I liken this issue to a tire with a nail in it.  While it was inflated just a month ago, after some time, it turns out to be completely flat.  After laying some good ground work for a really fun story in last month’s issue, Aaron’s finale to his brief run on this title finishes with the whimper of a gnat.

Last month’s issue of Hellblazer set up a really interesting story:  a crew of young filmmakers is researching the history of Constantine’s band, Mucous Membrane, when everything goes inexplicably wrong.  There was drugs, dead dog humping, and crazy tripping that was capped by an awesome splash page of our hero buying a train ticket.

This month’s issue wraps the story up in a nice little package in a very quick way.  Heck, we don’t even see Constantine do anything except for smoking.  Even the panel where he unleashes some magic is uninteresting because, as you turn the page, he’s back outside, the battle over and done with.  As with anything written by Aaron, there is some dark things in this issue, and I love the fact that Constantine isn’t the type of guy to try and save anyone.  He simply takes care of his own stuff and leaves, which is completely in character.  Of course, his character loses a little something when his speech does not reflect his local dialect.  While Aaron tried to recreate the Cockneyed speech patterns, it didn’t really pan out all that well, and frankly, looked a little silly.  I don’t hold it against him though, because most people can’t write it that well.

The art was pretty good, although I didn’t find anything too rewarding in it.  There were some really great panels, some okay panels, and a few that just didn’t really match my tastes.  There are worst artists that could have drawn this arc, but I’m missing Diggle’s words with his aritists.

In all, this issue just felt really rushed and maybe with one more issue, Aaron could have made something worthwhile with this storyline.  I still love this series and this book, and my hope is that the next storyline will bring it back to it’s original quality level.