Beautiful Disaster: Constantine #5 Review

Editor’s Note: With a magic word… SPOILERS!

Okay: can we all start out by admitting that, simply on paper, the idea of taking cynical con-man and master magician John Constantine – you know, the guy who once performed surgery on a succubus, who once was pregnant with the child of an angel, with a lit cigarette and the snarl, “this’ll hurt” – and turning him into Shazam is a stupid fucking idea?

Seriously, there are some characters that you just do not give powers to. If someone came up to you in a bar during San Diego Comic-Con and told you that The Comedian should get the powers of Doctor Manhattan, or that Deathstroke The Terminator should be given the abilities of Brainiac, you would either finish your beer and back away slowly, or ask him what the hell he was thinking when he characterized Starfire that way in Red Hood And The Outlaws #1.

Without any context, the idea of taking John Constantine and imbuing him with the powerset of a 12-year-old American child historically best known for having a talking tiger and responding to the worst of human tragedy with a heartily shouted “holy moley,” is ridiculous. Which is how I responded to the idea when it was dropped during DC’s Trinity War panel last week, and how I was prepared to view it when I opened Constantine #5 last night.

Well the bad news is that the idea of Captain Constantine is still kinda stupid. But the good news is that writer Ray Fawkes gives the move some reasonable context within the scope of the Trinity War crossover, adds consequences to the action that I wasn’t expecting, and most importantly: keeps the whole thing short.

Because no matter what, seeing John Constantine in a spandex suit shouting, “Shazam!” is still really kinda silly.

Constantine has lured Shazam away from the confrontation between the Justice League and the Justice League of America at A.R.G.U.S. headquarters under the pretense that Constantine knows secrets about Shazam’s relationship with Black Adam, but really because Constantine knows the forces behind the Trinity War are magical in nature, and thus it would be a good idea to take a magic-based Superman-level hero off the board before he can do any damage. So John takes Shazam to his local bar, tells him he can be tracked while in his Captain Marvel form, and gets him to change back to Billy Batson, before using a voodoo doll to switch voices with Billy so Billy can’t change back. Constantine’s intention is only to prevent Shazam from being a factor in the war, but the Cult of The Cold Flame is still out there, still hunting for Constantine, and doesn’t give a hoot in hell about Pandora or whether or not Superman actually killed anyone. So the head of the cult sends a giant demon to sneak attack John, and John – master magician John Constantine, who has faced down the Devil himself with nothing more than a plan, a cigarette and a smirk – is forced to shout, “Shazam,” using Billy’s voice and become Captain Marvel to physically beat the snot out of the demon. But John learns that the powers of Shazam have a price and effect that he didn’t anticipate, and that changing into Captain Marvel doesn’t necessarily remove any physical damage you got before the change.

Okay, let’s get it out of the way: seeing John Constantine in Captain Marvel’s costume is pretty ridiculous. It’s no worse than seeing anyone else in what Warren Ellis would call an “underwear pervert suit,” and it’s not like it’s unprecedented. After all, Constantine is visually based on Sting, who we saw in a rubber skinsuit in Dune, and God knows that that movie was a blockbuster that in no way required a cheap basic cable miniseries version to redeem its source novel. So this is clearly something America has been waiting to see! Yeah, not so much.

But on the plus side, Fawkes sets the transformation up in a way that not only makes a certain amount of sense, but more importantly, limits the amount of time this goes on for. The use of magic to switch voices with Billy is actually a pretty clever improvised way to take away his powers, and Fawkes makes it reasonably clear that Constantine’s intention is not to steal Billy’s power, but only to prevent Billy from using it. I can buy that; the initial plan and the use of lies and trickery to make it happen feel firmly within character for Constantine, and that grounds the more fantastic elements in a better way than I anticipated.

Further, Fawkes sets the stakes that force John into using the power fairly effectively before and after the tights-and-fights battle. Fawkes has the demon attack happen suddenly and unexpectedly, and he makes it clear that the initial attack on pre-Shazam John basically planted a mortal wound on the poor son of a bitch. By the end of the issue, John is at death’s door due to the initial violence, which makes the choice to exercise his new powers seem like more of a last resort than a simple, capricious choice to maybe sell a few more copies of the comic. And make no mistake – that’s what this story is… but Fawkes lays the groundwork to make it seem like a lot more.

Most interesting to me, Fawkes made the choice for Shazam’s powers to have a deleterious effect on John. Right from his first use of the power, John tells us that the power is too enormous to contain, and that he won’t be able to use it for long. It’s an interesting choice, and Fawkes has Billy suggest that John’s age makes him unable to handle the power of Shazam (which is why Black Adam limped like Joe Theismann on a rainy day and buy gross lots of Depends undergarments, right? Hello? Is this thing on?), but regardless of the plot reasons behind it, what Fawkes accomplishes is a tacit message to the reader that this pretty ridiculous situation isn’t going to last long. It helps us to accept the concept of SuperJohn, and went a long way to ease the skepticism I had walking into this issue.

Combine all of this with Billy’s ability to counteract John’s spell and reclaim his powers, and what you wind up with is a story that feels very much like a legit John Constantine tale: John has a quick idea, lies his way into an improvised solution, some of it goes wrong, and it doesn’t go exactly the way he originally planned… all with some kinda silly superhero combat in the middle. The overall effect is that Fawkes wrapped this ridiculous scenario in enough strong and right feeling story and characterization that I can actually believe it, which is a hell of a lot more than I expected at the start.

Renato Guedes’s art actually goes a long way toward selling this whole situation. His stuff is fine-lined, but not photorealistic; he often draws arms and legs as skinnier than you would expect, and his lines give everything a vaguely sketched look, that works well on the ancestor of the Hellblazer comic. Interestingly, however, Guedes draws Shazam as a stereotypical, jacked, perfectly-proportioned superhero… but when he draws John as Captain Marvel, he’s still a little abstract. Captain Constantine is more muscular than John, but not to the level of Shazam himself; he looks a little saggy and dull, and he doesn’t crackle with electricity the way Shazam does. Further, the coloring by Marcelo Maiolo is generally limited and earth-toned with a painted look, which is perfect for Constantine… but that includes John-as-Shazam, but excludes Shazam himself, who is bright red and clearly not of this environment. The visual effect helps to hammer home for the reader that yes, John has the power of Shazam, but it doesn’t belong here. So visually, the message that what we’re seeing isn’t right is there, and helps give the message that this is a short-term thing we’re seeing.

Look, I think it’s pretty clear that I didn’t expect to like Constantine #5. The idea of turning John Constantine into Shazam sounds less like an organic story plan than an editorial edict (“Fawkes! Turn Constantine into Shazam! Lobdell! Bring in the rest of that eight-ball! And if it’s light, so help me God, you’ll be editing the forums on the DC Web site when you’re not Windexing the Sharpied penises off my headshot in the lobby!”), but Fawkes and Guedes combine their efforts to not only keep the move from being as utterly ridiculous as it sounds, but to ground it in enough true-feeling characterization to make it feel like a Constantine story, and to constantly reassure the reader that it will all be over in a minute.

Make no mistake: turning John Constantine into Shazam is not a right or good thing. But the things that happen around it make it readable, and better than I expected. I still wish this decision hadn’t been made, but it sure as hell could have been worse. It might be only an acceptable issue, but it takes a lot of skill to turn an idea this ridiculous into something that’s acceptable. So, good work guys… now let’s all move on, shall we?