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I enjoyed the fake-out of Finn turning into the new Constantine, complete with sideburns, magic, smoking, etc. Lots of cleverness in #300.

I honestly can’t remember what the dart gun at the end is supposed to do, or where it came from. That might help me interpret the last few pages.

I still think it’s too bad DC didn’t have enough faith in its readers’ ability to understand two different versions of JC at once. They didn’t need to be mutually exclusive.

Carter says:

“I still think it’s too bad DC didn’t have enough faith in its readers’ ability to understand two different versions of JC at once. They didn’t need to be mutually exclusive.”

These are the same people that believed for decades that readers would be confused if both a Justice Society and a Justice League series were being simultaneously published.

That was a great review and fitting tribute.

This is picky, but I wouldn’t call those pre-Vertigo issues of Hellblazer DCU books. Sure, they were DC, and the imprint didn’t exist yet. But they were not set in the DCU, or in a world that had super heroes in it. So for all that Didio or others would like to say that Constantine is returning to his DCU “roots”, really they are only talking about a handful of appearances in Swamp Thing (versus 25 plus years of Hellblazer existing on its own), and in those appearances, there were probably only a few pages where he interacted with DCU characters other than Swamp Thing. The character’s time in the DCU feels more like a footnote at this point than roots.

David: That’s not correct. Hellblazer WAS set in the DCU. He wasn’t separate from it. He crossed over with Swamp Thing, Sandman and other DC titles.

Milligan’s entire run was crap, and the final storyline was simply awful. Thank god it’s finally over–Milligan can no longer crap all over a once-great set of characters.

I bought every issue since issue 1. It’s one of the few comics that I bought issue after issue. I remember the joys of the first issues. Just great! I thought Miligans run was great! He brought a touch of humanity to the bastard. I ALSO liked that he confirmed Johns age, Constatine is in his 60s. He says it in issue 297 or 298? He was 40 back in 91? 92?
I’m going to re-read the last few issues again to get the full flavor of the story, but I thought it was a good ending.
Oh, and one nitpick…wasn’t JC’s first appearance in Crisis of Infinty Earths? Issue 4 or 5? Just a few panels.

[...] The Beat – Hellblazer #300 [...]

Re: Morn

Constantine may have been put in some DCU comics concurrent to Hellblazer (like Books of Magic) where he interacted with DCU characters, but it was clear from the outset that Hellblazer was set in its own world, and not one that had superheroes in it. And even when Swamp Thing made one of his few appearances in Hellblazer, they didn’t reminisce about their time on the Justice League satellite. It wasn’t even clear that this Swamp Thing was the same one that had been in the DCU. In the same way that, long after the Vertigo launch, when Swamp Thing would occasionally appear in Hellblazer, he was just another mystic figure that Constantine had history with. Swamp Thing was in the world of the Hellblazer book that way, but that world was not the DCU.

Even if Constantine had a number of appearances in the DCU, Hellblazer was never a book set in the DCU. It is a small distinction, but I think an important one for the history of Hellblazer as a title and what was remarkable about it from the start. And that was by design. Berger and Delano set it up that way. Not only to give it a voice distinct from Swamp Thing, but also from the DCU as a whole. In that way it was one of the titles that proved the concept of what a Vertigo imprint could be.

Thanks for the feedback guys! I personally think he could have easily just inhabited two universes and don’t see the problem with that either. As for whether Constantine pre-Vertigo was DCU, maybe it’s better titled proto-DCU. It’s really not clear enough that it’s a separate universe before Vertigo to say that Hellblazer had its own universe, in my opinion. Saying he’s returning to “DCU roots”, though, is pretty much a whitewashing of fears about how the character might change (aside from age). This whole subject is full of grey areas.
I haven’t found anything about Constantine appearing in other comics before Swamp Thing, though it’s possible be appeared previously in Swamp Thing? (in issue #25? of Swamp Thing before #37 though I have yet to visually confirm this).

Yeah, the whole “DCU roots” is whitewashing but there’s very little ambiguity (to me) about whether or not Hellblazer started off in the DCU. The guy played a role in Crisis on Infinite Earths for goodness, sake. Just because the book didn’t feature a crossover with Green Lantern doesn’t set it in a different universe. Heck, we could easily play “Six Degrees of Superman” to link Hellblazer into the DCU (Children’s Crusade is a pretty good starting point). “It wasn’t even clear that this Swamp Thing was the same one that had been in the DCU”? One word: Tefe.

The important historical distinction is that Hellblazer (and other proto-Vertigo books) succeeded *despite* being placed in a super-marginalized corner of the DCU.

