• Story: Simon Spurrier
• Art: Aaron Campbell

A timely reminder that comics simply do not get any better than this. At all. This is master craftsmanship, the week the title was confirmed as cancelled with issue #12. I understand business is relevant, I understand that titles have to pay their way, but it doesn’t half feel like some don’t have to pay their way, they’ll be left to their own devices whatever their numbers and the creativity be damned. Creativity matters, and Si Spurrier proves it here, completing his story from last issue of the siren and her Essex fisherman. There’s magic, there’s evil, there’s sex, violence and more importantly there are ideas. From the living idea to ideas about love and magic, Spurrier balances out insights so on the nose that they make you wince with inappropriate sex and breathtaking horror. It’s eye popping, emotionally exhausting and quality the likes of which you tend to see only once a generation. On the surface this is a story about mythology but Spurrier shows us Britain’s current woes are tied to just such timeless ideas.

Aaron Campbell’s linework and Jordie Ballaire’s colours will both win Eisners, because there’s no one who can compete with them. The facial work, the detail, the lighting, the textures, the muddied, perfectly judged colouring work – it’s perfectly paced, each panel seems to operate on multiple levels, and there’s nothing that can be faulted. The tone switches effortlessly, as Constantine’s, the siren’s and her human’s feelings are shredded through the ideas they’re caught up in. As with all great Hellblazer work it’s not for the squeamish, and has a lot to say again about Brexit Britain – Spurrier is fearless even in that. The greed, the overfishing and the blaming our own excesses on foreigners rings achingly true, and in this issue there’s a price. If only there was a price in the real world too. I’ll miss this book terribly.