Constantine #20

Will kids today understand the double meaning of reflection here?!

I love practicing being an old man! I need to think up some hilariously mean shit to yell at the neighborhood kids from the porch so they think, "That is the coolest old man ever." Mostly I just have to say stuff like the above caption where I never give young people the benefit of the doubt. "By golly, they're all narcissistic assholes! Have you heard that twaddle they call music and not twaddle like they should be calling it if they cared a whit for accuracy?! I hope they all develop raging cases of genital warts due to all that free love they're practicing as they smoke the legal dope! Bah! They don't know the value of a good high because they never had to meet a sketchy guy on the side of a 7-11 at three in the morning who, after making the sale, then wanted to hang out with you while you get high! Fucker! You're my connection, not my friend! What I wouldn't have gave to be able to buy my pot from a clerk across the counter who couldn't follow me home to drink all of my beers and piss on my bathroom floor!"

I hope the last thing I think before I die is, "Oh my God I've never come so hard in my life!"

This issue is called "Meaningful Gestures." You mean like flipping the bird?

Last issue left off with Constantine barging in on Constantine and his family and friends. It's the life John never knew because he had to get into magic and burn the house down around his parents' ears. And then he got all of his friends killed. And then he pissed off London so that he can't ever go back (although I guess Earth-2 London is safe) and he burned several bridges between himself and Maureen so she stopped loving him. And now he's suddenly confronted by all of the things his poor decisions over the years cost him.

Ha ha!

I feel this every time I look at people living normal lives. Did refusing to make all of those hard choices cheat me out of some other, better life? Has this Tess, the one that always took the easy way, missed out on a fulfilled life? If this is the best life I could have lived, why do I feel so empty and defeated? I bet it's because I haven't found Jesus!

Man, have you guys ever seen those 700 Club commercials where people say things like, "I'm here to tell you there's something missing in your life. And that something is Jesus." Then they show the guy wearing a Tribble on his head and he's all, "My life is so fantastic now that I hang out with Christians who are too polite to tell me that my toupee looks like shit! Thank you, Jesus!"

I can't wait for Christmas Dinner with the Common-In-Laws now! I'm going to shit all over everybody's festive mood!

John-2's family learns that Constantine is from a different Earth and that maybe he can take them all over before their Earth is destroyed. But then all the apathetic, despairing losers driven mad by the Succumbubus break into the house and try to kill everybody. Constantine and his new friends make a break for it and begin running madly through London.

I hope I remember to add the Succumbubus to my Places and Predators Monster Manual.

This picture doesn't make me quite as gleeful as this picture did way back when.

Eventually Constantine and his new family find a place to hide from the crazies. It gives Constantine a chance to tell them scary stories about how their world is ending because he knows a few things about Darkseid.

I know! You heat up the doorknob and then put Hot Wheels all over the floor and rig a paint can full of rocks to knock Darkseid into the basement!

Constantine and his Earth-2 family draw magic hoodoo and mystic symbols all over the walls and floor of their hidey-hole. Sometimes you have to wonder who Constantine is trying to fool. Darkseid? His new family? Himself? Maybe all three?

One person he doesn't fool (and probably wasn't trying because, hey! Free magic helmet!) was Doctor Cocoa Puffs. He arrives to let everybody know that he's there to help. Too bad John just got done telling everybody not to trust whatever magical being is attracted to their ritual!

Constantine #20 Rating: +1 Ranking. This actually felt like a fucking Hellblazer story. And it'll especially feel like a Hellblazer story if the fucking shit hits the fucking fan next issue and a whole lot of innocent people die in John's attempt to get back to Earth-Main-Earth!