Hellblazer: Haunted (Paperback)

Now he's back in a gritty London which is cast as a modern day urban hell. There's originality. He's investigating the murder of a former lover who was at least half his age and whose ghost hangs around a children's playground. There's a supernatural angle based around Aleister Crowley's concept of Babalon, the Scarlet Lady and whore who must be defiled in order to gain true occult power. Crowley must be rotating at an ever increasing warp factor within his grave by now. Oh, and John's railing about the current Labour government, which he sees as the natural successor to Thatcherism. Thanks for the trite and simplistic right-on political posturing, guys.

The girl's murder is described by a policeman in an unsympathetic way and recalls the Jack the Ripper murders so well evoked in Alan Moore's 'From Hell'. 'Haunted' has all the requisite Constantine cliches but fails to advance the character any further. It doesn't sustain our interest. Artwork is OK - nothing more. The ending doesn't work for me and seems a bit trite. Doubtless paving the way for the next installment.

So where does Constantine go from here? He swears, smokes, drinks, acts dark and moody, hangs out with the dead, exercises his occult powers, gets his revenge in a Greek Tragedy kinda way, and has a moral conscience under that heavy veneer of Weltschmerz and cynicism. Etc. etc. Nothing we haven't encountered before, and in fact seen done better.

After the imaginative brilliance of previous episodes authored by Delano and Ennis, this story is a real let-down and seems just to be out to shock. But isn't that the point of Hellblazer, you may ask? Up to a point. The better Hellblazers, with their tight plot development and lucid characterisation truly frighten BUT also make you think about good and evil and the very thin line between them. They've also got a dark vein of humour absent from this episode. And Constantine also evolves throughout the series. 'Haunted' just seems to outgross for the sake of it. Constantine requires a fresh infusion of blood.

One for completists only.

It's a kind of vigilante murder investigation, with a cold splash of black magic for good measure!

John's on a mission to discover who brutally murdered his ex-lover, a young girl who turned junkie towards the end. To reach his goal, he combines Columbo-style investigating with his dark knowledge of the occult. Someone has to pay for this attrocity, but the cops don't seem bothered, so John delivers his own brand of justice.

Full marks to the writers... this is JC at his cruelist, most black-humoured best! You won't be disappointed.

On first impression it is a particularly nasty piece of comic fiction, but then again that's what Hellblazer is all about. Constantine is his usual self, totally centred on what he belives to be right and only caring about those people he belives to be his friends.

People are mutilated, people are slaughtered - the ending is horrific.

Fantastic - just what a Hellblazer book should be like.