Andy Diggle’s Hellblazer run comes to a surprising end with the second half of a story that, as something of a microcosm for the run as a whole, feels like it’s leading up to something big but stops short before actually getting there. I’m not sure if there are any specific reasons for his departure at this point – or if it was planned this way all along – but it’s a shame to see him go, as stopping here feels somewhat anticlimactic, and it’s always good to see a writer on this title who clearly gets the character of Constantine straight out of the box.

As it is, this is a fairly straightforward, dark little tale that shows a wickedly sharp sense of humour, and plays to the gallery with a number of fan-pleasing moments. Essentially, we get to see Constantine at his confidence-trickster best, continuing the restoration of the “classic” character style that Diggle had been putting into motion. The first half of the issue is somewhat disconcerting, as Constantine battles with a demon from Hell spouting clichéd dialogue in a sequence that wouldn’t feel out of place in a certain movie version. But, of course, all is not as it seems – and the payoff, while perhaps slightly predictable to those who caught the cliffhanger at the end of the last issue (a cliffhanger that isn’t immediately resolved at the start of this one, setting further alarm bells ringing), is nevertheless entertaining.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the issue, though, is the return of a certain character to the book’s pages – and, furthermore, the return to something approaching, if not friendship, then certainly a more neutral relationship with John. Having read the series off and on in recent years, I don’t know the precise circumstances behind his and Ellie’s falling out, but while continuity freaks might be irked by the brushing-off of those events with a throwaway line (“‘Hell hath no fury’ is just a cliché, John”), Diggle is clearly aware that one of the series’ best supporting characters is far more entertaining as a cautious ally than an enemy, and she departs the scene with a great parting line to boot.

Guest artist Giussepe Camuncoli employs a style similar to the likes of Teddy Kristiansen – it’s good work, and very “Vertigo”, but I’m not sure it’s hugely well-suited to Hellblazer. This is probably something to do with my liking the series when it presents a tangibly grim reality – and my view that Leonardo Manco was one of the best artists we’ve had on the book since Steve Dillon. It does the job, at least, and his version of Ellie makes up slightly for Constantine perhaps looking a bit too clean-cut.

The ending of the issue is strange, as – while certainly an “end” to this particular story – it does feel like it’s planting the seeds for something in the future. I don’t know if Diggle will be back at some point to resolve this, but it’s certainly to be hoped so, as despite never fully kicking into gear (the odd issue and a few superb moments aside), it’s certainly felt like he’s got a lot more to offer. Meanwhile, we await the latest in a line of ever-rotating writers, and are left wondering if anyone will ever be able to make a truly definitive and lasting mark on the series again.

Okay, Mighty Avengers has officially lost its identity. We’re now getting a one-off Sentry story. Excuse me? What happened to that Nick Fury arc? This is an issue of New Avengers and there’s nothing anyone can say to convince me otherwise. What, I might ask, is the point of having two Avengers books when the approach - one-off character spotlights - appears to be identical?

A few months ago, New Avengers was the “Bendis” Avengers book and Mighty Avengers was Bendis’ version of a “traditional” Avengers book. Now they’re the same thing! I love the stories, but seriously, it doesn’t remotely benefit the fan-base to have Mighty and New be two different titles right now. I expect this’ll continue well into Secret Invasion.

And, with that rant out of the way…

As noted, this issue is largely about the Sentry, and the Skrull machinations regarding him. We see more of how the mechanics of the invasion are working, which is good, and there’s a substantial moment in the Sentry’s character arc as motivated by his conversation with the Vision in Secret Invasion #2 (also now confirmed as a Skrull, if it wasn’t clear before.) - he becomes the Void. An Apprently well-meaning Void, but the Void nonetheless. Could get interesting!