It’s only through later, insane editorial policy that a bright-line division of appearances was ever made (probably some marketing in there, too, so people buying Sandman could still feel superior to people buying Batman). I don’t think it was until Flashpoint that anyone explicitly said, “these are different worlds”.

We can debate it if we want, but when I interviewed Karen Berger for an article on the 20th anniversary of Hellblazer, she clearly stated that when she launched Hellblazer and hired Delano to write it, the plan from the beginning was to set it in its own world. However the Constantine character was used in other books before or after, Hellblazer was not set in the same world as Superman. So I will defer to Berger on that one.

And even though Constantine the character got borrowed out of Hellblazer to go be the surrogate to make Tefe, notice how Tefe never showed up in Hellblazer. Nor did Swamp Thing, in any of his rare appearances, go on about (nor talk about past adventures they’d had with superheroes). Swamp Thing could appear in HB without it becoming a DCU book.

However Constantine might have appeared, the world of Hellblazer was its own thing. That was by design, or at least, that is what the person who established it told me. I would need to dig to find the quote, but that was done not just to make Hellblazer a distinct world, but also to give it an identity separate from Swamp Thing (which may be why I don’t think Swamp Thing even gets mentioned for the first 6 or 7 issues).

That’s an interesting insight from Berger- thanks.
I think this just illustrates the fact that unless a separate universe has it’s own name or own imprint, it’s very hard to designate. Thankfully they eventually did that with Hellblazer which helps avoid confusion.

@David D. Thanks David! That’s a really fascinating historical/process aspect of Hellblazer. Of course, I think they did a pretty terrible job of maintaining that idea but that poor maintenance is, itself, an interesting look at how editorial and marketing decisions can affect story and purity of ideas in a shared universe.

In the collected Hellblazer TPs, they include the two issues of Swamp Thing involving the conception of Tefe. So I get the feeling that, even years later, most people on the inside never “got” that HB was supposed to be its own thing.

I hope that the new Constantine fails hard. What a dumb fucking move by DC. I really can’t wait for Nelson, DiDio, Lee, and Harris to leave the company.

Re: Hannah and Carter

Thanks. And I definitely agree it was a very strange line and hard to see line drawn between Hellblazer as a book, and the way in which the character would still appear and interact with DC characters in books like Swamp Thing and Books of Magic. As well as the difference in character between the Constantine of Hellblazer and the Constantine that was in other books- the Constantine in Swamp Thing seemed very powerful and wise, as his role in that book was to be a mentor figure. Whereas the Constantine in Hellblazer was more down to Earth- he was tired, rumpled, and often scrambling to outsmart and outcon forces larger than himself. Which is more in line with being a lead character rather than the Obi-Wan figure.

I think, pre-Vertigo, the various “Bergerverse” books and their characters moved at different rates out of the DCU and into their own continuity. Pre-Vertigo, what we would think of as the DCU characters started to appear less and less in Animal Man, Swamp Thing, and Doom Patrol until, shortly before the Vertigo imprint launch, they weren’t there at all. And Hellblazer seemed to lead the pack on that, by having its own world (albeit one that Swamp Thing could poke into) from the start.

By the way, if you don’t mind me making a plug, and perhaps if anyone is still reading this far into the comments they are enough of a Hellblazer fan to be interested– the two part article on the 20th anniversary of Hellblazer that I did for the now-defunct Comics Now! magazine is still online at the following links. It is an overview of Hellblazer era by era right up to the anniversary (basically right before Milligan started) and includes original quotes by many of the people involved who I had the pleasure of speaking to.
Part One: http://comicgeekspeak.com/articles/hellblazerPart1_1.php
Part Two: http://comicgeekspeak.com/articles/hellblazerPart2_1.php

Thanks very much David! Those observations about differences in Constantine’s personality are really spot-on. And thanks for the articles. We usually don’t allow links in comments, but in this case, these are really helpful for the argument we and others are pursuing about universes and since I’m a comics scholar too I appreciate you sharing those resources.

For my money JC definitely started out in themainstream universe. He appears in the first story arc of ‘Sandman’ – a story arc which later features Martian Manhunter and Scott Free, as late as issue 90-something in the ‘Critical Mass’ arc he alludes to ‘the big green fella’ and has a meeting with the Phantom Stranger.
Oh, there’s also the ‘Trenchcoat Brigade’ stories where he’s seen teamed with Mr E, Phantom Stranger and Doctor Occult.
For my money ‘Hellblazer’ occupies a similar corner of the DC universe that Punisher and 80′s Daredevil do/did in the Marvel universe. Part of it, but rarely impacting on wider events.