John Constantine, Hellblazer: Pandemonium

Something terrifying and strange has occurred - outstanding even among horrors faced every day by John Constantine. Intelligence specialists have discovered elements of the Iraqi insurgency may be demonically possessed. No one in the intelligence agencies is qualified to handle this problem, and that means a private contractor must be employed. Databases identify only one potential candidate: John Constantine. Constantine is taken from the comfort of his London home to the brutal climates of Iraq due to military coercion, but also because of his interest in a mysterious, beautiful Iraqi agent whose true allegiances are kept in shadow.

From Publishers Weekly

The charismatic rogue who's faced the worst magic and the supernatural can throw at him confronts the hells of a war zone in this stylish occult thriller. When John Constantine is blackmailed by the British government into taking a special assignment in Iraq, he's decidedly unhappy with the situation. Not helping is the fact that he's working with Aseera al-Aswari, the woman used as bait in the scheme that trapped him. Soon after the two arrive in the city of Tel-Ibrahim, their interrogation of an imprisoned djinn ends up being the first link in a chain leading to a wider conspiracy of Babylonian gods seeking to profit from the violence of the war. Writer Delano returns once more to the Vertigo title he helped launch and his comfort with the character is evident. Constantine revels in being unapologetically obscene and is all the more likable for it. And yet Delano doesn't let this detract from confronting the delicate issue of how those in power benefit from war, unconcerned by all the suffering their actions cause. The muted tones and heavy shadows employed by artist Jock are well-suited to Constantine's world, an unnerving place somewhere between our reality and myth. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Delano, Hellblazer’s original scripter, returns to take magician John Constantine far from his usual London—blackmailed by British Intelligence into traveling to Iraq to interrogate a prisoner with supernatural powers that allied forces hope to exploit. Turns out the detainee is a djinn in thrall to the Assyrian demon Nergal, who’s feeding on the hatred and violence stirred up by the war. Trapped in a Mesopotamian version of Hell, Constantine, who knows Nergal’s ways from previous run-ins, bargains for his freedom in a high-stakes underworld poker game. Delano developed Constantine’s cynical and snarky personality when the mage was a supporting character in Swamp Thing and set the template for story lines that would sustain Hellblazer’s popularity for more than two decades. He has returned to the character occasionally since passing him on to others in 1991, and this above-average entry in the long-running series shows him maintaining his mastery of Constantine’s sardonic ways. Meanwhile, Jock’s scratchy and angular artwork ranks among the best Hellblazer has ever seen. --Gordon Flagg

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