The origin
John Constantine walked into Alan Moore's Swamp Thing in 1985 as a blond, chain-smoking con man in a trench coat who knew more than he was saying and used everybody around him to get what he wanted. Three years later he got his own book. Hellblazer ran for 300 issues, from 1988 to 2013, longer than any other title under the Vertigo imprint, and it never once turned into a superhero comic. Constantine has no powers worth the name. He has nerve, a working knowledge of magic, a talent for lying, and a trail of dead friends that gets longer with every writer.
What makes Hellblazer different
It is the only long-running mainstream comic that is actually about Britain. Thatcher's Britain first, then Major's, then Blair's, seen through a Liverpool lad who despises all of them. The horror comes from politics, class and guilt at least as much as from demons. Constantine wins by being cleverer and nastier than whatever he is up against, and the bill is always paid by someone else, which the book never lets him forget. Because the writers changed so often, the run reads like a relay of British and Irish voices, Delano, Ennis, Ellis, Carey, Mina, Diggle, Milligan, each handing him on a little more damaged.
For collectors, three things matter. Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 is the key, and the one to buy carefully, because it has been reprinted and a first printing in high grade is a serious book. Hellblazer #1 from 1988 is the second key. And the run itself is one of the best value long runs in comics: three hundred issues, most of them cheap in the middle, with the early Delano issues and the Ennis issues the ones that cost real money. UK copies are common, because the book was, after all, about us.
Where to start reading
The full reading order
Saga of the Swamp Thing #37essential
Constantine's first appearance, in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing with Stephen Bissette and John Totleben drawing. He turns up already fully formed, steering Swamp Thing towards a fight he has no intention of joining himself. This is the issue collectors chase, and it is priced accordingly.
+ Add to my want listOriginal Sinsessential
Jamie Delano's opening run, and the book at its most political. Yuppie demons in the City, a hunger cult, Newcastle, and the Brotherhood of the Damned. The first issue is the key of the series and the one worth owning in high grade.
+ Add to my want listThe Devil You Knowrecommended
The Newcastle incident, the failed exorcism that damned a child and haunts Constantine for the rest of the series, finally shown. Essential context for everything that follows.
+ Add to my want listThe Fear Machinerecommended
Delano's long, strange story of travellers, Masonic lodges and a government experiment in fear. Divisive at the time and better than its reputation.
+ Add to my want listThe Family Manrecommended
A serial killer story with no magic in it at all, and one of the bleakest things Delano wrote. Grant Morrison writes #25-26 and Neil Gaiman writes #27, Hold Me, in the middle of this stretch; all three are worth reading.
+ Add to my want listDangerous Habitsessential
Garth Ennis arrives and Constantine is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. How he gets out of it, by tricking the lords of Hell into a stand-off over his soul, is the most famous story the character has and the basis for the 2005 film. If you only read one arc, read this.
+ Add to my want listFear and Loathingrecommended
Constantine turns forty, the National Front turn up, and Ennis writes the angriest British comic of the decade. Kit Ryan, the best relationship the book ever gave him, is at the centre of it.
+ Add to my want listDamnation's Flamerecommended
Constantine in America, homeless and hallucinating through a version of the country's history. Ennis at his most ambitious.
+ Add to my want listRake at the Gates of Hellessential
The First of the Fallen collects on Dangerous Habits, and Ennis ends his run by burning down everything he built. The best ending any Hellblazer writer got.
+ Add to my want listPaul Jenkinsrecommended
Jenkins writes forty issues of a quieter, sadder, more English Constantine, with Sean Phillips drawing most of it. Underrated, and the cheapest run to collect in singles.
+ Add to my want listHauntedessential
Warren Ellis and John Higgins, and Constantine back in London hunting the man who killed an old girlfriend. Tight, brutal and short: the run ended early when a story about a school shooting was pulled before publication.
+ Add to my want listHard Timeessential
Brian Azzarello puts Constantine in an American maximum security prison, drawn by Richard Corben. It reads like nothing else in the series. His run then takes Constantine across America through #174.
+ Add to my want listMike Carey's runessential
Carey brings him home to London, starting with Red Sepulchre, and writes the longest single run since Delano, including the landmark #200. If Ennis is the famous run, this is the one the devoted readers name.
+ Add to my want listAll His Enginesrecommended
Carey and Leonardo Manco's original hardcover, timed to the film. Chas, a demonic epidemic and Los Angeles. A good self-contained way in if you do not want to commit to the run.
+ Add to my want listDenise Minadeep cut
The crime novelist's year on the book, set in Glasgow, about a plague of empathy. Odd and interesting.
+ Add to my want listAndy Digglerecommended
Diggle takes him back to basics and back to the con: The Laughing Magician (#239-249) is the highlight. Jason Aaron writes #245-246 in the middle.
+ Add to my want listPeter Milligan's runessential
The longest run of all, and the last. Constantine marries, loses a thumb, and gets the final issue, #300, in 2013. Milligan is the writer who took him seriously as a man getting old.
+ Add to my want listPandemoniumdeep cut
Jamie Delano returns for a 25th anniversary original graphic novel, drawn by Jock, set against the Iraq war. The original writer with a proper budget.
+ Add to my want listConstantinedeep cut
The New 52 version: younger, American, part of the DC Universe proper. Not Hellblazer, and it knows it. For completists.
+ Add to my want listConstantine: The Hellblazerdeep cut
Ming Doyle and James Tynion IV, August 2015 to August 2016. Closer to the old tone than the New 52 book, and short enough to try.
+ Add to my want listThe Hellblazerdeep cut
The Rebirth series, October 2016 to September 2018. Constantine back in London in the mainstream DC Universe.
+ Add to my want listJohn Constantine: Hellblazeressential
Simon Spurrier and Aaron Campbell under the Sandman Universe banner, plus a Halloween one-shot. Cut short at twelve issues in 2020, and the best Constantine since the original series ended. Read this after the Vertigo run.
+ Add to my want listDead in Americarecommended
Spurrier and Campbell pick the story back up, January to December 2024. The proof that the 2019 book was not a fluke.
+ Add to my want listChasing any of these Hellblazer issues?
Whether you are hunting a key, thinking about selling a collection, or just want to talk comics, I am always happy to hear from you.