Hellblazer: Constantine's 40th

[espanolbot]

After the Thanksgiving post, I'm in the mood to show some stuff of superheroes just kind of hanging out enjoying each other's company.


It's John's birthday, and he's kind of miserable. His girlfriend Kit has gone off back to Ireland to look after a sick aunt, while Chaz can't come over to celebrate due to be tied up with work. So John goes him to his flat to drink whiskey and smoke as he wallows in self-pity, when suddenly...



Yes, it seems that the Lord of the Dance (aka the dude in the antlers, who is a pagan god of revelry that befriended John some time ago, enough that he was willing to stand up to Satan on John's behalf at the end of Ennis' run) knew that it was John's birthday, and decided to contact his friends to come and celebrate it with him. Afterall, he says, John can't be down all his life.

Aside from the Lord, the other people there are mostly folk from Garth Ennis' run on the book: Vic the Vic, Mike Engels (a socialist magician that helped John out when the demon that possessed Jack the Ripper did the same to Prince Charles or Andrew), Header (a Scottish dude who mostly acts as John's blunt instrument), Ellie (a succubus), Mange the Talking Rabbit (implied to be a Liverpudlian stage magician whose mind was placed in his rabbit... for some reason), and Zatanna (a orehrepus).

Three and a half hours later, a drunken John stumbles into the alley outside to pee when another colleague of John's shows up late to the party.



...Eh, still more dignified than more of his New 52 series. More partiying ensues, though Zee does chide the Brits for their liking of toilet humour. Time stumbles on, and we get another cameo.



Header and Nigel go back to Nigel's flat to pick up his cannabis plant (Header mugging a policeman and stealing his hat on the way), and Swamp Thing uses his mojo on it to make it huge. John thanks him for the present, and says that he'll try to keep away from Alec and his family in future... a sentiment that Alec doesn't seem to take seriously, considering John's kind of plastered at this point.

Anyway, John ends up in the kitchen with a succubus and a stoned member of the Justice League.


The night draws a close, and everyone parts on good terms. John passes out on the sofa, although Kit isn't exactly amused at the state of her flat when she arrives in the morning.

Comments

[captainbellman]

Ennis seems to be bemused by the "foul-mouthed talking rabbit companion" device...

[steverodgers5]

Hahahaha! I love this. Very funny indeed. I sooo need to read more Constantine! Thanks very much for posting it.

[jlroberson]

I have never figured out whose mind is supposed to be in that rabbit.

And here's Kit's reaction!

[halloweenjack]

One of the things that irritated me about the older Hellblazer TPBs is that they organized much of Ennis' run into separate volumes according to the particular plotlines, which, while making a certain narrative sense, left off the earlier issues that featured Ellie, the Lord of the Dance, etc. (Those earlier issues were eventually organized into their own TPB, which also included the story in which Prince Charles is possessed by Jack the Ripper (which wasn't much of a much IMO; it came off as a cross between From Hell and the Star Trek TOS episode "Wolf in the Fold", only not nearly as awesome as that sounds, come to think of it), but by then I'd already sort of figured out who they were.) The current edition seems to simply organize the title's entire run into consecutive volumes, which makes much more sense. Dunno if they've left any individual issues out, as has happened in the past, for whatever reason.

[halloweenjack]

Zatanna (a orehrepus).

Well-played.

[steverodgers5]

..Oh yeah!