[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers.]
Writer: Simon Oliver
Artists: Pia Guerra & Carrie Strachan
Summary
Constantine and Mercury try to work out their personal differences.
Positives
The art by Pia Guerra and Carrie Strachan is pretty good. The issue is drawn by Guerra with colors by Strachan. The colors are really beautiful especially the green. The field that the characters are in toward the beginning just looks wonderful. I also like Guerra’s pencils on the characters. They’re expressive and look real but not too real. Everything looks very natural. I hope Guerra sticks on the book because I like how this looks.
Swamp Thing literally talks to trees. He has an actual conversation with two trees. It’s awesome.
I enjoyed the trust building exercise between Constantine and Mercury. They’re both trying to figure each other out and it’s kind of cute. There’s an inherent awkwardness as well that works.
Negatives
I don’t like the cover by John Cassaday. There are just details that bug me. I don’t get why Constantine’s left eye is bigger than the right. Also, his hair looks bizarre to me. There’s a girl standing next to him that I assume is supposed to be Mercury but she looks nothing like Mercury so I don’t know who this is. This girl on the cover does not show up in the issue and it’s weird.
Some of the story is a little cliché. The villain, a Djinn, is pretty bland. His big motivation is that he is saving humanity from itself. I have heard that so many times in superhero material; it’s boring and doesn’t mean anything. It is one of the most generic motivations for a villain nowadays and it’s everywhere. Additionally, I don’t like the whole speech in which Mercury tells Constantine that she sees the good in him and his hope. That felt pretty typical as well and a little corny as well.
Verdict
Overall, this is an okay issue. The art is really good and can be both really pretty and creepy. But while there are some nice moments, the plot is fairly dull. There’s some cliché material that I am personally sick of and nothing really interesting happens at all.
