Hellblazer: Pandemonium – Jamie Delano & Jock

Hellblazer: Pandemonium
By: Jamie Delano
Pub: Vertigo
126 Pages.



Meet John Constantine, magician, con artist, heavy smoker, cynic, borderline alcoholic, former punk, ex mucus membrane singer and bastard.

Constantine’s been gracing and disgracing the pages of comics since 1987, and has something of a chequered past. He’s tricked the Devil into curing his lung cancer, and given Satan the finger in return, summoned up a demon and bound it to the body of a London crime lord’s son, caused angels to fall, and stopped the apocalypse, more than once.

Initially inhabiting part of the mainstream DC universe John has moved into a setting far more concurrent with reality than many of his peers. He’s seen Thatcher elected, been caught up in Trade Union disputes, witnessed the rise and fall of New Labour, and exorcised ghosts from the site of the 2012 Olympics.

Pandemonium plunges Constantine into the Iraq warzone. Coerced into dealing with a demon inhabiting one of the Allies’ torture victims John faces off against the forces of British Intelligence, Allied soldiers on the ground, Iraqi insurgents and civilians, as well as the creature he was sent to deal with.



There is something close to the knuckle about Pandemonium. Certainly the subject matter is grim. Even mixed with the fantasy and demonology endemic to the Hellblazer universe the whole piece remains in lock step with reality and the horrors of war.

The plot twists and turns in unforeseeable ways, continually dragging John deeper into a mess that is, at least in part, his own creation. As much of a bastard as he is there is delicious joy in seeing him triumph over both humans and deities much worse than he is. Constantine always pulls something out of the bag, and it’s always a surprise quite what comes out, but it’s a fair bet it’ll be something horrible.

Jock’s art brings London and Iraq to life, and gives us an ages and worn Constantine, and provides some fantastic pieces once reality starts to fall away and we meet the demons.

Shifting Constantine out of his usual stomping ground of the UK/US was a bold move that’s paid off and provides new ground for the character and reader alike.

Inhabiting somewhere/when outside the main continuity of Hellblazer, Pandemonium and it’s precursor All His Engines both work as good starting points for first time Constantine readers (All His Engines is the better of the two works.) and as good pieces for the dedicated Hellblazer fan.