A review by thecommonswings
Hellblazer: Scab by Stefano Landini, Giuseppe Camuncoli, Peter Milligan, Goran Sudžuka

4.0

Peter Milligan has suffered the fate of many eighties 2000AD writers: tempted to America by the big publishers but without quite the same level of power as a Moore or a Morrison, he’s ended up writing superhero books he’s very obviously been deeply bored and uninvested in. It’s no surprise he’s been happy to return to the prog of late where freedom allows him to indulge his skills as a writer within certain parameters. This is the beauty of 2000AD: it basically forms its own constraints for a writer to kick against whilst also demanding a certain kind of story telling which better writers - like Milligan - can then subvert. Hellblazer allows much the same - John Constantine can be whoever the writer wants him to be as long as he’s jaded, cynical, wounded, haunted and charming. That’s why he’s so beloved and that’s also why Milligan manages to take some surprisingly very topical themes to sprinkle with a bit gruesome horror and still make excellent populist comics out of them. These stories satirical aim are still incredibly pertinent in 2021, and if a little let down by all the artists apart from the great Eddie Campbell they’re still as close to subversive as the acceptable/ commercial face of alternative comics could ever be. Milligan feels like a writer relieved to be working in this groove again and that really shows particularly in the dialogue. Very good, shame about some of the very conventional and boring art though