Koi Pham’s art is probably the weak point in this issue. Unlike his recent X-Men work, it looks scratchy and rushed - could be an inking thing - but it’s much looser and there’s at least one point where we’re seeing three Skrulls talking - Hank Pym, Jarvis and… somneone who appears to be Spider-Woman, but I wasn’t certain, so I looked it up online. No-one else is certain either. Given that Jarvis calls her “Empress” I’m fairly sure this is confirmation that she’s supposed to be a Skrull Jessica Drew as suggested in the previous issue of New Avengers, but it shouldn’t take that much research to recognise a character. Perhaps it was written as ambiguous, but either way, it’s a massive failure for the comic.

Still, while I’m on the subject - given Spider-woman’s recent double-triple-quadruple-agent status, I’m going to suggest that the Skrull-Spider-Woman-Empress never actually managed to replace Jessica Drew, and she’s working for Nick Fury on the inside of the invasion. That’s the kind of half-baked paranoid theory Secret Invasion is making me cook up these days.

Not a terrible issue, but I don’t even know which comic I’m reading anymore. New and Mighty Avengers are telling stories that feel like they should be IN the main Secret Invasion series. You should probably buy this if you’re reading that.

Every Wednesday we take turns to delve into our trusty longboxes, pluck out a dusty back issue, and give you our thoughts. We’ll also try and place it in the context of the time it was originally published.

With X-Men: Legacy promising to return to Carter Ryking and the Almagordo, I’m going to take this opportunity to review one of the comics I coincidentally picked up in Bristol - X-Men #12, which features the first appearance of Carter Ryking.

While I recently remarked that Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four was taking an impressive leap of faith by bringing back Lyja, a character who has been virtually ignored for literally 11 years since she was written out of the Fantastic Four’s supporting cast. Carey is going one better, bringing back plot elements that only occurred in two issues of X-Men almost 16 years ago (though Carter Ryking did appear in 2 issues of Gambit a mere decade ago!). I was 10 when X-Men #12 was published! And that’s why I love X-Men Legacy.

Still, we’re not here to talk about Carey. X-Men #12 opens with a panic at Carter Ryking’s containment facility. He’s having a seizure which involves a lot of electomagnetic energy being thrown around, brought on by news of his Father’s death. Back at the X-Mansion, we’re seeing some of that X-Men downtime that used to be so popular, including a brief nod to the current big soap opera storyline of Cyclops having guilty thoughts about everyone’s favourite nimbo, Psylocke. Meanwhile, the Professor is training Jubilee in the danger room when it’s dramatically interruped by Wolverine.

While dramatic, it does strike me as a hilarious moment - the idea that Wolverine snuck into the Danger Room to make his point, rather than go to the Professor in the control booth, but that’s the kind of 90s exxxtreme action that comics were about then. If it looked cool, it didn’t have to make sense. Wolverine started ranting about files he’s found that suggest Xavier has been keeping information about his past from him. His explanation for discovering the file is itself side-splitting - Wolverine says he was looking for access codes for “the computer work I’ve been doing.” Frankly, the idea of Wolverine doing computer work brings tears of laughter to my eyes. What was he doing, making a spreadsheet of Weapon X facilities? Wolverine at the office? Comedy gold.

Elsewhere, Carter Ryking escapes! And he’s upset. The Professor and Logan make up and discuss the information Wolvey found about Almagordo and Xavier’s father’s work there, and how it might relate to Weapon X. When Xavier sees news of the elder Ryking’s death on TV, they decide to go to the funeral and investigate. Xavier muses a little over Ryking’s death, and the funeral is then attacked by an insane Carter. Recognising Xavier from his childhood, he reveals that he was the one who sent the file that led to Almagordo, and Kidnaps Xavier. As the issue closes, the X-Men discuss the next step with Val Cooper, and my fanboy buttons are pushed when she offers to “scramble in X-Factor.” The X-Men decline, and say that they’re headed to Almagordo. Cliffhanger!

90s ridiculousness aside, this is the X-Men exactly how I remember it. Soap opera, intrigue and mutants upon mutants upon mutants. I always enjoyed Nicieza’s take on the team. While Ryking isn’t exactly the greatest character, this issue reads like an utter prototype for X-Men: Legacy, with Xavier taking the spotlight to investigate his past. Art Thibert gets the art credit, and since he’s best known for inking I’m unsure if he just did some very, very strong breakdowns over someone else’s pencils, or if he actually took the lead. In any case, it’s a bit of an indentikit Jim Lee/Andy Kubert mashup, as was the X-Men style at the time, and if I hadn’t checked I might even have suggested it was one of them.

