Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Constantine #19 Review and *SPOILERS*

Written By: Ray Fawkes
Art By: Jeremy Haun
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: November 12, 2014



Finding Himself


Last issue of Constantine we saw that our Brash Brit had become a member of Earth 2 and all the hell that brings with it and if journeying to this world during a war with Apokolips wasn't enough, he also had to deal with Wotan as well.  Now Wotan not being a sucker realized that John wasn't from this world and was going to use him as doorway to........ Well to Prime-Earth where it's relatively safe.  But you can never count John out and he uses the knowledge of why his magic wasn't working right, to deduce that he has a double out there and tricks Wotan into using him as a doorway to his other self, cutting Wotan in half, hotdog ways when he went through.... Magic's weird and gross.  So now John's gotta go find himself so that he can make his way back home.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Now I think this is going to be a short Explain It! because this issue spends most of it's pages just laying out the darkness and despair of Earth 2 and the madness that Constantine is trying to stave off.  Now it's never said in the Earth 2 series, but Constantine says that their is a broadcast playing that is attracted to those who feel fear, pain, despair, you know all the bad feelings and it's driving everyone with those feelings on Earth 2 mad..... or possibly everyone in England mad.  It doesn't get too specific if it's a world thing or a regional thing.  Now I don't want you to get the impression that this is a lackluster issue because I said it spent most of the issue setting up the environment to make you feel this feeling, on the contrary this issue is something that should definitely be read because it's creepy as hell and you actually feel all the dread that our pseudo hero feels.

As Constantine drives to London to try and find his doppelganger he passes bodies in the street, people beating one another, fire bombers and flaming meteorites falling from the sky, it's just awful.  During one of these obstacles John loses control of his car and hits his head against the window and when he loses consciousness he sees two overbearing ominous eyes in the greyness that is his vision, telling him to lose all hope.  Before the vision ends though we see Nabu's ankh appear telling him not to look at that doom, but to keep moving towards London and that it'll find him there.  So depending on how you want to look at it, that could really be a good thing or a bad thing, but considering what the Future's End issue showed us, I'm going with bad.  Also I just want to say that when I saw those ominous eyes I was immediately transported back to the 90's when I used to watch Kevin Sorbo's Hercules.  If anyone of you out there ever watched this show, then you'll remember whenever Hera was doing something evil we'd see her eyes appear in the sky.  Sorry Ray Fawkes and Jeremy Haun, nothing anyone ever does should remind someone of Kevin Sorbo's Hercules, but I just couldn't help it.


After Constantine comes to he presses on until he sees a car that's been shot up and realizes that it was a car he'd seen earlier with a father, mother and a little girl.  Only problem for Constantine here is that the parents are shot up, but the little girl is missing.  No matter how many times he tells himself that these people aren't real and that he should just keep driving, he still goes off looking for the girl.  Using a little bit of magic that hasn't escaped him, he finds that the girl has already been murdered, but the insane mumbling murderer is still around.  After a quick suggestion from our hero, the murderer takes the gun to himself and Constantine goes on his way.


In the end John makes it to London and to his childhood home, which in our universe was destroyed the night he cast his first spell and his family and home went up in flames.  As you can imagine, John's a bit raddled from this experience and when he knocks on the door we see that his double is still reeling from the experience of having Wotan come out of him.  So I guess next issue John will come face to face with John and if he's lucky he'll escape the hell of Earth 2 and make his way home.......... and hopefully not too many people will die because of it.


This was just a spectacular issue.  Everyone who said that Constantine would have to be toned down now that it was in the normal DC continuity needs to read this issue so that they can eat their words, because this is something that creeped me the hell out after reading.  The whole atmosphere just made you feel the dread that our hero was feeling the entire time and it just worked so well.  Hopefully we'll see you next month where I might be stroking the shit out of the creative team like I am right now.  See you then.

Bits and Pieces:

One of the best issue of Constantine that I've read in the New 52.  It's just that simple.  Fans of Constantine, Earth 2 or just people who love a creepy story should just read this because it was fantastic.  GO READ THIS NOW!  

9.5/10

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