Hellblazer ran for 300 issues at DC's Vertigo imprint from 1988 to 2013, making John Constantine comics' longest-running mature-readers title. He started as a supporting character in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing before Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis, Brian Azzarello, and a dozen other writers took him somewhere none of them quite agreed on: a working-class Liverpudlian magician who wins by cheating, loses the people he loves, and keeps walking. The appeal is not power fantasy. Constantine is brilliant and reckless and cowardly and cruel, and the books never let him off the hook for it. What a fan chases across every Hellblazer arc is that same uncomfortable charge: horror that keeps one eye on class, politics, and the human capacity for self-destruction.
Constantine on Screen
Film and television adaptations of the character
If You Love the Occult-Detective Tone
Comics and graphic novels with the same grim magic and moral weight
Films That Share Constantine's DNA
Urban occult, moral ambiguity, and deals with forces too large to fully understand
Series for the Darkness Between Cases
Television that does occult investigation with the same adult restraint
Games Steeped in the Same Occult Noir
Games where the supernatural is ugly, the protagonist morally grey, and the atmosphere oppressive
The Vertigo imprint changed what comics could say
Hellblazer was the anchor title of DC's Vertigo imprint for most of its run. Without it proving that a monthly superhero-adjacent comic could sustain horror, political satire, and genuine tragedy, Sandman and Preacher and Transmetropolitan would not have had a commercial home. The book's willingness to address Thatcher-era Britain, the AIDS crisis, and institutional corruption before those were acceptable comic topics set the template for what mature-readers publishing could be.
Hellblazer Milestones
- 1985First appearance in Saga of the Swamp Thing #37, written by Alan Moore
- 1988Hellblazer #1 launches at DC, written by Jamie Delano
- 1991Vertigo imprint forms; Hellblazer becomes one of its anchor titles
- 1992Garth Ennis begins his run; Dangerous Habits publishes
- 1993DC/Vertigo launches Sandman and Preacher, influenced by Hellblazer's template
- 1995Warren Ellis takes over; shorter, colder arcs
- 2005Constantine film with Keanu Reeves releases Constantine
- 2013Hellblazer ends at #300 after 25 years; DC launches a new Constantine title in the main universe
- 2014NBC television series Constantine premieres Constantine
Occult Detectives and Infernal Bargains
Deals with the Devil
Explore the Deals with the Devil guide →John Constantine is the man who got away with it, knows he doesn't deserve to, and keeps making it worse.Recurring editorial note across multiple Hellblazer letter columns