Constantine #2 – Review

By: Jeff Lemire & Ray Fawkes (story), Renato Guedes (art), Marcelo Maiolo (colors)

The Story: This is just a day for awkward encounters with old enemies, huh?

The Review: A lot of people heaved a little groan when they heard that Constantine would be shifting completely from the Vertigo universe over to the DCU proper, and as we’ve been seeing, that groan was mostly justified (more on that in a bit).  I don’t understand why going mainstream means having to dumb down a character; it’s not as if the mainstream audience has an aversion to smart, well-crafted stories.

But that’s exactly what’s happened to Constantine in the last year or so.  While Lemire-Fawkes’ portrayal of the mage isn’t offensive, it reeks of oversimplification, taking away every subtlety and nuance of his character and reducing him to little more than a tagline: “Tricky chap.  Quite a bastard.  Works magic.”  In essence, they’ve emphasized only his superficial appeal, and gotten rid of everything that actually made him compelling and popular.