COMIC BINGE: Constantine, Vol. 2: Blight & Justice League Dark, Vol. 4: The Rebirth of Evil
With the premiere of Constantine on this way this Friday on NBC, I was fortunate enough to get my hands on two volumes of comics with him in it, leading right up to the premiere. After the first volume The Spark and the Flame, I was expecting a great deal better of a comic than the old Hellblazer series that saw John Constantine rise as a popular character during its publication. With such high expectations, it can be easy to be let down, but this comic was just a disappointment. The artwork all has this cell shading strange look that I don’t recall from the first book at all. There are two two-page spreads of each John Constantine and Blight, who is the villain in this book. Unfortunately this books amounts to nothing more than any other Hellblazer book I’ve ever read. The story is boring or lackluster, while the writing is sometimes hard to understand, but at least the artwork can keep you invested for the most part. I’d really like to see more from Constantine and writer Ray Fawkes.
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 4 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 6 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 8 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 5 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 5 / 10 )
One title that gets the benefit of having John Constantine as a main character is Justice League Dark. If you haven’t gotten your hands on a volume of JLD, you are truly missing out. It is probably amongst one of the my favorite Justice League titles, and it’s exactly as it is stated in the title. It is a team of heroes, that all find themselves in dark stories from time to time, and now are teaming up in their own book. Constantine is usually seen as the main character for the group, but others sprinkle in and flake out as the series goes along. The new fourth volume was pretty good, but not as high quality as expected. The first three volumes to me were brilliant, and just great dark, adult stories for dark heroes or anti-heroes. I am definitely going to keep my eyes on this title as it’s one of the best originals that have been spawned out of the New 52, but it has the potential to go to some crazy places if they can involve some more dark characters and get a little twisted.
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 5 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 6 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 6 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 6 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 6 / 10 )
As a supplementary read this week, I wanted to throw some love out there for the He-Man and Masters of the Universe books by Keith Giffen. I read the third volume which wasn’t anywhere near as good as the first two volumes I’d read. I’m not too much into He-Man or anything so I don’t know much about the show or its past, but the art is really cool and the story was pretty great the first couple gos. This volume started to fall off for me which was disappointing because this had been a surprise readable title from book to book. However, I have in my possession DC Universe vs. Masters of the Universe which I really look forward to reading and redeeming this third volume from the waste bin. Yet another week of some not so great but readable titles from the DC Universe but hopefully things get back on track for my comic book reading schedule next week. Enjoy Constantine on NBC Friday, 10/24 10pm EST!
RATED : ( PG-13 )
STORY : ( 4 / 10 )
ARTWORK : ( 6 / 10 )
COVERS : ( 5 / 10 )
AWESOME : ( 4 / 10 )
FINAL RATING : ( 5 / 10 )