Last time, we saw John Constantine in the middle of his post break-up hell, hobo-ing it up with a filthy overgrown dirty-blond beard, asking for spare change to buy lighting fluid and pretend it's alcohol, all the while sharing a futon and blanket with a pitiful boy-whore. You know, typical stuff after the end of one's romantic relationship.
Vampires also happened in the previous issue and we get your typical gory sexy-murder times as the King of the Vampires and his consort Mary and Darius dine and fuck together as any polygamous immortal hedonists would ought to do. Meanwhile, John has a heartfelt conversation with said boy-whore, Davy, whose tale of woe shamed Constantine enough to console the kid by sharing some of his alcohol with him. And then they huddled together to sleep and the King of the Vamps happened to stumble upon John when he was just thinking about him in an earlier panel. How quaint. And here we get this issue.
In the most non-shocking action ever done by a character ever, Vamp King bites the neck of the unsuspecting Davy off-scene. He wakes up groggy and talking nonsense. John tries to talk to him but then Vamp King (who's watching from a distance like the creepy fuck who lives up to his title), snaps his fingers and brutally kills the boy using some sort of superpower crap where the boy's infected neck wounds suddenly burst with just a finger-snap. John can't even grieve because he's far too broken to attempt genuine emotion. Vamp King starts jeering and mocking John for the state that he is, claiming that humans are pathetic in the very depths of their vile nature where they destroy the worlds, literally sucking the blood from Nature's teats and whatever. He claims that he and his kind will outlive the humans. He's pretty confident about this, being an ancient creature and all.
Somebody needs to tell this dude that hubris is a real thing and that this is a Garth Ennis story. As everyone knows by now, Ennis likes to make his baddies completely and irredeemably evil before he punishes them quite severely if not brutally. Genre-ignorant Vamp King is no exception. He offers John vampirism and John was like, "hell no, I'm in rock bottom but I'm not that fucking done with it all". Vamp King calls him a hypocrite and then bites his neck and sucks his blood. And then, Delano's plot device was revived where the demon Nergal had unwittingly "saved" John by transfusing some of his blood. This is amazingly brought upon again because bitch-king of the vamps starts choking on the tainted blood coursing through John's veins. Literally and figuratively, John's adamant impurity poisons the asshole who was just making a bold claim earlier how he will outlive humanity. Sorry, you stupid, hilarious idiot. John, for the first time since Kit dumped him and Chas called quits with him, has a genuine laugh over the pathetic crumpled figure of the now choking King of the Vampires who even tries to crawl away as the sun began to peek from the horizon.
Just to be a bastard, John takes him by the leg and drags him to the spotlight and bitch-king of the vamps burns everlasting and beautifully via sunrise torture. John celebrates in the most morbid manner possible, laughing and drinking more of his liquor. It's a personal small victory, I guess. I have to admit I was just as gleeful. After that short-lived peace of mind, John tries to beat up some coppers who were gossiping like old cunts over the dead body of his brief acquaintance, Davy. And then he walks into a bar to buy himself some Silk Cut cigarettes. The woman recognizes him but John brushes her off and says he's a different man.
The issue ends with John sulking in the streets of London with the other vagrants and homeless people.
Happy endings are for pussies after all. There is only the pit.
RECOMMENDED: 8/10
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