John Constantine, Hellblazer: Black Flowers

Continuing Mike Carey's acclaimed run on HELLBLAZER, BLACK FLOWERS rachets up the suspense as Constantine begins to see — and battle — the signs of a coming apocalypse in the stories "The Game of Cat and Mouse," the 2-part "Black Flowers" and the 3-part "Third Worlds" from issues #181-186.

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–The plot of any Constantine book is secondary to the man himself; readers will just enjoy the protagonists fearless, feckless attitude toward time travel, slime-spewing aliens, and the native women. Like Batman and X-Men comics, Constantine is now at the level that any copy will be heavily used, and imitations can try but will never supersede the original. A dark, complex, brainy book, Black Flowers is set in a wonderfully gritty London and then jumps to a haunted country mansion. When Constantine begins protecting Angie, a local woman, she blossoms into his equal in daring and together they embark on a desert vision quest. Best of all, every page has more John Constantine. Strong language makes this best suited for public libraries.–John Leighton, Brooklyn Public Library, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The movie Constantine, in which a miscast Keanu Reeves portrayed the sardonic British sorcerer, may have fizzled, but its comic-book source soldiers on. In the first of the three interconnected stories here, Constantine's disembodied spirit flees through the streets of London, chased by vengeance-seeking demons. The next tale draws Constantine to Bedfordshire, where insane-asylum patients have been possessed by ancient Celtic spirits that begin to take over the surrounding town. The long third story, which will be continued in the series' next volume, takes Constantine and companion Angie Spatchcock to the Amazon rain forest, Iran, and Tasmania on the trail of an ancient magical being known as the Shadow Dog. Carey, the latest scripter to chronicle Constantine's mystic exploits, takes a less character-driven, more action-oriented approach than most of his predecessors. He comes through where it counts, though, capturing the character's cheeky insouciance and conjuring up an imaginative array of menacing monsters for him to battle. The stories are illustrated by a trio of artists; all do justice to the series' dark atmosphere. Gordon FlaggCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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