From: jordan@castor (USENET's Chuck)
Subject: Re: new HELLBLAZER reader...needs background...
Organization: University of Georgia
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 00:37:38 GMT

In article <andrew.721410129@cs.chalmers.se> andrew@cs.chalmers.se (Andrew Moran) writes:
>Everyone's favourite mysterious ancestor, Lady Johanna Constantine writes:
>
>>Not the First of the Fallen.  That's Lucifer Morningstar, as a recent issue
>>made clear.  It is the Adversary himself, who was already in Hell when 
>>the Morningstar got there, that John pissed off.  

I still don't get the distinction, but it's pretty irrelevant.  If he were 
already in Hell at the Beginning, then I would think he'd be the First of the
Fallen, but anyway, he's a real bad guy.  'nuff said. 

>Well, I'm disappointed with some parts, like JC being more free with his
>usage of power, and the book getting more heavy-handed and less witty.
>But we still love him, Lady Johanna, honest.  And ditto with Neils's version
>in BoM.  "Charge of the Trenchcoat Brigade."

When you say "heavy-handed and less witty" I hope you're comparing the recent
Ennis issues with the earlier ones, and not Ennis' run with Jamie Delano's!
That's PRECISELY the reason I prefer Ennis' stories to Delano's -- he's making
John a little bit more down-to-earth and not always so overdramatic and filled
with angst and psychological turmoil.  Delano would have whole issues that
basically had John doing nothing but wandering around, tripping out and feeling
sorry for himself.  Ennis has (for the most part) kept the action going,
while at the same time giving us a little bit of John's thoughts.
	Like I said, the quality of the issues has been inconsistent, and some
of the stories, especially the Royal Blood storyline, have been painfully
heavy-handed (although there were a few interesting scenes in it.)  But I
still don't think Ennis has gotten as annoying as some of Delano's issues --
I'm referring in particular to the issue towards the end of Delano's run with
the kid whose father was a butcher; the story was filled with stereotypes,
one-dimensional characters, unbelievable scenes, and goofy dialogue.

>Actually I meant that
>he's more confident that he knows what is going on now then he was, say, when
>he was hanging out with Zed and Merc and Errol the Bollocks, etc. 
>...It's probably the
>hippy in me, but I have a sentimental attachment to the gypsy-living
>storylines.

Personally, I hated those.  I thought for the most part, they went absolutely
nowhere.  I couldn't identify with any of the other characters and I didn't
really see the point in the whole thing.  That whole "Fear Machine" storyline
looked like it might have been interesting at first, but it went on too long
and became completely pointless by the end. 
	I liked Delano's run, especially towards the beginning, but the more
I think of the stories, the more I remember the bad, pointless ones.  Delano
seems to be falling into a similar trap with Animal Man -- a lot happened in
the first issue, but not much has been going on since then.  And the Uncle
Dudley character is as bad a stereotype as the butcher character in Hellblazer.
He should be wearing a black hat, he's so obviously a one-dimensional villain.

I've gotten off the subject, so I'll stop now.

Chuck

-- 
                  Chuck Jordan | jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu
"Says here you were born in New Jersey."
"I thought I smelled something."	-- Mystery Science Theater 3000