Constantine: The Hellblazer #5 Review and *SPOILERS*

Burying The Ex

Written By: Ming Doyle, James Tynion IV
Art By: Scott Kowalchuk, Riley Rossmo, Ivan Plascencia, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 14, 2015

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Let's get back to Constantine, where we saw our brash Brit having a hell of a time dealing with the beastie that was killing off all his ghosts.  This has been an odd arc because the majority of what we've seen is Constantine walking around cityscapes monologuing and remembering the past.  Even when he finally goes to London to try and get some help from an old colleague, he just ends up pissing her off and her telling him to go fuck himself.  In the previous issue, it looked like Constantine was ready to give up and even sacrificed a shit ton of his ghosts to the monster before offering himself up as the final prize.  As the issue closed though, we saw that the monster is actually an old girlfriend of John's named Veronica and I can kind of see where the whole "I Need To Hurt John Constantine" thing comes from because man, did John ever do her wrong.  Let's jump into this issue and see if our pseudo hero still wants to end it all or if he gets a supernatural restraining order out on Veronica.  Let's check it out.



Explain It!:

So yeah, the monster is Veronica and I guess now that Constantine knows this, he's not about to let an ex-girlfriend get the better of him and quickly changes his mind about ending it all, as we see from his monster repellent charm that he produces.  Now that John knows who's killing off all his ghostly pals, he makes his way to the library where Veronica's and his old pal Georgie was always studying at and gets the full lowdown about how something like this monster could be a woman that he once cared for.  It's a lot of exposition that adds to the things we learned about last issue dealing with Veronica being unstuck in reality and how she was beginning to fade away.  Apparently, she was all about the idea of traveling between the worlds of the living and the dead, but without the full knowledge on how to safely do this, she pretty much asked to be stuck in between while her soul perverted into something hideous.  I don't know if I can say luckily here, but Veronica finally found her way out of the nothingness, thanks to all the douchey shit that Constantine pulled on her because apparently you need an emotional link to be able to pierce the void.......... but if Veronica happened to find a mirror laying about, I think she'd be pissed that she went through all the trouble because man did she get ugly.

With the knowledge of spectral beings being a sorta monster fuel for Veronica, everything that we've been wondering about is pretty much answered and it's time for Constantine to end this relationship once and for all.  To do that though, he needs the help of Georgie and has I said earlier, the last time we saw her, she told Constantine to go fuck himself, but using that charm that screws everyone over in the end and promising that if Georgie plays ball she'll never have to see him again, she reluctantly agrees to help John out with his monster problem.  The messed up part though is that he never once mentions that Georgie's old best friend Veronica happens to be said monster.  Man, that's some cold shit Constantine.

In the end, Georgie gets prepared to fight a monster that is breaking magical and physical law and Constantine calls Veronica out......... and man, when Georgie realizes that this beastie is her old BFF, she is down right pissed

........ as she should be and with her magical know how, she quickly destroys Veronica by chanting some mumbo jumbo and burning the book where Veronica originally learned out to displace herself.  As our issue closes, Constantine lights himself up a smoke as he makes his way back home, while Georgie curses him out for not giving her all the information.  It seems that if Georgie would have known that it was Veronica and how she got this way, she would have been able to save her instead of destroying her.......... man, John is a dick.

That's it for this issue of Constantine: The Hellblazer and while I love this series, this finale just didn't really do much for me.  While it did it's job in showcasing how much of a piece of shit John Constantine is, it did it without really highlighting his motivations behind it.  Besides for John possibly unwilling to face the woman that he had wronged so bad, I don't know why John would be as cruel to either Georgie or Veronica, especially with Gaz's connection to both........ yeah, John's a complicated character and while I love that about him and this series, this issue is still mostly mumbo jumbo trying to catch everyone up on what the hell was going on in this story arc and it became a bit tedious and boring to read at times....... plus, we didn't get the one thing that I wanted more than anything else out of this story and that's getting Gaz back.  That's more of a personal thing and I won't take it out on the issue.  I loved the art in this book, especially because we saw Riley Rossmo's Constantine back in action and that's a big plus to me because I've missed his artwork in this series and I'm happy as hell to have him back on the book.  So yeah, while I wasn't completely happy with the ending to this story, I'm still a fan of the series and I can't wait to see what the creative team have in store for us next.

Bits and Pieces:

Oh boy, we've finished up our first story arc and while I was really digging how complicated Constantine is in this series, the heavy exposition and magical mumbo jumbo that was used to make sure that everyone was in the know about what's been going on really slowed the book down and at times made it a bit of a bore.  Even with these problems, the creative team still gave us an overall entertaining tale and I was happy as hell to see Riley Rossmo back on this book because his style really sold me on this series in the first place.  It's a mixed bag, but if you've been a fan of this series so far, you should enjoy this as well.

6.5/10