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.

Martian Manhunter (1988) 4 issue mini-series by J.M. DeMatteis and Mark Badger

While in Vegas, I popped into a local comic book store –Alternate Reality Comics- as I am want to do in a new city and picked up the 1988 Martian Manhunter mini-series the owner had bagged up as a complete set and had placed in the front of the store. I had no idea what it was going to be about, but for the price I figured it’d be worth checking out an old school J’onn J’onnzz (Martian Manhunter’s name) comic. I’ve been in love with the character ever since reading an issue of Adventures in the DC Universe that featured him when I was a kid and figured it was worth a shot. Little did I know that this series was actually going to be the one that that first showed us J’onn’s previous life on Mars and why he is who he is! Even though I knew all this before, it thrilled me to actually be reading the story that told of his past, and when I finished reading it, it felt like I had just found a fascinating antiquity with a metal detector when all I expected were a few bottle caps.

The story starts with J’onn seeking help from Batman, as he thinks he is being chased by a demon. Batman deduces it’s a fever dream caused by J’onn absorbing a harmful virus that had recently threatened to kill the human race, but J’onn’s immune system shouldn’t have been hurt by. Soon after J’onn is again fleeing, and continues to do so with no real advances to the plot for the total run of the first two issues. It was at this point I felt I had been duped into reading another go-nowhere limited series with an inane plot from a bygone age of comics, and if it wasn’t for it being a Sunday and having nothing better to do than read comics and eat Twizzlers, I probably would have stopped.

Thankfully I didn’t, as the last two issues actually become something wonderful. [Here come SPOLIERS, but I figure no one is going to track this down to read, as I doubt it’s collected anywhere, so no big deal. Plus everyone has known Martian Manhunter’s backstory for almost 25 years now, so this isn’t going to come as a shock to anyone who may care.] We find out in the last two issues that much of what shaped J’onn J’onnzz was put into his head by a well-meaning scientist who helped him bury his grief so J’onn could move forward with his new life on Earth -his passion to protect the earth, and his physical appearance primarily- since his past on Mars was so horrible he could never move forward. We also find out that the demon that has been chasing him is actually the Mars god of death, who needs J’onn to go back to his home world to help free the ghosts of the J’onn’s species, who all died from a horrible plague. With the scientist’s help (the man who initially pulled J’onn to Earth), J’onn is able to go back to Mars and confront his past that he had originally buried under false memories and amnesia. There we learn that the Martian race all died of a plague, including his wife and child, and when the plague victims died their bodies were burned (explaining Martian Manhunter’s fear of fire). We also see J’onn’s true form, which he from this story on keeps whenever he is not in public, and only switches to the more Burroughs-esque classic martian shape when he is out performing his duties for the Justice League. Finally, by confronting his memories, he is able to let go of the past and accept his family’s death, which releases the spirits of his race from their limbo state and finally move on to heaven.

The story had an enjoyable last act in my opinion, and DeMatteis does a surprisingly good job at capturing the need to let go of the past, and reminds us to remember the dead, but not cling to them, lest it consume you. For all of his overly wordy dialogue boxes, and 80’s-tastic repetition of phrases to ‘drive home the point’, the final issue’s look at the above mentioned themes and more straightforward writing make the final product stand out more than the sum of its parts. The same goes for the art. Badger has a Bill Sienkiewicz look to the pages that feature surreal imagery and foreshadowing, although his depictions of people are not nearly of that same caliber. Overall, his art took some getting used to, and as the book transitioned from a mood piece full of foreshadowing to a clear cut finale, his art became more grounded and enjoyable. Through the course of reading the book, I went from feeling the art was functional to feeling like I wouldn’t mind reading a few more books with him on pencils.

There is an interesting pattern to my reading of this book. I started by being unimpressed by any portion of it, and after it hit the midway point, it started to capture me, and every portion of the book –plot, scripted narration, and art- got better. Overall, I’m glad I stumbled upon it and I’m excited to have it in my collection just for the impact it had on the Manhunter’s life, but at the same time I’d be hard pressed to suggest anyone take the time to track the series down. It’s a piece of comic book history that added some great ideas to the Martian Manhunter canon, but it is perfectly good to leave it as a foundational stone and not bother digging it up to place in a display case.