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A review by fangsfirst
Hellblazer, Vol. 5: Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis, Jamie Delano
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Call me the weirdo: I still prefer Delano.
Ennis is not as insufferable as he would become, being multiple rings notably down (or is it up?!) the ladders of the edge lord with the humanity of his later Preacher, but none of its excess (or at least very, very little). Which was, eventually, all he seemed to have interest in writing (I suppose I did like Code:PRU on the whole…).
I feel as if most people came to this character from this Ennis arc, or started off going back only as far this arc. I admittedly came in MUCH later (Carey era) but then went back to the start after first reading Moore's Swamp Thing and started from the beginning and fell for Delano's style and the horror around a man who is so deeply, deeply flawed and hardly up to the depths he finds himself in for even a moment, getting past them by the skin of his teeth.
Ennis is not as insufferable as he would become, being multiple rings notably down (or is it up?!) the ladders of the edge lord with the humanity of his later Preacher, but none of its excess (or at least very, very little). Which was, eventually, all he seemed to have interest in writing (I suppose I did like Code:PRU on the whole…).
I feel as if most people came to this character from this Ennis arc, or started off going back only as far this arc. I admittedly came in MUCH later (Carey era) but then went back to the start after first reading Moore's Swamp Thing and started from the beginning and fell for Delano's style and the horror around a man who is so deeply, deeply flawed and hardly up to the depths he finds himself in for even a moment, getting past them by the skin of his teeth.
The Ennis stories weren't as jarring as I feared now that I'd gone from loving Preacher to despsing most things I've read since as I noticed the stock characters Ennis just seemed to reel out again and again, unable to resist his love of the flawed-loner-cowboy that peaked with Jesse Custer.
But still: I've seen reviews complain John never does magic and thought, "That's what I actually like!" He's a man who knows some things and sees horrible things and sometimes knows how to get out of or around them, not a superhero. But Ennis nudges him firmly toward an Ennis-y protagonist: a likably-flawed antihero to root for, maybe more coarse, but less definitively awful as a person. And I think something gets kind of lost there. In a weird irony, Delano's Constantine is truly an un-superhero, where the famously superhero-hating Ennis tips John closer to exactly what he hates: a more palatable, more assured and powerful man.
I've got a great deal more Ennis to read, and some Jenkins and Milligan and Mina and Carey and the rest, and I'm pretty sure we'll never see the like of Delano's Constantine again from what I've read or know, so I'll have to get used to and accept the mostly-sanded-down version, and my place as the absolute weirdo mourning that loss unlike every other reader on earth.
So it goes, I suppose.
But still: I've seen reviews complain John never does magic and thought, "That's what I actually like!" He's a man who knows some things and sees horrible things and sometimes knows how to get out of or around them, not a superhero. But Ennis nudges him firmly toward an Ennis-y protagonist: a likably-flawed antihero to root for, maybe more coarse, but less definitively awful as a person. And I think something gets kind of lost there. In a weird irony, Delano's Constantine is truly an un-superhero, where the famously superhero-hating Ennis tips John closer to exactly what he hates: a more palatable, more assured and powerful man.
I've got a great deal more Ennis to read, and some Jenkins and Milligan and Mina and Carey and the rest, and I'm pretty sure we'll never see the like of Delano's Constantine again from what I've read or know, so I'll have to get used to and accept the mostly-sanded-down version, and my place as the absolute weirdo mourning that loss unlike every other reader on earth.
So it goes, I suppose.