2008-01-25 Even worse than War Lord

This is appallingly bad. The only good thing about it is the cover art. The dialogue is dismal and sounds like it was written by someone basing Britain off Eastenders and Take the High Road. I know JC's not averse to the odd "strewth!", but the degree of stupid historic anglicisms is over-the-top, inconsistent and disruptive. The supporting characters talk alternately like cockneys and extras from Pride and Predjudice, and the only Scottish (Scotch, in the book... grrr...) character will be talking away then succumb to a landslide of "ach!".

The plot is dire and badly written. There's no sense of pacing, no excitement and the style is pretentious and wordy. It might work as a stand alone fantasy novel, but in the Hellblazer mythology it just doesn't fit. Not nearly dark enough, inconsistent and littered with romantic celtic rubbish that jars. And the ending is pretty poor; an attempt at a Hellblazer style doublecross that is unlikely and nearly unreadable.

Finally, the character of Constantine has been utterly ravaged. Gone is my hard-drinking, chain-smoking, bitter, vicious anti-hero - to be replaced with some romanticised caricature of himself. He takes on an apprentice, for God's sake, finds a love interest in lovely middle-aged single mother Oirish Maureen, and generally is a square jawed all-action hero.

I should have known better and stopped after War Lord, which was bad enough. It gets two stars because I managed to finish it, but I'm not sure I deserve either of them. Perhaps you might enjoy this if you've never read the comics, and the die-hard completist might want a copy, but for the rest of the world, stick to the graphic novels.