Constantine #12

I wonder who was the first person to say, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out?" Abraham Lincoln? Benjamin Franklin? No, no! I bet it was W.E.B. Du Bois!

I heartily dislike the character Nick Necro. He's a manifestation of Constantine's id out of control. He is a perversion of Constantine; a Constantine without mercy or empathy. Unless Constantine is the perversion of Necro? Perhaps he's simply the victim! Like the magician in Frosty the Snowman just trying to get back his magic hat, Nick Necro simply wants his jacket back. In Necro's world (as in all of our worlds), he is both protagonist of all stories and victim of an uncaring universe. Constantine stole his magic trench coat and his magic girlfriend and he just wants things set right. But I don't care about any of that! I'm the champion of my own story and I want a story about a me that doesn't have to read about Nick Necro! You hear that, Universe? That's the sound of me shaking my fist impotently at you! Yeah, well, it doesn't really make much of a sound which is why I had to explain what I was doing.

The issue begins with Necro divining the future. It doesn't look good. Giant creature attacks. Thaumoton blows its head off. Lots of people die. Necro mentions that it's inevitable. But Necro is a flaming twat. His mind is clouded by silent tears. He currently has clowns in his coffee. He couldn't divine the future if a teacher's edition instruction manual with all of the methods of divination (along with all of the answers printed in the back) bit him in the ass. He's no barn owl!

Look, I can't hold your hand while reading this commentary and explain every single thing I say! If you're a regular reader of my commentaries, you know exactly what and who I mean by "barn owl." I suppose I could have easily explained it in far fewer words than it took to explain why I wouldn't explain it. But I think I'm standing on principal here! I've never done it before so I'm not sure if this is it or not.

Necro Karate blocks philosophically on the nature of Hell.

So nearly exactly like visiting family during the holidays? Or posting on Facebook?

After Necro chats with Constantine, he's off to film a sitcom pilot with Felix Faust called Daddy Issues. The premise is that a young sorcerer named Felix Faust can't afford tuition in a prestigious magic school in Nanda Parbat. So he trades away his youth to rescue a young, bitter New Yorker from the depths of hell to serve as his roommate. Faust feels like he can constantly tell the new kid, Necro, what to do because he saved him from hell. But Necro can't stand some old jerk bossing him around which causes a lot of friction and some really hilarious mishaps! In the first episode, Necro wonders why he has to pay such a high percentage of the rent when Faust has about two dozen other boarders strapped to a Thaumaton in the guest room who are living there for free. Necro gets a job at the local mini-golf course while he tries to get to the bottom of Faust's plans. Realizing the premise of the show might be a little weak, network executives decide to cast a bunch of crazy characters as Nick's coworkers at the mini-golf course as a pilot within a pilot for a show called The Putting Life.

Constantine escapes from the Thaumaton with a little help from Nick Necro burning him in the chest with his cigarettes on a constant basis. It's an old trick they learned back in the heady, carefree, drug-fueled days of post-punk New York. As they watched the suits and ties take over every inch of their old, garbage-littered stomping grounds, Nick and Johnny began wearing ties and buttoned shirts to mock those money hungry monsters invading their turf. The look was part of their misdirection, just another parlor trick to hide who they really were and what they were actually practicing. Just as Clark Kent's real power as a secret identity is his clumsy, awkward, fearful nature that would lead nobody to guess he's Superman no matter how much he looks like him, Constantine learned that an underwhelming appearance of power was the best mask a powerful magician could don.

Although you'd think after years of people thinking they've nearly defeated Constantine only to find he manipulated them through their own arrogance, people would have gotten wise. I guess that's the problem with pride and arrogance! You just never consider that the person with their throat under your boot actually wanted to be in that position.

Anyway, back to Constantine's escape!

Hey Necro? If you really want to kill Johnny, you've got a harpoon on the other arm.

Instead of the Sea King's fist exploding through John's face, Constantine Sign of the Devil's Deadman out of Sea King's body. You'd think if anybody would remember that when Constantine is just about to be defeated he's actually at his most dangerous, it would be Nick Necro. There's that pride and arrogance fucking things up all over again!

Constantine begins to realize that Nick is up to something more than trying to murder John. Nick could have easily killed John on the Thaumaton, so why did he set him free instead? Could it have something to do with that experience Nick, John, and Zee all shared six years ago at magic camp?

Magic Camp: more blasphemy but less sexual experimentation than Bible Camp!

The memory serves to show that Nick and John were bound by sex and blood which makes John an ideal candidate to offer to Hell in exchange for Nick's survival in the final chapter of Forever Evil: Blight. The issue ends with Constantine falling into Hell, Swamp Thing flipping the fuck out and tearing down the Thaumaton, and Nick Necro lying on the floor with a magic crystal in his chest. Not really a happy ending for anybody. Except maybe Deadman! He's now free of Sea King's fishy corpse.

Constantine #12 Rating: +1 Ranking. I still don't like Nick Necro but I'm glad to get a little more of the history between John and Zee and Nick. Also he might be dying. Again! But probably not.