At this point, X-Men was the industry’s biggest title, and deservedly so. Even with all the 90s-isms heaped upon it, this issue stands as a fairly good read when similar stuff from this era is complete, unmitigated toss. It’s a rare artifact indeed - a 90s superhero comic that you might actually benefit from re-reading.

Alright, so I’m a glutton for punishment. Had I any sense, I wouldn’t be going anywhere near Titans with a ten-foot barge pole ever again, after its craptacular introductory issue last month. But on the other hand… well, where’s the fun in that? Besides, we’ve had quite a good week so far with excellent issues of Batman and Captain Britain and MI:13, so it’s about time something got a good kicking. And Titans is certainly worthy of that honour. Somehow, this second issue manages to be even worse than the first, and consequently turns the series into a bona fide, Ultimates 3-esque car crash of a comic – and like all the best car crashes, it’s one from which you simply can’t wrench your bleeding eyes.

It’s hard to know where to start with this, really, but we may as well look at it sequentially, since some of the most painful-to-read moments come in the first few pages. An opening full-page splash of Argent, tied down, writhing and sweating, is hardly an auspicious beginning, and does little to suggest that the change in artist (Joe Benitez filling in for the injured Ian Churchill) will do anything to decrease the amount of pandering wank fodder. Turn the page, meanwhile, and we’re immediately given the first example of the absolutely painful dialogue that Winick litters throughout the book. And I’m not kidding, there – some of this dialogue actually gives you a headache. Check out this gem, spoken on page two by the mystery (and soon-to-be-eaten) villain : “We will manage a whole hell of a lot more if you don’t tell us right now who you’re working with?”

Just chew that over for a moment. Takes a couple of goes to actually get through, doesn’t it? And even if you can get round the awful syntax, does anyone know what that question mark is doing there? And isn’t this exactly the sort of thing that editors get paid to spot (particularly as this issue has not only an editor, but an assistant editor credited)? But amazingly, the writing actually gets worse, even if the sentence construction is never quite that bad again. Take the first appearance of the Titans, which sees Nightwing declaring “Yes. ‘Way’” after bursting in and stopping the demon shark thing that had eaten said villain (I say that that’s what happened, but I’m working by assumption here – because the storytelling is so unclear that it’s certainly not communicated on the page.) I genuinely had to check if I wasn’t missing a page – because that “Yes way” is in response to nothing. Nobody said “No way”. Nobody said anything, in fact. So again, I have to ask – what was it doing there?

Those are just a couple of specific examples, but they serve to illustrate how amateurish the writing throughout the book is. Winick is a professional writer with many years’ experience in the industry – so I simply don’t understand why he’s suddenly writing like a 14-year-old. He has absolutely no grasp of characterisation, instead trading in broad tropes – Nightwing is the stern one who says nothing unless it’s relevant to the plot, Beast Boy is the “funny one”, and so is constantly spouting lengthy dialogue that has the shape and form of jokes and wisecracks without ever actually being them (imagine someone with no sense of humour trying to “do” Joss Whedon, and you’re pretty much there), and Starfire never uses contractions in her speech, presumably because she’s an alien. I’m guessing she upped and decided to do this recently, as it’s never been a characteristic of her dialogue before now. But then again, Winick has Beast Boy turn into some kind of weird anthropomorphic cape-wearing goat thing at one point, so let’s not act like he’s ever actually read a Titans book before taking on this one.

