Hellblazer: The Fear Machine by Jamie Delano and others

Hellblazer: The Fear Machine is the third trade collection of the John Constantine- Hellblazer title, and collects issues 14 through 22.

This trade is now one of my favourite Hellblazer stories. The pacing is aces, the characters are well fleshed out, and the story has teeth; Delano deserves accolades for this one. It starts with Constantine fleeing the big urban centres when he finds out that he is suspected in the murder of some former fellow apartment building tenants, and he hooks up with a roaming band of free spirits. From there he slowly gets embroiled in a politically charged, occult conspiracy to harness ley lines and use them as a weapon. The story starts so personally and small scale in the first few chapters, that as it builds to epic proportions you can’t help but feel like you are being swept up in something huge in scope.

New characters are brought into Constantine’s life, and a few old friends show up as well, and each of them gets a fair shake in the story, allowing each of them to grow and expand from archetypes to real feeling people. I personally wished that these characters could stay forever, but of course, this being a Hellblazer book, John never gets that lucky, and for every friend that dies, a dozen others disappear into the ether. It’s incredible how quickly in the series that this theme of the high cost to personal relationships the occult requires is introduced. It was the backbone of the first story, and each new tale Delano weaves strongly reinforces that. Watching John loose connections and drift away from people that he was once close with, really emphasizes the loneliness he is forced to live with. It makes him an object of sympathy, as well as empathy, and the fact that he doesn’t drive the reader to annoyance after a while speaks to the complexity of a character that Delano fleshed out from Alan Moore’s original conception.

This is a book I don’t have the ability to say much about without spoiling, but know that it is well worth your time to read. It’s a much more dynamic read then the classic ‘Dangerous Habits’ storyline, (which, I’m pretty sure I mention every time I read about Hellblazer, as it is my litmus test for the title), and even though it requires a bit of background knowledge to understand the human connections, it is one of the most interesting long form arcs I’ve read thus far.