Aging Along With John: 20 Years of Hellblazer, Part 2
By David DelGrosso
"I don’t know too much about London, which was his stomping ground. Axel’s idea was, ‘Well, why don’t we take him around the globe, where we can just put him into horrific situations.’ I said, ‘Well, let me think about it,’ and he said, ‘You’ve got ONE DAY, because I don’t have a lot of time and I’ve got to find a writer.’ So that night, I went to a pub and sat there by myself thinking about the character, and where we would take him, around the world. There’s plenty of horrific hotspots you can put him. And then it sort of dawned on me that, ‘No, let’s not make him a globe-trotter, let’s stick him in prison where he can’t go anywhere.’ So, I called [Axel] back the next day and said that’s what I want to do, and he bought into it."
And thus begins Azzarello's era. Prior writers had played to the strengths of their experience by sending John to places they knew, and so Azzarello introduces John to the horrors his home country had to offer, starting with a very American place: prison. When "Hard Time" (H. #146-150) opens, John has been sentenced to 35 years in a maximum security prison in America. The reader does not know what he did, or why he didn't find a way to get away with what he did, or if he's even got a plan to get out. And John is not explaining it. "The character had been around a long time and from the beginning of his run he had always been written first person, that internal monologue," says Azzarello. "So for that many years people just knew what to expect from that character. Which is why I tried to get rid of it almost immediately. I thought that was a way to inject some freshness into that guy. Take away what he’s thinking from the reader."
As a result, the reader has to watch John closely to try to figure out what trick he has up his sleeve, and what his angle is as he feels out people, positioning himself within the society of this prison. Turning people against each other, and against themselves, as he works his way up the food chain of the prison, and creates enough chaos to get himself out. For the first time since John's supporting character days, the reader is seeing him from outside of that impenetrable façade. "I think that’s the best position to be in," says Azzarello. "I think that makes the character much more compelling. I don’t think you should like John Constantine. That’s not to say that he’s not interesting. Some people, when I say that, will say, ‘Oh, come on, I LOVE that guy!’ But, really think about it: you enjoy his adventures or the situations he gets into, but he’s not a good person. That was something I wanted to bring back to that character. Some of the mystery that existed in him when he first showed up in Swamp Thing. ‘What is this guy planning to do?’"
Azzarello focuses on Constantine as a master manipulator rather than as a magician and, as John is not explaining his angle as he goes along, it takes close reading to try to keep up with his game. "If you’re reading about a con-man, you want to be conned," Azzarello says. "You want to be fooled. You want to fall for it. Unlike, say, detective fiction, where you want to figure out the crime along with the detective, I think in a con game, you want to be conned. You don’t want to do the conning. It makes for a more enjoyable experience. And that was an aspect I wanted to play up more than the magic."
Indeed there is very little magic in this era of Hellblazer. More in keeping with crime fiction than dark fantasy, these stories did not put John in the midst of mythic battles between Heaven and Hell. "Well, he had already beaten the Devil, in a run prior to my stuff, so how do you top that?" Azzarello asks. "Frankly I find the evil that men do much more horrible than anything winged demons can pull off. That was something I wanted to get into, how shitty we can be to each other. Monsters and abstract evil are just so safe."
In the course of these stories, the evil that men do takes many forms. As John continues his odyssey through America, he faces a kidnapping pornography ring, gangsters, a serial killer, white supremacists, and the most exclusive underground sex clubs for the rich and powerful. As Hellblazer has a tradition of being contemporary, I ask Azzarello if there is anything particularly early-2000s about his choice of horrors. "Oh, those are timeless," he laughs, "I don’t think those issues are really of the time they were written. In fact, they're stronger than ever." During this era, Azzarello first collaborates with American fantasy artist Richard Corben, on "Hard Times," and nearly all of his other stories feature art by Argentinian artist Marcelo Frusin, who becomes the series regular with issue #151. There is also a standalone story, "...And Buried," with art by Steve Dillon (H. #157), who returns to the series for the first time in almost seven years.
Look up your favorite comics (Superman, Black Cat) or topic (Artist Interviews, Reviews)