Whispers

Yesterday I spent a solid twelve hours reading the Garth Ennis Hellblazer omnibus.
I cannot recommend doing it that way, especially as sleep should have happened at some point.
But it did emphasise how well the story flows and builds, and the ways it takes its time and meanders.
There's the memorable John Constantine bits for sure, many of them not exactly moments of glory, since this is also the volume where John ends up homeless drunk in an alley.
But there are story arcs for supporting characters. Just when I was wondering what Kit was other than pretty and willing to ignore some of what John is doing, she gets a bunch of consequences and we get to follow her home, and find out quite a lot. And see why she broke up with John, informed by experience of other addicts, and conclude she probably should. This volume very much portrays him as an addict with some extremely dodgy friends, and once again they all get killed attempting extremely dangerous things that arguably only benefit John. And then it lands on a story about John deliberately using and lying to them to protect himself by endangering everyone else, and yet landing the con so well they think he's done something a lot more grand, which is like a thesis statement summary for this writer's arc.
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The introduction points out how this author kept things real world political, and it is definitely front and center. Even personal stuff like abusive families is firmly contextualised in a specific political context. People are angry and scared not just because it is human nature but because there have been specific political choices made that lead to armed men in the streets in both legal and illegal ways. This comic isn't keen on the freedom fighter or vigilante myth, it's all messy horror that hits the innocent. Power is abused, whatever their reasons were for grabbing it. John goes up to yell at parliament and repeatedly show and tell that he wants magic for this kind of visible everyday thing, not just fighting beasties from beyond, but the risks other people are importing using magic for politics and the limits on the likely results are pretty thoroughly illustrated too.

And all that is possible because it abandons the sliding timeline and has real time ageing and real historical background. It even has characters point out how it hits them different than their siblings, how some of them remember the change and some are just used to it, which again is only possible if you can be real specific about the calendar. I keep coming back to that about comics writing and how blurry details do no favours.

John here is pulled between a quiet relaxed life with someone he loves and a background of horror that he keeps getting pulled back in to, but not all of it hell based. One black character accuses him of never actually understanding because he always has a choice of whether or not to be involved, but the violence that breaks up John and Kit isn't primarily demonic, it's because he pissed off racists. There's angels and demons in this story, but with this author the demons are frequently getting pulled in because of humans making political choices. There is a devil but that doesn't mean all this evil is the devil's idea. So Kit wanting John to stay away from all that would mean him becoming one of the people who walk away and walk on by. Like when he was homeless and the story spent multiple pages on people ignoring the homeless. It's not as simple as staying out of danger and everything being okay.

But John very much actively pisses off the powerful. Even he knew that a certain gesture to the devil was going to be paid for later. It is the fun bit that summaries of him as a comic book antihero focus on, but it is also the way going too far makes more plot later.

I liked how after winning the story took an issue to be all, oh shit that risked the entire world and the afterlife for one man's survival, bit selfish much?

Wobbling between selfish gain and political wrath but never successfully building something new is kind of the theme throughout.

After all this I think John is a harder man to like, however easy to understand, but a thoroughly fascinating character.