Monday, February 13, 2017

The Hellblazer #5


Stop oversexualizing Constantine, Comic book artists!

• The huge revelation in this comic book is that genies actually exist and weren't just made up by Scheherazade. Not that that's much of a revelation since Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt is a thing. The genies had decided not to interfere with humans so that they wouldn't be discovered. Maybe that's why Thunderbolt chose to act like he was working with a human. He could help make the world a better place while hiding in plain sight. Also, maybe nobody even fucking remembers Thunderbolt since Johnny Thunder is apparently 90 years old and stuck in an elderly care facility, according to DC's Rebirth.

• The previous bullet point took over twenty minutes to write because I asked Lord Google for the proper way to spell Scheherazade (because I'm too lazy to pick up my copy of Volume I & II of The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night sitting on my desk in arm's reach and flip through it to get the proper spelling) and wound up on a forum where some guy was bitching about how the Magic the Gathering card, Shahrazad, should be banned from play because it annoys the fuck out of him. If that were the basis for banning cards in official Magic the Gathering tournaments, I'd have to ban every single fucking card because the people playing them annoy the fuck out of me and isn't that really the same thing?

• I don't play in Magic the Gathering tournaments anymore. Let me get out my wide brush: people who play Magic the Gathering are intolerable.

• Yes, I play (or used to play? I suppose I'd still play Sealed Deck leagues if I could stand other players) Magic the Gathering. That isn't proof against my statement.


I scanned this for the sentiment. The plums that look like pudgy little penises are a bonus.

• I often wonder why it seems like there isn't as much time during each day as I seem to remember there being. Then I think, "Oh yeah! The Internet!" What a time sink that thing is! Why isn't anybody regulating this thing?!

• That was a joke!

• The man fingering the plum is actually a genie. He's not as hyperactive as the one in Aladdin but then how many of them are? Probably not many of them. Although Aladdin was really lucky to find a genie who wasn't into cutting off the heads of everybody he met or dismembering people and hiding them in trunks. This genie wants to save mankind from itself in the usual way which probably means genocide with some additional enslavement. The woman, Clarice, is a mage who he's forcing to work with him. If she doesn't, he'll banish her to the Land of Discarded Toys. I think that's the island where Darien Wolf died to save his sister Therese.

• I guess that's a spoiler but if I don't mention what it's spoiling, it isn't really a spoiler, is it?!

• Meanwhile, Swamp Thing is declared physically unfit to continue doing a favor for Constantine. Also, the new artist draws Mercury in such a way that I instantly lose my crush on her. Apparently I never actually liked Mercury herself. I only like the way Moritat draws Mercury. Also, I like the way Moritat draws Tallulah Black. And also Charlotte the Harlot. And also Lorna Kyle. And also Gina. And...okay, every female Moritat draws, I fall in love with. And also some of the men! Like Jonah Hex! But I think that had more to do with the writing in All Star Western and less with his physique.

• Swamp Thing explains how he goes to the water closet and then disappears into the Green. Now it's up to John, Chas, and Mercury to figure out why the genies need an elemental.

• I should probably call them Djinn since that's what they call themselves. But I also would just rather use the Anglicized version. Since they don't actually exist, I'm hoping that I don't get called a disrespectful racist for not using the term they prefer.

• Ha ha. I wrote "disrespectful racist."


But genies is okay, right?!

• Constantine decides to get to know Mercury better by telling her three things he supposes she doesn't know about him and then getting three pieces of information from her that will probably help him when he needs to cast a spell on her later.

• Fact #1: Constantine can't ride a bicycle. I wonder if anybody went through every issue of Swamp Thing and Hellblazer to verify this fact or if they just went, "This is fucking Rebirth, motherfucker! Everything is what we say it is! Boom! Is this the appropriate time to drop a mic?"

• I bet his other facts are "I've never eaten peanut butter" and "I suck dicks. Lots of dicks. All the dicks."

• Mercury's number one fact is that she used to eat McDonald's. Ew! Slut!

• Constantine hates the word "moist." Boring. Fucking boring! You know who I hate more than the people I actually hate and aren't just pretending I hate to make a stupid point? People who say they hate the word "moist!" Along with moist, Mercury also hates these words: slacks, smear, squirt, nomads, Indians, and saints.

• Constantine's third fact is that he wished things had turned out differently between him and Mercury's mom. Or maybe the creepy pedo means between him and Mercury! He's about as clear on the point as The Bible is on its use of pronouns.

• Mercury's third fact is that her mom is in Cane Hill Asylum which just happens to be one left turn away from where they're currently playing John's game in the back of Chas's black cab. So they go to visit!


The bit about nobody being ready for real life is something I often think. But then how do you explain all the people running things and trying so hard to look like adults? If they're as truly not ready for real life as I continue to be then I can only think they're monsters. They're some kind of mimic desperate for other people to approve of the way they're doing the thing that gets approval from people who think that's the way they're all supposed to be. Also, it might just be about sex. You act like an adult because confidence, responsibility, and financial security are all things people look for in mates. Otherwise you just wind up fucking your next dependent.

• Mercury calls Constantine a tosser which reminds me I'm not playing Overwatch. My main character is Tracer and I always have her in her Vivienne Westwood outfit because while wearing it, she sometimes calls people she kills wankers or tossers.

• Meanwhile, it seems Simon Oliver finished the script a page too early so he threw in a scene where Swamp Thing tells his parents to go stuff it. Sort of.

The Ranking!
+1! Constantine didn't swear at all this issue! I think maybe he's been replaced by a simulacrum!

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