I wish Hellblazer had a compelling plot sometimes that wasn't oooOooOoOooo John and all his guilt and ghosts. At least this one wasn't about a dead girlfriend.

John Constantine in prison, now that's something to see. Is it really any surprise that in about 2 seconds he's running the place? It may be his magic that does the physical damage to the other inmates, but John just has the aura of "don't fuck with me" confidence that's pretty hard to beat, even amongst a bunch of tough guy convicts. The lot of them might have been put in prison for vicious murders, but none of them have played witness to the things that John has seen, much less participated in. The real question is: why did John get out of jail so easily> Some kind of trade went down, but what will the consequences be? And was it John's magic that caused the mania in the prison in the first place? ( )

John Constantine is a complicated prisoner--both frightened and frightening. ( )

One of the more racist entries in a notably racist series (in its latter issues at least). ( )

At first I had trouble getting into this Hellblazer installment. The artwork and setting are very, very different from what we've become accustomed to. Constantine has been incarcerated in an American prison, for reasons that we don't learn until the end of the story arc. The artwork is gritty and grotesque; the characters' heads and hands often appear out of proportion to their bodies, facial features protrude, and the action is often illustrated from a perspective that's slightly above head height, as though you are looking down on the characters. This has a disorienting effect that suits the subject matter. I'm told that this is a deliberate homage to similar comics written in the 1970s, which makes sense.
Like I said, at first I had trouble getting into this; besides the artwork, the prison setting is brutal, and since nearly all of the violence comes from normal human beings rather than supernatural sources, it is harder to shrug off. In the end, though, I think what Azarello and Corben have created here is a truly exceptional chapter in the Hellblazer canon. I read it three times in a row, to make sure I had a complete handle on it, and with each re-reading my respect for the author and the artist grew. ( )