HELLBLAZER #230
© N/A

Mania Grade: B+
Issue: 230
Authors: Andy Diggle, Leonardo Manco
Publisher: DC/Vertigo
Price: $2.99

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"Hellblazer #230"

Andy Diggle’s run on Hellblazer begins with the first of a two-part arc that pits John Constantine against both a hitman and the rising tides, as he stands handcuffed to the pier as the water rises around him.  It seems that an incarcerated gangster named Pearly believes Constantine responsible for the murder of his daughter, Karen Grey – the young woman left in charge of his criminal enterprise.  After seeing his daughter’s apparition, he orders Webb to kill Constantine.  As Webb watches the tide rise with a gun pointed at Con Job, our magus desperately tries to talk his way out of the situation.  In Webb’s eyes, Constantine sits at the end of a long line of drowned men that tried to appeal to his better nature as the cold water slowly took them.  Only, Webb hasn’t a better nature of which to speak.  Then again, perhaps the magician has more control over the situation than Webb realizes.  Webb’s killed a lot of people, and Constantine knows a thing or two about the dead.   

Andy Diggle writes this as more of a suspenseful parlor play than a rip-roaring adventure through hell and back, as past writers have.  The ending looks like something out of an issue of Tales From the Crypt, but it livens up the twist ending that, otherwise, would feel a bit tacked on.  As it stands, the issue almost feels as if it could stand on its own, but we know a second part will land next month.  Diggle will stay on after that, and it should serve the series well.  He clearly knows John Constantine well and never flinches from the character’s fundamentally self-serving, amoral nature.  

Aside from last month’s one-issue fill-in by John Paul Leon (written by Mike Carey), Leonard Manco continues drawing the series following the departure of the last writer, Denise Mina.  Manco draws with the appropriate level of grime and grit needed to vivify John Constantine’s world of magic, asylums, and London’s back alleys.  It’s good to see this sort of visual continuity on the series. 

This issue begins a new arc, so new readers may want to come aboard.  Veteran readers likely have another strong arc ahead of them. 

Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at comicscape@mania.com.