The Culture

This book collects issues 261 to 266 of this long running title from Vertigo – it has been published continuously for 22 years and is the only title that survives from the imprint’s launch. This collection contains two stories – India and No Future.

The main story, India, continues the storyline from writer Peter Milligan that extends back to the start of his run on the book. In it a grief stricken John Constantine travels to India to purify his soul so that he can resurrect his dead, on-off girlfriend, Phoebe. While there he runs across a demon that is killing young girls in Mumbai that he must dispel before he can get what he is after from a local holy man.

The second story has echoes of John’s youth when he visits a punk collective on the verge of a Tory election victory. This story has a possessed effigy of Sid Vicious, evil, demonic Tories masterminding the election strategy and John getting a punk haircut.

A good collection but as the storyline carries on from the previous two collections it is maybe not a book for the casual reader. Nice to see Peter Milligan’s take on this character. I always feel that Hellblazer works best when a British writer is at the helm – the Azzarello run was not my most favourite – Milligan is a long time favourite of mine.