• Story: Si Spurrier
• Art: Matias Bergara
• Colour: Jordie Bellaire

The premature end of this iteration of Hellblazer comes ever closer with yet another demonstration of why this creative team should have unlimited space to continue what’s become an historic run on John Constantine. I’m actually really mad about the cancellation of this book with issue #12 – the storytelling here is as good as it can currently be in comics – an idiosyncratic take on Constantine, a supporting cast at least as good as that developed by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, and next level art from creators DC should be begging to have exclusive contracts with, rather than cutting them loose. Given how generic the quality of some of the DC line has fallen to once again, I simply don’t understand why Spurrier, Bergara and Campbell’s work wouldn’t be promoted into infinity, and word of mouth be allowed to take hold, to please the AT&T bean counters. The storytelling in HBO’s Watchmen was sensational; this is better.

Anyway, before I get lost in yet another rant, John is met by his future self, the architect of all his recent troubles, and the war between them is like nothing I’ve seen in comics before. Matias Bergara’s love for the property is obvious by the amount of soul in his work – the fluidity of the panel layouts, the grimy version of both Constantines, and the sheer detail he gives to the dream landscapes is insane. It must be difficult setting just one tone in a panel – but each panel here has multiple, allowing Si Spurrier’s story to operate on so many more levels. This is character work on acid, fully utilising the Black Label badge to cut loose visually and emotionally, and again without Jordie Bellaire on colours, this wouldn’t work. Sometimes less colour is more, sometimes it looks daubed on, other times the reds are used to great sensitivity to highlight the violence – Bergara and Bellaire together really do deliver art, and are pushing the medium to new heights. This is an unsettling read, Spurrier highlighting Constantine’s self-destructiveness in a way no one has attempted before; writing this uncompromising deserves much more than just two more issues.