$6.95 from DC/
Vertigo Comics
Credits:
Written by Garth
Ennis
Art by Steve Dillon
Colors by Tom Zukio
Letters by Clem Robins
Sometimes a story
comes along that just throws you for a loop with it's daring imagery. You read
it, wide-eyed, and turn the page, and the next page brings even more.
Hellblazer - - Damnation's Flame is maddeningly over-the-top with unbelievable
images of Hell that just keep coming, making you laugh and gasp in alternating
onslaughts.
The set-up is brief
and quick: John Constantine, the working class, trenchcoat-wearing, Silk
Cut-smoking sorcerer of London, has had some falling down time, and now he's crawling
out. We find him taking a vacation to New York City, happy as a lark to take it
easy, cast no spells and tell no lies. But as soon as he arrives, Midnite, a
voodoo priest and one of Constantine's old foes, slips Constantine a Vision
Quest mickey that sends our hero sprawling into a pocket of Hell created
especially for the fresh visitor to the United States.
And now the story
spins into its most breathtaking section, as Constantine tries to navigate his
way out of this strange dimension. The Hell that Midnite has devised is a dark
reflection of America, and it comes to the reader slowly. At first, Constantine
groggily feels he's still in our world, except the sky over the skyscrapers is
on fire. Soon his throat is cut near Central Park, and he keeps walking, while
in the real world, his inert body comes close to being assaulted in all kinds
of ways by the losers who come across him.
In Hell, skeletal
native Americans patrol desert badlands, looking for a way out and back into
the realm of the living for revenge. Hordes of bat-like Greenbacks, dollar
bills, flap down and attack the citizens, claiming credit for all the wrongs of
the world ("I danced on bones in Vietnam. I armed Iraq's little Hitler. I
killed Kennedy.") And then our questing Dante meets his Virgil: Kennedy
himself.
Of all the gall, and
it plays beautifully. Kennedy wanders the streets looking for a way to
Washington and speaking like his giving a press conference, and he always has
one arm raised because for thirty years he's been holding his brains in his
head with his hand. Kennedy is a brilliant piece of writing, horrifying and
hilarious - - and thus horrifying again. He thinks Constantine can help him
take back Washington, but the executive there he wants to unseat is so shocking
that I wouldn't dare spoil it.
Constantine even
receives a vision within his vision, that sums up for him the nature of
America, with the conquerors always coming from the east and heading west, so
that Uncle Sam arrives, takes over, and looks back in terror at the threat of
Japan.
Damnation's Flame
is an impressive work. It's paranoid, vulgar, and riveting. I heartily
recommend it.