Customer Reviews

John Constantine, Hellblazer: Red Sepulchre

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mike Carey, John Constantine, Hellblazer: Red Sepulchre (Vertigo, 2003)

Red Sepulchre is the first book in what ended up being a three-book miniseries focusing on Constantine and Angie Spatchcock, neophyte wizard. We're introduced to Angie here, as Constantine meets her while looking for his missing niece, Gemma, and the two of them try to figure out what on Earth's going on with the building where Gemma's parents live. We also get the first bits of information about the Shadow Dog, which we'll meet later on, in another volume.

Carey (Lucifer) was a good choice to bring into the Hellblazer universe; he's lower-key than Garth Ennis, but not so laid-back as Warren Ellis, and his books tend to strike the best balance of the various aspects of Constantine's character. Whether or not that's a good thing I'll leave to the reader to decide but I find them quite enjoyable. *** ½

100 Bullets writer Brian Azzarello's run on Hellblazer had it's share of up's and down's, so when Lucifer scribe Mike Carey took over the writing duties, many hailed this first storyarc as a triumphant return to form for the comic. Collecting the first six issues of Carey's current run on the title, Red Sepulchre finds black magic mage John Constantine returning to his native England and looking to pick up the pieces of the life he left behind. Soon enough though, John ends up smack in the middle of someone's super natural power trip, narrowingly escaping in the process. The second story is the focuspoint of this graphic novel, as John's niece Gemma Masters has disappeared. She herself has become tangled in a plot to find the Red Sepulchre, and John plays his most dangerous game in order to save his beloved niece as well as his own skin. From the first story on, Carey has returned Hellblazer to the gothic and cerebral horror story that Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis before him had made it, taking the series back to it's roots rather than taking a departure the way Azzarello did before him. Preacher artist Steve Dillon provides the pencils of the first story, while series stalwart Marcelo Frusin provides the art of the second story, which for the most part is solid. All in all, Red Sepulchre marks a fine return to form for Hellblazer, and this collection is definitely one of the best graphic novel collections of the entire series.

Everybody is after the Red Sepulchre. Acquaintances and strangers, friends and future foes of John Constantine have ostensibly merged their magical and mystical might in the pursuit of this enigmatic entity. The stakes are raised even higher when John's niece Gemma, and consequently John himself, are manipulated to enter the game, but on whose side. And that decision may cause yet another player, the mysterious Map, to ante up as well. Are all their goals the same, and can anyone be trusted? We do eventually learn of the divergent interests of these varied factions, with one wanting to use the Sepulchre to open the doors to the unknown, and the other half wanting to prevent its' appearance from ever occurring. So just what is the Red Sepulchre? By amazing coincidence, a forebear of Constantine's had a gruesome encounter with it years previously, so he knows about its' history and lore. With that knowledge he is able to discern its' location and quickly dispatch it. While this somewhat ineffectual and trite ending was a bit too pat, it did serve its' purpose of closing the current chapter while also setting the stage for another. This tale is the latter part of the trade. It opens with John's return to England from America in an intriguing short story of macabre addiction involving the illicit pleasure of enjoying other people's memories, specifically the sordid ones of tainted tarts, which directly segues into the main story. This compilation was the debut of writer Mike Carey on the title, and kudos to him for successfully continuing the legacy of high quality established by the distinguished writers that had preceded him.

It's been years since I felt a need to return to my one-time favorite character John Constantine. Mike Carey's material is what brought me back. I fell in love with his writing on Lucifer and actually entered into his Hellblazer work with high hopes (and lingering fears.) Was Carey a one-trick pony? Could he make Constantine his own while still feeling true to the character? Yes on all fronts. Highly enjoyable.

This is a good Constantine book. It has minimal references to other books, so it's a safe buy for those who haven't read many other Hellblazer graphic novels. Solid story, but the villain is a little tame compared to past Constantine "baddies".

I won't bore you with an analysis of the entire run of Hellblazer. I will say that under Azzarello John took it upon himself to journey across America making bad decisions one after another and drifting further and further away from the character as presented during the glory days of "Dangerous Habbits". The climax comes when John apparently becomes a homosexual sado-masochist at the end of the last book, then allows his boyfriend to kill him, then somehow gets revenge through some trick that isn't fully explained. The more I think about this, the less sense it seems to make.
I had high hopes for Carey, famed creator of the Lucifer series that is one of the best examples of storytelling I have ever read. Carey presents himself as a master of continuity and subtle plot devices that seem to be planned several volumes before they rise into signifgicance. That, and I read "All His Engines" and thought he was well on his way to becoming the createst graphic-novel writer at Vertigo or anywhere.
At the onset, Carey drops the old storyline and returns John to the land of his birth with barely a hint of his homo-erotic adventures across the pond.
This is all well and good, but it also disturbed me that the same illustrator was kept for this comic, who made John look just a bit more unshaven and bug-eyed, and just a bit more obviously like a jerk. I set this aside, however, thinking my judgement clouded by the writting of the last series, and anyway, it's not that bad.
The second thing that disturbed me was the treatment of his family. There was a time, way back in "Tainted Love" that John visited his family with his then girlfriend. This was supposed to show that beneath all the facades and shadows he pulls over himself, John is still an ordinary man that can escape for a little at a time in the comforting arms of his family. Everybody seemed to genuinely care for each other, and everything seemed realistic, in as much as John being a magician is concerned.
Fast-forward to today, where the first thing his sister does is start screaming at him. It's understandable that Cheryl would be upset over his being gone for over a year without a word to his family (something I blame the last writer for entirely). She's aparently become a drug addict as well, something that her Jesus-freak husband tries to blame on John and get in a fist fight with him over. His neice, who we see later in the book, has become some kind of a naive slut, with the worst parts of both coming to the fore.
Characterization aside, the plot was complex enough to give me what I expected out of Carey, and sinister enough to give me what I expected out of Hellblazer. The tricks seemed more real, unlike when he pulled a bottle full of sand from hell out of his trenchcoat in the last volume. The scripting was nice, and it ends with a bang when all sides gang up on one another and John pulls out a few tricks no one expected.
While this volume was still tainted by the uneasy effects of the last author, it shows a lot of promise and at least advances back in the direction Hellblazer is meant to go. One can even imagine that Carey is transitioning us slowly, so as not to be too surprised when the next story arc hits a perfect ten. I, for one, intend to be there for the ride.