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yawn: That was really clever. Well done, fuckwit.
For fuck's sake, this argument is older than Christ. Can we not just accept that John Constantine, like James Bond, is all things to all people and move on? Every writer who's delivered a take on JC has brought out a different aspect of the character, one that interested them enough to write it. My takes on the various interpretations...
Moore wrote Constantine as an 'international man of mystery' in Swamp Thing, showing us flashes of psychosis and obsessive behaviour, hidden motivations, and flippancy masking manipulative gamesmanship around Swampy and most of his supporting cast. He was the perfect foil for Swamp Thing, who, in contrast, knew next to nothing about his own origins or any kind of mysticism, was pompous and upright, and constantly having to react to situations that were forced upon him. But he wan't much more than that. At the end of Moore's run, we still knew almost nothing about him.
Delano wrote an angst-ridden bastard gumshoe, a common street-punk with delusions of world-saving, to badly paraphrase the demon Nergal. Delano's stuff, unlike much of Moore's Swamp Thing work, has dated badly for the most part, the topical references and segues seeming parochial and a wee bit naive, and the writing trying too hard to be Chandleresque, becoming badly parsed and a vivid purple instead. I've never really rated Delano as a conceptualist or as a storyteller - having said that, there are some great stories in there if you're willing to wade through the mediocre, Delano occasionally pulling off some lovely gore-free horror, and he has a half-decent ear for dialogue.
In contrast, Ennis wrote us a sarcastic aging fuck-up, altering the 'haunted by the deaths of the friends he allowed to die' schtick from poor near-literal hallucinations of said friends (like MacBeth seeing Banquo at the feast, only done to death, and in a sub-Claremont manner at that) to giving JC more personal, naturalistic 'issues' - he finally became a character the reader could relate to. 'Naturalistic'? Ennis? Absolutely - at least when it comes to delivering main and supporting characters whole, decked out with lives, histories, dreams and nightmares that seem to make them rounded people rather than ciphers or props. In terms of some of the stories - no, of course not. Ennis liked gore, and people being injured in nasty, primary colour close-up - something he and Steve Dillon made a meandering road movie of in Preacher. He also adhered almost totally to the Judeo-Christian mythos in terms of adversaries, choosing the Adversary himself as the main event - The Devil, the First of the Fallen (not Lucifer, The sandman's former head archangel... his origins unknown, he could easily have been lying about being God's own 'Jiminy Cricket' and about being thrown into Hell long before the war in Heaven... anyway, I digress). Delano fans didn't like him for either of the above two preferences. But what the fuck - John Constantine was consistent and real for the first time, a man of contradictions, capable of beating Satan but being brought to the brink when his lover leaves him, and supplied with an interesting and fun supporting cast.
We also had great Hellblazer moments... glassing the Devil... conning the three lords of Hell into curing his terminal lung cancer, and then giving them the finger... saving a demon succubus from the First's retribution, finishing with the immortal line, "That's three times I've kicked your arse, sunshine. 'Round here we call that a hat trick."... JC with the chainsaw standing over the fallen archangel Gabriel with that evil grin on his face... and 'Forty', a little story about Constantine's fortieth birthday, which sees Swamp Thing supplying the weed and someone pissing on the Phantom Strangers shoes, to name only a few.
Ellis - I remember his usual ever-so-slightly overworked but hard-boiled and muscular prose and dialogue, some genuinely effective and affective stories and concepts, but no real effort to bring anything else to the character except to take Ennis' version, delete the sense of humour and add some Mooresque mystery... which didn't work too well for me so soon after Ennis' run, which was all about showing John as utterly human but involved and dealing with preposterously supernatural situations.
Azzarello... no character, all mystery again. JC with superpowers, apparently, able suddenly to throw around minor 'scary' magickal effects and hexes with bits and pieces of tat in the room or in his pockets at the time, MacGuyver-style. Far removed from Hellblazer, opting to retread Moore's spooky sneering bastard from Swamp Thing, but throwing in touches of Delano's doggerel-lyrical narcissistic gumshoe and Ennis' sarky man of the world and all-round fuckup here and there to add flavour. The supporting cast in each of the linked the stories was relatively impressive, certainly getting more development and 'screen-time' than Constantine - but then it could have been any 'mystical-warrior-bastard on a misguided vengeance binge' as the protagonist. Remove the mystical elements, and it was Dashiel Hammett updated for the Sin City generation.
Carey? Don't know yet, too early to say. Morrison, as usual when working for hire, fitted the Delano Hellblazer template onto a half-formed story of his own for two unremarkable issues. I vaguely remember John Smith's story as being amazing - that was the one in the launderette, right? I don't actually own it... Or I could be thinking of Gaiman's one-off issue... and talking of Gaiman, for me he gave us the 'Pierce Brosnan' of the Constantines in The Books Of Magic: a smooth, unflappable conman with no particular magickal gifts, but nevertheless boasting a reputation that made demons, sorcerors, gods and angels step out of his path. Nice, well-written and cool in a Chow Yun Fat in Hard-Boiled way, but mostly lacking in depth.
That's my tuppence worth, anyway. Jesus, but that's a big post. Can you tell I'm on speed? |
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