What really renders this issue worse than the first and pushes Titans into full-on disaster territory, though, is Benitez’s art, which manages the unfathomable achievement of making me yearn for Ian Churchill. It’s a quite frankly startling mashup of the current favoured DC style (you know, those scratchy Jim Lee-esque pencils traded in by the likes of Michael Turner, Ed Benes and Churchill) and Humberto Ramos’ elongated, manga-ish cartoonery. And it looks utterly rank. There’s next to no facial consistency in his characters, the storytelling is desperately unclear at times, and he still manages to have every female character burst forth from the page like a lingerie model. The absolute nadir of this is a sequence in which Raven visits her father in Hell – and, for some god unknown reason, is wearing nothing more than what appear to be strips of duct tape across her body. I’m not sure if her personification in Hell is supposed to be the same body that she inhabits on earth or not – the huge tits would suggest otherwise – but even if she’s not supposed to be a high-school-aged girl, the fact that Benitez has clearly drawn her naked and then hastily added the “costume” lines (at times they don’t even fit the contours of her body) is no more forgivable. As I’ve said before, I’m no prude, and I have no objection to sexuality in comics if it’s done in any kind of mature fashion – but this adolescent crap just irritates the hell out of me.

Ally the dreadful artwork, vapid dialogue and piss-poor storytelling to a plot that holds just no interest whatsoever (the “revelation” at the end of this issue is that Trigon has another offspring besides Raven. Wooo. Wonder if they’ll be good or evil?) and which has largely been told by the characters rather than actually happening on the page, and you’ve got all the ingredients for an absolute catastrophe of a book. And it’s not even bad in an entertaining way, not really. It’s just depressing. It probably needs a couple more issues of this before it can be spoken of in the same breath as Ultimates 3 and All-Star Batman, but you have to hand it to Winick – he’s having a hell of a crack at getting there.

Warren Ellis’ take on Marvel’s 1980s misfire, the New Universe, returns for a second run around the block. I say “Second” - there’s pretty much nothing in this issue that suggests it’s a sequel story. It’s essentially nothing more than newuniversal #7, and boy, does it show. If you’re looking for a jumping-on point, well, forget it. This is the second arc of newuniversal, and it doesn’t pretend to be anything but - except on the cover.

A pity, really, because I came to this book without much knowledge of newuniversal at all, and I’m left floundering somewhat. I’m loosely familiar with the new universe’s concept, as well as Ellis’ rewoking of it, and I do genuinely think that it’s a good idea to give this kind of property - a universe experiencing the emergence of super-heroes - to someone like Ellis, who is exactly the kind of man you want handling it.

There’s a quick recap of the events in the newuniversal’s past on the first few pages which do, to be fair, succinctly explain the concept. The next few pages are devoted to what reads like little more than a rant on Manhua, including a page of the “comic within a comic” - I get the feeling there’s a little bit of The Black Freighter creeping in as a reference point, but overall it reads a lot like one of Ellis’ self-indulgent diatribes that his comics are full of. If it adds anything to the story itself - beyond emotional resonance for the characters, given what happens shortly after - I’m not certain.

The remainder of the issue establishes a mystery and has the characters, who are now vaguely familar with, start investigating it. The story really picks up in the second half and I’m almost tempted to get the next one and see where it’s going, but it’s clear to me that as intriguing as this story looks, I need to go back and read the first trade to properly enjoy it.

Artist Steve Kurth takes the place of Larocca on art, and he’s got something of Phil Jiminez/Alan Davis about him. One major art flaw, though - at one point Starbrand remarks that “you can’t see the stars at all” - mere pages later, the sky is shown with stars in. Colouring fail? It’s rare a detail like that is jarring, but when a mistake like that does happen, it really rips you out of the comic.

Overall, it’s fairly enjoyable, though only in the sense that any comic you read set in an unfamiliar universe can be. I’d like to know more, but this isn’t remotely the best place to start learning.

It’s a Bristol Comic Expo special this week, and with James having already done his thing over at CBR, it’s left to yours truly to provide a recap of our weekend. Of course, despite being able to namedrop here and there, we’re hardly Rich Johnston (although we do know him, as well), so don’t expect too much in the way of insider revelations in what is really more of a diary entry than anything else. But come this way for some truly fascinating tales of story pitching competitions, hypothetical scenarios on Earth-Dave, lost bags, appalling town planning systems - and even some comics…

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