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Angie was attacked by a razor-wielding bloke during her first appearance, but got away fine to become a recurring supporting character during the rest of Carey's run. She was, as of her last appearance a few months ago, still very much alive.
Azzarello's run was pretty iffy, on the whole, although he did manage a few half-decent stories (despite having all the authentic 'Englishness' of Dick Van Dyke, his flashback-to-young-John-in-the-'70s story, 'Lapdogs and Englishmen', was a pretty nice little two-parter, marred only slightly by a pointless sub-plot which was originally intended to be continued later in Azzarello's run, but which was abandoned when his tenure was cut short). 'Good Intentions' is far from his best trade, though (probably my least favourite arc from his run, in fact, for reasons already touched upon in this thread), and I'd probably recommend 'Freezes Over' for anyone who wants to sample his Hellblazer. Not perfect, but an entertaining-enough little horror story, and one in which Azz's failure to actually grasp the essence of Constantine's character is less intrusive than for most of his other efforts.
I still reckon that Paul Jenkins' (post-Ennis) run on Hellblazer is underrated - it's definitely patchy, and ended very badly, but up until the final couple of arcs, he did a quite nice job of establishing Constantine in a refreshingly varied, England-centric supernatural universe. He did, however, fall back a bit too often on using the First Of The Fallen (bad guy from Ennis' run - the devil, basically) as a pantomime-esque nemesis, which got a bit boring. Still, he did some excellent short one- or two-issue stories (the tenth anniversary story, from #120, is particularly brilliant, and strongly recommended to anyone who's interested in the title), and the 'Critical Mass' arc is one of my favourite Hellblazer stories. The gorgeous, atmospheric and moody Sean Phillips art is another reason to like Jenkins' run, and it's a crying shame that none of it is available in trade.
Ennis' run began strongly, and 'Dangerous Habits' is still probably the best introduction to the character/title available in trade, but I find that, a few short stories aside, the second half of his run falls pretty flat. Still, 'Fear & Loathing' is worth picking up if only for the three single-issue stories which open the trade, including the already-mentioned 'Forty'.
Delano's run is still the best the title (and character, really) has ever had to offer, so, of course, it's mostly unavailable in trade. Bugger. The fact that the only trade of his run available, Original Sins, ends on a cliff-hanger just adds insult to injury, really. Still, almost anything from #1-40 is worth picking up if you can find it in the back issue bins.
Mike Carey's run was, on the whole, excellent, although I had a few reservations about the over-reliance on previous continuity, especially in the second half of the run. Still, my girlfriend read it with no prior experience of the title and really enjoyed it, so I'm probably overstating that a little. A couple of overly-hokey plot elements, which I won't mention here for reasons of spoilerage, also put me off slightly. It all came together pretty well in the end, though, and there are a couple of short stand-alone entries from the final stretch of his run which, for me, rank among the best Constantine stories ever told.
His run isn't yet completely available in trade, but it should be finished within the next year or so, at the current rate of publication. It's definitely one to read in the correct order, though - later stories from his run rely heavily on the reader already being familiar with what happened earlier. He did, however, write an entirely self-contained OGN, All His Engines (illustrated by current series artist Leonardo Manco, whose work on the monthly title is generally solid enough, but not in the same league as his excellent art in this book), which is about as classic, archetypal a Constantine tale as I can think of, as well as being a pretty nice little graphic novel in its own right.
As for Denise Mina (the current writer) - well, based on her excellent, grimy and atmospheric crime fiction (the Garnethill trilogy, in particular, is superb), I was hugely excited to hear that she would be taking over the title, and as yet I haven't been disappointed. Her first couple of issues suffered from some slightly awkward pacing, as one would expect from a novelist who's never written for comics before, but beyond that she seems to have gotten the hang of things very quickly indeed. There's a trade of her first arc (the 7-issue 'Empathy Is The Enemy') due later this year, and, assuming that the conclusion is as satisfying as the first 5 installments have been, it'll be well worth picking up.
To answer the original "which trades should I pick up?" question, I'd say that either Dangerous Habits, All His Engines, or Rare Cuts are probably the best starting points for a newcomer to the title. Beyond that, there's plenty of good advice in this thread regarding where to go next. |
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