Hellblazer #284

Whoops, it seems that I somehow forgot to review this comic last month, so before I get to issue #285, here's a quick look at issue #284...

Hellblazer #284:

What Happened: Three basic story-points to hit on quickly with this one... The first has Gemma(Constantine's niece) disobeying the crazy witches she was working with, leading to her gaining the ire of said crazy witches. Next up we have Constantine, who's magic has been, for lack of a better term, fucked up, due to his missing trench coat. As such, when he casts a spell to help his father-in-law scare some mobsters from New Jersey, the spell goes awry and kills the mobsters. Realizing that his coat was the key to his magic, Constantine decides to try to find it. As for his coat, it's found a new host, a woman named Georgie. The coat figures Georgie wanted her mother dead since that would get Georgie's mother out of her hair, and as such, the coat attacks and hangs(!!) Georgie's mother while Georgie was away. Upon getting home, Georgie finds her mother's corpse and decides to burn all of her occult items, figuring they were to blame for what looked like her mother's suicide. Georgie tosses the coat in the fire which causes Constantine's arm to burst into flames.

The Good: I absolutely loved the parts with the killer coat. Who knew that a trench coat would make for such an awesome enemy? I also liked the parts with Constantine and his messed up magic. The cliffhanger was pretty good, with Constantine taking the same damage that his possessed former coat was taking. Gemma's parts were okay, although I'm not exactly that high on her yet.

The Bad: Georgie blaming the coat for her mother's death was a bit of a stretch... As I said, while Gemma's portions of this story weren't awful, they were definitely the weaker parts of this issue. I really don't care about her or her witch troubles, especially now that she knows Constantine wasn't the one who attacked her a few issues back.

The Verdict: I honestly liked this comic! Yes, it's all setting up for a Constantine vs his evil coat showdown, but, in the vernacular of Constantine himself, fuck me, I'm really looking forward to that! There really weren't any glaring things here that annoyed me, so let's get to the next issue.

Score: 8 out of 10.Blimey is putting it mildly!