Simon Spurrier

As we attempt to complete the library summer reading club bingo sheet, it tasks us to read a book from a place we want to visit. Well, technically, I’ve been to London, but it’s a city with endless opportunities for exploration (real life and literary), so it remains a constant on my travel list and pops up regularly as a setting for books on my TBR. Guiding us on our journey this time is the brat magician himself, John Constantine. John’s London is one that we maybe want to avoid in real life, since it tends to be full of hellish denizens, mob bosses with magical hankerings, and not a small dose of death and destruction, but we can’t help but be drawn into his world - as long as it remains contained in the pages of graphic novels. This is the first set of story arcs in a reanimated Constantine saga (anyone who’s a longtime fan remembers that the sorcerer died quite some time ago…), where John is once again brought back in a bid to save the world. Or maybe not, as he seems to get caught up in at least three major magical escapades, but with little satisfaction at the finale and a lingering sense that his elder other self is somewhere out in the world doing absolutely no good. In the first story we’re treated to a hellish landscape that seems inspired by a clichéd fan’s vision of Constantine’s world, setting the stage for John to play testmaster to a young Timothy Hunter (of the Books of Magic) as the young magician must choose between the impossible evils that may come to define his life. This storyline is visually chaotic and seems aimed at the most expected (and unevolved) fan of the Constantine stories with its simple tale lush with gore and a thematic motif that bashes readers over the head before concluding with a typical twist from Constantine that subverts the “rules” of the game. Fun, technically, but the only redeeming factor is the reintroduction of John to the real world via an elder doppelganger with unknown motives and the potential for more quests in the future. Next we visit Peckham Rye Common where we’re treated to a more complex (and traditional feeling) storyarc that treads the paths of the gritty English underworld, throws in a healthy dash of literary thematics, and builds some new characters into Constantine’s cast of “friends.” We’re treated to a mix of illustrative styles in this set, flashing between the chaotic glow of avenging Blake-ian “angels” and darkly realist gang members, which sits well placed to get us fully back into the mood for John’s cigarette-laced antics and tricks as he solves the case. And yet, we’re flashed to a totally different style for the final story arc in this volume, which I found, surprisingly, the most fun of the lot. John begins with a total change of wardrobe, seeing himself outfitted in his Saville Row best for a brief moment before he’s thrown headfirst into a more obvious bid to save Grand Ol’ England. At his side this time is a hipster sorcerer who John immediately hates (of course), but who I couldn’t help but be amused by, simply for the absolute foil and amusement he plays against John’s trenchcoated, black coffee-swilling, out for just himself persona. And yet, it is this chance encounter that sets the stage for John to retake his rightful place as London’s underground sorcerer supreme, as he quietly rights some wrongs amongst the Tower of London’s raven mascots, sets the new generation of magician on his path, and begins to see the hints at what is coming for him in the future. His elder self (introduced haphazardly earlier) is clearly up to something big, and the world isn’t big enough for two Johns so we are sure to be setting up for some intricate storytelling, timeline jumping, and clever magic in the forthcoming books in this series.… (more)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-malignant-truth-by-si-spurrier-et-al/

There’s a lot thrown in here: the Doctor, the new comics companions Alice and the Quire, Abslom Daak the Dalek hunter, River Song, the War Doctor, an unexpected incarnation of the Master, and a complex storyline told over the previous two volumes and concluded here. I didn’t think it was quite as good as the middle volume, but I came away satisfied anyway.… (more)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-one-by-si-spurrier-et-al/

Next in the Year Two sequence of Eleventh Doctor comics from Titan, following from The Then and the Now, with Abslom Daak, the mysterious Squire and Alice the librarian now joined by River Song to work out what the Doctor was up to during the Time War. Some great references to past stories, though I’m a little uneasy with the somewhat harsher characterisation of the Doctor.… (more)

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-then-and-the-now-by-si-spurrier-et-al/

This is the first of the three-volume second series of Eleventh Doctor comics from Titan, and I must say it’s a good start. We’ve kept Alice, one of the great comics companions, and we add The Squire, who claims to have been a companion of the War Doctor; and also, of all great comics-only characters, none other than Abslom Daak, Dalek Hunter. Meanwhile the Eleventh Doctor is being pursued by a bounty hunter called The Then And The Now for dreadful crimes apparently carried out by the War Doctor that nobody can quite remember. And there is a twist at the end bringing in another favourite character.… (more)