So the
other day (about 30 seconds ago, as I type this) I mentioned I'm still goddamned pissed at Warren Ellis. I don't know if there's anything he could possibly do to make amends to the people he hurt, but I also know he's halfassed even trying. He's gotten work again in recent years--I have some copies of
the Batman's Grave that I've fished from quarter bins but haven't been able to bring myself to read yet. I also still hate that he wrecked
Transmetropolitan for me; since I think "I Hate It Here" every day. ("
Journalism is just a gun," but most outlets nowadays seem to be putting it in their own mouths.) But, I pulled this one out of a dollar bin the other day: from 2010,
Vertigo Resurrected #1, featuring "Shoot" Written by Warren Ellis, pencils by Phil Jimenez, inks by Andy Lanning.
This was the infamous school-shooting issue of
Hellblazer, that was pulled in 1999 after the Columbine shootings: it would have been
Hellblazer #141. Ellis would leave the title early, at
#143; but I'm pretty sure he took his unused plots and folded them into
Strange Kisses at Avatar, where he would do a couple limited series and an ongoing featuring "combat magician" William Gravel; who, to be blunt, is a less conflicted, less pretty, Constantine with guns. (I don't fault Ellis for this, honestly: there's some book on the shelves right now that I swear is G.I. Robot with the serial numbers filed off...)
Son of a...just opening to the second page, and it refers to a school shooting in Spokane, where I currently live! Obviously I haven't read this recently. A parent drops their son off at school, taping it for their birthday, thus catching another student shooting him without warning, then killing himself. Psychiatrist Penny Carnes is investigating school shootings for the government; between that and listening to tapes from Jonestown I'm worried for her two pages in. She notices something on the tape, though; a face that appears at several other shootings: John Constantine. She tries to get a file on him, and while she gets the name, the file is restricted. But, when she returns to her office for her tape recorder (1999!) John's there, for a meeting. He'd started investigating the shootings himself, at a friend's request, after his son had been killed. John asks Penny if she's getting anywhere, and he knows damn well she isn't. He knows everyone's looking for a reason, something to blame, like video games or violent movies or rap music or food coloring, something; but John thinks those kids are already so broken by the world all they can do is sit there and wait for the bullet. He replays a tape with a kid with a gun in his face and tells Penny to look closely: she sees the kid mouth "shoot."
Since I try not to swear on the blog, I had to edit my original response; but that was nihilistic, try-hard edgy crap. Few people think clearly with a gun in their face, but even in America today I think most kids want to live. I don't remember thinking real deeply about this one before, but I don't think I hated it the way I do now. Getting old. And while I knew this wasn't going to have a fix, Constantine wasn't going to find that the shootings were caused by Neron or some nonsense, it's crap that he gets a tirade about the futility of looking for something to blame, before giving another something to blame.
Also this issue: a ton of shorts from Vertigo limited series like
Strange Adventures,
Heartthrobs,
Weird War Tales, and
Flinch. (OK,
Flinch wasn't a limited, but even so.) The selections bring a laundry list of big names for the cover, but in keeping with the theme most of them aren't the cheeriest stories. (Scan from "The Kapas" by Brian Bolland.)
