A review by storyorc
Hellblazer, Vol. 1: Original Sins by Jamie Delano

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Joyously political. We've got literal demon Tories and skinheads defeated by football team allegiance. Hellblazer is relentlessly about the (mostly-white) working class and unafraid to alienate anyone who would vote to make hard lives harder. Something modern progressives could take from Hellblazer however is that despite our hero being socially progressive (for the time), he is an asshole! A lot of the dark shit he instigates is up in the air whether it was the lesser evil or a failing but sometimes he's just selfish too. The two flavours of assholery feed off each other, creating an moral ecosystem you wouldn't get from a character under pressure from the modern world to be the perfect representation of one thing or another. Ugly is interesting! 

Will return to bump up the rating if future issues demonstrate awareness that L'Adoration de la Terre was a rape story*. One of the perpatrators has even been the victim of a similar bodysnatchy rape and mentions it, and so really should know better. Infernal Triangles, right after, is charming and sweet and all the more dissonant for it. Unpleasant aftertaste to what was otherwise a riot.

*He gets a line showing he feels used by this in volume 4, but not enough to bump up the rating.
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