Damn Them All vol. 2

Vol. 2 of “Hellblazer With the Serial Numbers Filed Off” finds its protagonist Ellie “Bloody ‘El” Hawthorne still dealing with all of the demons gifted as coins to bastards around London by one Theo Bolger.  He’s still trying to use these demons to remake the world, as he would like it to be, but his plans have hit a snag.  Angels have gotten involved and they’ve used Ellie’s policewoman acquaintance Dora to steal a demon so powerful that Theo wanted him off the table.  Theo wants Ellie to track down this demon and in exchange he’ll give her the earthly remains of her Uncle Alfie.  While it seems like a rather straightforward job, Ellie knows that it’s going to be anything but and that becomes painfully clear when the new owner of the demon is revealed to be a former associate and lover of hers.

One suspects that if “Damn Them All” had been a “Something is Killing the Children”-sized hit, we would’ve seen many more volumes of Ellie tracking down demons to keep foiling Theo’s nefarious plans.  Or writer Simon Spurrier may have just decided to do something completely different starting with Issue #13.  Either is likely.  Still, these two volumes are all we have of Ellie’s adventures for now and vol. 2 offers more reasons to be glad that we got to experience them at all.

Ellie remains a compelling protagonist as she gets more chances to work through her issues, demonstrate her supreme knowledge of magical rules (and their loopholes), and just generally be more capable and brutal than everyone else she comes up against.  Room is also made for decent little character arcs for Dora, demons Andras and Glysa-Labos, and even some interesting backstory for good ol’ Uncle Alfie.  All of this is rendered with consummate skill and imagination by Charlie Adlard, who’s clearly relishing the chance to draw all these demons, angels, and the acts of terrible violence they (and the humans) get up to.

If there’s any problem with this second volume, it’s the willingness Spurrier has to try and cram every high concept he has for the demons and their abilities in here.  It’s at its worst in the back half of this collection as we find out about the elaborate plans to take the demons and their abilities on a national scale with the appropriate commentary that implies.  This extends to the concluding issues as well as it feels the writer was scrambling a bit to try and fit everything in that he wanted to.  Spurrier and Adlard do manage to pull off a satisfying wrap-up in spite of this which does count for a lot.  Even if this is the last of Ellie’s adventures, these two volumes are enough to make me hope that this is only the case for now.