The Stop Button

This issue, rather inappropriately, feels like a rip-off of a Swamp Thing standard. Well, I think Moore did it once and Veitch did it once, but it’s still a standard. There’s no supernatural situation of the week this issue, instead a friend of Constantine hacks into the evil fundamentalist’s computer network but he does so via hallucinogenic and technology suction cupped to his forehead.

Delano and Ridgway spend most of their effort on this journey through the computer world–pre-Internet, post-Tron–and it feels just like when Moore (and Veitch) send Swamp Thing through the Green. Given Hellblazer‘s a spin-off of Swamp Thing… it just feels rather cheap.

And the whole issue turns out to be a way for Delano to focus on Constantine for the last five pages instead of the melodrama.

The writing’s fine, the art’s fine, but it’s a waste of time.

CREDITS

Ghosts in the Machine; writer, Jamie Delano; pencillers, Brett Ewins and John Ridgway; inkers, Jim McCarthy and Ridgway; colorist, Lovern Kindzierski; letterer, Todd Klein; editor, Karen Berger; publisher, DC Comics.