Black Flowers

Picking up pretty much where Red Sepulchre left off, Black Flowers follows our favorite chain smoking master of black magic as he starts off on the run from demonic forces before being summoned to lend a hand in a deadly situation involving possession. He also teams up with Angie, the newbie magician who is fresh off recovering from her grisly attack in Red Sepulchre. While Mike Carey doesn't offer anything new that we haven't seen in a Hellblazer book already, he delivers the goods on a consistent basis. There's chilling moments, the trademark wit of John Constantine, and surprises to boot. The events in Black Flowers lead into Staring at the Wall, which will find Constantine in a dire situation that will impact the character more than he has been in years. Carey's run on the title was undoubtedly the best that Hellblazer had seen since the early days of Garth Ennis, and you can see why with each passing volume after Black Flowers. The art, which includes work from Marcelo Frusin and Jock, is solid as well. All in all, Black Flowers doesn't offer anything we haven't seen before in Hellblazer, but that's not always a bad thing, and it sure isn't a bad thing here either.

Mike Carey, John Constantine, Hellblazer: Black Flowers (Vertigo, 2005) This is the second book in Carey's series in the Hellblazer franchise, which teams Constantine up with Angie Spatchcock, a spunky lass who's new to the world of magic, but a quick study and an eager student. John and Angie are tracking down leads that opened up for them in Red Sepulchre thorough three interconnected tales (one of which brings back John's old acquaintance the Swamp Thing-- who has been getting closer and closer to Constantine in the past few years, popping up more and more often here). It's the middle book of a trilogy, so you shouldn't expect the world, but it's good, solid Mike Carey work, and John Constantine is as engaging as ever. *** ½

Azrillo certainly did wierd things to Hellblazer. I would say only that before Hard Time John was a bastard, but he always seemed at least a little sorry for it. With Azrillo, the wishy washyness slipped completely away to reveal John for the conniving, sadistic unapologetic bastard everybody always thought he was. Which isn't to say I liked Azrillo. He did horrible things to the character and the supporting cast, but in many ways his mark has been left. If Carey's first collection, Red Sepulchre, attempted to crawl out of the ditch Hellblazer was left in, Black Flowers represents Carey, not to use an obvious metephor, in full bloom. I expected great things from Carey the moment I heard he was takeing the reigns. Judging from the complex, continuing storylines of Lucifer, I figured this for a man who dreams up issues years ahead of schedule. Yet for all its achievments with reoccuring plot threads, Hellblazer has never been much for one long, linked storyline. Until now... I would not have believed he would try to tie in Red Sepulchre, in itself an impressive storyline, with anything larger. But in this I committed the inexcusible sin of underestimating Mike Carey. In this collection, he takes up the tone of his other magnificent works and makes Hellblazer unmistakably his own, without oweing apologies to anyone else. His work is not at all choppy, each episode proceeds naturally into the next. But don't mistake continous and flowing for predictable, Carey is also the master of dropping little hints that never make sense until the puzzle is assembled. And then you realize what you thought of as the whole puzzle is but a piece of something larger. That is the joy. But I'm rambling. The two-part title arc is perhaps the most other-wordly story I have read in some time, and the Three Doors story arc represents John at his con-man best. Nothing is ever as it seems, and Carey presents just enough information to let you think you know what's going on. When all is said and done, you feel like you should have known what was going to happen, but you never can. And the best is yet to come. Judging by the hints dropped in this book, and the way they simply beg for more information, Black Flowers will have Hellblazer fans and lovers of mystery and dark fantasy stories pleading for more. Mike Carey is just getting started.