Constantine #16

The last time Constantine dealt with Werewolves was in I, Vampire. Will we be seeing some sweet, sweet Tig action?! Please?

I should discuss Scott Lobdell's writing advice a little bit more than I did in my previous commentary where I just made an offhand remark about how fucking weird it was that he capitalized entire words throughout the piece. So let's do a little bit of that.

If you were afraid to read it, what he basically says is that when writing a character, you don't try to see the world through the character's eyes. How can you do that?! You don't know what it's like to be Superman so it's too hard to write Superman that way! But you do know what it was like to be who you were! So the best way to write Superman is turn him into yourself! It works really well! Because now Superman's childhood of being raised by two loving parents that taught him how to stand up for truth and to be giving and selfless and caring doesn't have anything to do with the man he became. No, now the only thing that matters is that Superman's home that he never even fucking knew was destroyed and he's a big sad boy that never got to play Kryptonian football with the other kids. He's flying around with survivor's guilt! And now he's just Batman in a cape because he's not saving the world because he was taught responsibility and empathy and kindness by Ma and Pa. No, now he just wants to keep another world from experiencing the pain and injustice that Krypton experienced. Now you have a character that isn't Superman because Scott Lobdell wasn't trying to write from Superman's point of view. Instead, he manipulated Superman to act through Lobdell's point of view. And that's why the series sucked.

Lobdell also tells the story about how he broke into comic books which isn't flattering at all but completely makes sense. He couldn't break into comics for five years because he's shit at writing. So what did he do? He found a way to exploit and manipulate the system so that it didn't matter how shitty his stories were because it just made somebody else's job easier. And he's proud of breaking into comics this way! He's so fucking pumped up by his ability to cut the Gordian Knot of his shitty writing ability. That's his advice for everybody on how to break into comics! Find an editor that's run ragged and shitting himself over his responsibilities and give him a metaphorical hand job. Jesus Christ, that story just made him sound like a right cunt.

That's probably enough about Scott Lobdell. But if you really want to learn how to WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW, you should follow that link to his writing advice. You'll break into comic books in no time thanks to Scott Lobdell!

Constantine is currently wandering through a forest in Germany coming to terms with his past mistakes.

Isn't that what I've been saying, John? You're so much better when you work alone!

John might not be hanging out with a bunch of losers that would never sacrifice so much as their own dog for a good spell but he's still under the influence of Zatanna's suggestion that he should become a better person. I wouldn't mind that suggestion! I think to be a better person, I would stop doubting myself and start doing all of those things I really want to do but am too afraid to be caught doing! Casting a spell on a sociopath to be a better person simply frees them up to be even worse! I mean, better for themselves which is worse for other people. So if I think it's a weakness that I don't have the gumption to climb into my downstairs neighbor's open window one night and strangle him in his sleep, forcing me to be a better person would be motivation to get off my ass and finally go through with it!

Boy, I hope my downstairs neighbor doesn't die of strangulation ever!

Back to John, he spies some demons running through the forest hunting some old man whom John is also hunting and realizes a better Constantine would stop them before they hurt any innocent people or babies running around the forest at midnight.

A person who cheats at cards was called a "card sharp" because the ace they kept up their sleeve had razor edges so that it could be used as a weapon if they were caught. It's a fact! Also, "card shark" became more popular when the deadly cards were replaced by hidden throwing sharks.

Constantine finds the old magic guy just moments before The Stained Claw (that's the name of the demon troupe) find him. That probably means The Stained Claw are about to die and then the old man will have to feel grateful to Constantine for saving him and give John whatever he needs. I hope he needs a blow job.

The old man turns out to be the werewolf on the cover which means everybody is fucked because true werewolves are Constantine's weakness. Unless they merely make him piss himself. It's one of those. Maybe both! It definitely kicks his ass but the comic book doesn't mention if any pants were ruined.

I'm fairly certain you could create a Werewolf Taxidermist in one of the various role playing games I designed over the years.

John hunted down the old man to free himself from Zatanna's "eb a retteb nosrep" spell. And the old guy helps him for some reason. Maybe the old guy needs a blow job?

Before Old Albrecht can receive his payment, Constantine's head explodes in his hands. Either the old guy got too excited and forgot his werewolf strength as he pushed John's head down to his crotch, or Tannarak pulled the Papa Midnite Kill Switch that had been implanted in John's psyche. I'm sure you can figure out which one it most likely was.

It was the blow job!

Constantine #16 Rating: No change. I can't wait until the Cult of the Cold Flame implodes and Constantine doesn't have to deal with them anymore. Tannarak is boring! Even back when he was fighting The Phantom Stranger, he was boring! He's just some jerk that's afraid to die! So how does that make him any better than the rest of us?! Hell, he was into alchemy which makes him worse than most of us! Even Isaac Newton was worse than most of us because he spent so much time on alchemy. I'm going on record as saying all of his discoveries are bullshit since he could have discovered even more if he wasn't trying so hard to turn everything in his house into gold. Jerk!