Welcome to the first issue in the aftermath of Brightest Day! You can almost subtitle Brightest Day Aftermath as Vertigo’s characters further invasion back into the DCU. For this story brings us John Constantine on a hunt for Swamp Thing after his return in Brightest Day. For now the adventure begins in figuring out why his old friend who he taught how to be an elemental has now gone to a place that Constantine could never imagine. Now he’s on this journey to find Swamp Thing and along the way works out who to ask for help on this adventure. The big thing of this story for me wasn’t as much the Brightest Day element but for the fact it was seeing John Constantine in the DC Universe proper once more. That and the writer on it wrote one of my favorite series being Vertigo Pop! Tokyo and Bangkok so that did peak my interest as well. From here on out welcome to the journeys of John Constantine, Hellblazer in the DCU.
This book is definitely an odd piece of work. It’s part Brightest Day follow up and yet it’s also establishing the fact that John Constantine and Swamp Thing are back in the DCU proper. The story in itself is this journey of him remembering his time helping Swamp Thing become an Earth Elemental and starting his adventure after nearly getting killed by a giant plant. As he talks with his friend Chas he realizes that he needs to go find a person who has dealt with Swamp Thing before. He needs to find Batman. This starts this oddly amusing running gag of Constantine wanting to smoke and he’s either in a no smoking terminal or one hilarious run in with Batman. Put it this way never smoke in the Batmobile for you will pay dearly. This book definitely screams the weird quirks with this story. It’s definitely this strange mix of the Vertigo bits mixed in with the DCU bits and it gets a bit twisted up along the way.
Jonathan Vankin does a good job with capturing the personality of John Constantine for sure. Considering all the years he’s been away and all his development in Vertigo you can definitely imagine the adventure he had in adapting him. I say for the most part it’s successful in that. The usage of Batman and Zatanna in this situation makes a lot of sense. If you also looked at ads at one point it was Hawkman in the book and that would have been pretty weird. I do find that I’m not sure if I liked it or if I just found it fascinating seeing these characters long associated with Vertigo mixing in with the DCU once more. I would say this book is worth checking out for the factor of following up with the Brightest Day story if you’ve been following it in the first place. For as I read through it I’d definitely have to say I just couldn’t click with it.
There are many things in this book that I thought I could click with. Marco Castiello did a solid job with the art on this title. The story itself just felt hollow for me. There are some concepts as that I liked say Constantine’s meeting with Batman and his dealings with Zatanna and their history. Yet nothing about it really works for me. I put it on that’s a shame since I really wanted to like it. I’ll more than likely not be back for the next issue but I am glad I got to check this out. Call it one concept that I’m curious in then one that is hit or miss with me and it just doesn’t mix well. For people following Brightest Day I would say check it out and see what you think. For anyone else your mileage may vary.
