A review by starrybooker
Hellblazer, Vol. 5: Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano

3.0

The actual Dangerous Habits story arc I would give five stars; it was funny while still having plenty of drama and great incorporations of supernatural elements, it was what I wanted and expected out of a Constantine book, especially one written by Garth Ennis (who wrote Preacher excellently). My only problem was that it took me over half the bloody book to get to that arc, first having to read some story about Constantine's dead twin brother or something like that. Now, I haven't read any Hellblazer comics before and somebody recommended to me to start at the Dangerous Habits arc because it's the best and it's where they started. Which is fine, as a new reader a couple of things went a bit over my head, but the story was easy to follow and I enjoyed it. The first story arc though (I think it's the Magus arc or something?) I was completely lost in. Which I could kind of except, as I was a new reader and I quite enjoyed reading about some of the characters (Mercury in particular). My problem was that the writing was just so bloody pretentious, especially towards the end. It wasn't any fun to read, and while I like a good bit of drama as much as the next girl, the story just got so bogged down in itself that I had to skim over a lot of the text by the end because it was just so boring. There weren't even any witty/sarcastic/arsehole-ish lines from Constantine to lighten the mood.
So yeah, did not enjoy the first arc and would give it a three (Mercury was its saving grace), but loved the second arc, would give that a five, so it overall evens out as a four. Would recommend Dangerous Habits, but get the thinner book with just that storyline, the Magus one really isn't worth it.