Damn Them All vol. 1
We all know the story of Simon Spurrier’s run on “Hellblazer.” That it was canceled after a year even though the writer still had plans for John Constantine’s further adventures (in America). While he’s getting a chance to resume that run with the forthcoming “Dead in America” miniseries, the writer wasn’t going to let this get the best of him. No, if he couldn’t write “Hellblazer” he’d just go and make his own supernatural horror series that would allow him to do everything he wanted with that series and more. Better still would be how he’d convince “The Walking Dead’s” Charlie Adlard to illustrate it. That’s what “Damn Them All” is, and it might not be exactly what you’d expect.
That’s because the series opens with the title’s John Constantine analogue, Alfred “Alfie” Hawthorne being put in the ground with a eulogy that’s equal parts sarcastic and truthful from the minister. Said minister is Ellie “Bloody El” Hawthorne, Alfie’s niece and the actual protagonist of this series. She’s always had an interest in her uncle’s line of work, even in spite of his early effort to scare her off, and now she makes her living providing advice on supernatural matters to (and maybe breaking the occasional kneecap for) local mobster Frankie Wax.
Frankie is in attendance at the post-funeral wake when some masked thugs break in looking to take him out. While they’re easily dealt with, it’s the force that’s accompanying them that proves to be more difficult to deal with. You see, they’ve managed to summon a demon to do their bidding and it’s only through some quick thinking on Ellie’s part that Frankie, and the majority of the people at the pub, are able to make it out alive.
It takes great sacrifice, knowledge, and single bloody-mindedness to summon a demon. Which begs the question as to how these people were able to summon one. That’s what Ellie wants to figure out. It’s a mission that will introduce her to new friends, new enemies, and some of them may even survive their association with her. So it’s a good thing that Uncle Alfie is already dead because things can’t get any worse for him. Right?
While it’s hard to overstate the influence that “Hellblazer” casts over this series – from its protagonist, to its setting, to its concern with the rules and regulations of magic – “Damn Them All” doesn’t feel like a simple cut-and-paste job here. There’s Ellie hearself, memorably introduced via a point-of-view prologue and her funeral speech, who emphasizes the idea that it’s never about being the better magician, but the bigger bastard. We see her put that idea into practice multiple times throughout the course of the volume, usually in ways that save more people than they kill.
It’s a very Constantine-esque way of approaching life, but the series makes it clear that this also takes a toll on Ellie. Even if she’s trying to do this all for the greater good, it still ruins the lives of people she knows and takes a toll on her own spirit. Which is how we find out about the whole “supernatural junkie” aspect of her character and how she deals with it. Where Constantine would just shrug off any losses and move onto the next adventure, Spurrier clearly wants Ellie to reckon with the choices she makes. That works here because she’s not burdened with the expectations that come with stories featuring that character and giving her more depth in this fashion makes her more interesting from the jump.
For those of you looking for a more direct take on the Mighty J.C., he exists in this series as Alfie and that level of remove is definitely for the best. While I enjoyed Spurrier’s “Hellblazer” run, I also felt that its final arc was a good example of how dark such a story featuring Constantine has to be in order for it to go off the rails. In Alfie, Spurrier has given us a version of the character in all but name that is also unburdened by our expectations.
Take the many data pages regarding the demons, characters, and cults in this world all written in Alfie’s wryly cynical voice. They’re all good fun and not too dissimilar from how they’d sound from the Hellblazer himself. Then the story gets around to explaining how he died, and what he did after, and it’s very messed up in a way that would be depressing to read as the final fate of John Constantine. Yet, with the distance present here, you can also accept it as the kind of bastardry that he’d have no problem committing to save his own skin and screwing things up for everyone in the process.
While I realize that I’ve harped a lot on this title’s connection to that storied DC Comics series, there are some elements which feel utterly distinct to it. You’ve got the American police officer who winds up working alongside Ellie, Dora Lafon, who provides a more straightforward perspective on things while also dealing with her own issues as well. Which she also winds up addressing in a supernatural manner, and may even be working her way up the ladder there if the ending of this volume is any indication.
Then there’s the matter of the villain of the piece and his band of one-percenters with an interest in the supernatural. Theo Bolster is a bastard himself, but one that’s determined to put his best face forward even if he has to moderate his personality by way of the demons he’s enslaved. He’s got a plan for world domination, of course, initially all centered around causing the biggest supernatural throw-down in the city for everyone to witness. While his initial plans are thwarted in clever fashion, that just means he’s going to have to get more creative, and resort to summoning even worse demons. Which I’m keen on seeing since Spurrier balances his villainy and innate hateability with his need to struggle to achieve his goals.
You’ve also got the fact that this series is illustrated by a veteran of “Hellblazer” (one whole issue – #108, written by Paul Jenkins) but I doubt anybody cares about that. “Damn Them All” is the first series Charlie Adlard has illustrated since his landmark run on “The Walking Dead” where he provided sterling art that was equally good at conveying violent action as it was with character drama for 31 of its 32 volumes. That’s a long time to be drawing anything, so the question is whether or not the artist is as good with supernatural action as he was with those things.
The answer, thankfully, is resounding “YES” as he wastes no time in the first issue showing us what he’s capable of. From the first-person sequence early on that puts us right into Ellie’s mindset, to the assault on the bar by a demon, to the revelation of the demon’s true form at the end of the issue, Adlard nails everything he’s given. He gets more opportunities to show off as the volume goes on, along with trickier dramatic moments to sell as well. It’s to his credit that you will feel sympathy for Ellie’s concerns about always having to be the bigger bastard and why she feels the need to assuage her guilt by way of supernatural means.
If there’s any issue to the art here, it’s with the coloring and I’m not entirely sure it’s the colorist’s fault. Sophie Dodgson gives the series an appropriately washed-out look with her colors that feels appropriate to the story being told, but doesn’t feel like it’s adding any clarity to it. My feeling is that after seeing Adlard’s work in black-and-white for over a decade, my brain may be wired to accepting it as the way his work is meant to look. Still, the use of color isn’t a dealbreaker here, more of a nitpick than anything else.
You may think that with all of the comparisons to “Hellblazer” that I’ve made here, that “Damn Them All” will make for a great snack between Spurrier resuming his run on that title. You’d be wrong, however, as there’s a lot of potential here for this to be the better work. While I’m looking forward to seeing how the writer wraps up his run on that DC title, it comes with expectations and the fear that he might run things off the rails again. “Damn Them All” doesn’t have those expectations as it delivers the supernatural horror goods that I’d expect from that title, with all of the same cleverness and quality art, with none of the same expectations. Ellie Hawthorne is not John Constantine and that means her story can go anywhere. With the title’s second arc currently being serialized, I’m very interested to see where it winds up.