnson once said that if you were tired of London you were tired of life, and Ellis gives us a London that is both tired of life and burns with the intensity of 4am prowls and stale smoke washing out of after hours pubs. His storytelling is a return to form after Jenkins took John out of London and away from his horror roots.
This is John coming home to the place he can never escape, his past, and the city that seems to be a metaphor for him.
Ultimately, it's Warren's second trade that really begins to show the promise that was cut short when DC editorial refused to run his story of gun violence in America and Constantine investigating it, the stunning and now infamous "Shoot" issue which can be found if one searches the net. One has to wonder where Ellis' reinvention and reboot of the character might have gone had the editorial forces lost their nerve for "Shoot" after Columbine, and it's a shame that only two TPB's exist of Ellis' Hellblazer work.

Not one of the better Constantine tales; this time out Constantine is out to get a fellow magician who destroyed an old girlfriend, by way of Aleister Crowley's "Scarlet Woman." With rather stiff art by John Higgins, this standard tale of vengeance is only enhanced by Ellis's glimpses of the down and dirty side of London. Perhaps this is the actual reason for the story; it gives Ellis the option to wax poetic. If so, it's too bad he couldn't have attached it to a more compelling story.

A good fare for the Magus but not the best of the series.