#Constantine: distorted illusions

[rustandruin]

Constantine: Distorted Illusions by Kami Garcia and Isaac Goodhart

Thursday, 23 March 2023

Let me first start by saying I LOVE this line of YA DC comics. It’s a solid introduction to iconic characters for younger readers and serves as a great bridge to the comics. I’ve devoured Beast Boy and Raven, which Garcia wrote.

That said… I’m a bit ambivalent about this one.

I’m a big John Constantine fan. Like annoyingly so. But while I think it is a fun idea so tackle his younger days and explore his relationship with his father as well as his propensity for getting himself into messes (this recreating the pattern he’ll encounter as an adult), I think this was a slight miss for me. Because he didn’t feel like a teenage John Constantine.

He felt like a generic teen boy protagonist who is stubborn and does magic and accidentally summons a demon and causes trouble. There was none of the nuance and grit that makes him so unique. He didn’t feel like there were traces of the adult he’d grownup into. As a result it didn’t really feel like a Constantine book. Which was a bummer because I really wanted to like this! (Maybe if it had been a different author? One who could set the story in the U.K. and let Constantine stay true to his rough and tumble roots? Maybe something set at a school he eventually is kicked out of for doing magic? I don’t think there was much value in sending him to the U.S. Though I was hoping he’d meet teen Zatanna.)

Even the whole thing with him and his dad and how all that was resolved felt very… safe and teen. I’m glad this story was told but I think it could have been told more subtly and less on the nose. There was a lot more declaring of feelings and history than gently guiding us through it.

The art of this was interesting. Not sure if this is the style I’d pick for a Constantine YA comic. It reminded me of animation from the 80s, like She-Ra esque? Something about it felt just a bit too sleek for this character, though I really appreciate the poses and overall drama of the composition and the various character designs. It’s cool because it really highlights how comics needs to be a real marriage of medium to be most effective. The Teen Titans books work because Gabriel Piccolo’s art captures the big energy of characters like those and so those books feel further like the stories of those characters.

That said. I really dug when we saw Constantine in the teen version of his future outfit. I’m a sucker for that beige trench coat.

I’ll probably read the next one that comes out and will keep reading this whole line because I love what they’re doing. I’m giving it an extra star because it’s Constantine.

⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

[jasontoddsguns]

They uploaded Constantine distorted illusions onto rco…..

YOAI MOUTH

[venus-of-the-hrdsell]

If they wanted to publish a YA Constantine graphic novel they could have done something interesting and give us a slasher format horror story with him as a protagonist. If there's anything good he does is survival at extreme conditions.

DC comics needs to think outside of the box.

[dumbassalex]

So I wanna talk Constantine Distorted Illusions some more, not just about it's editorial language mistake. Specificaly about how Kami Garcia changing the magic system and Johns living situation changes how we look at John as a person.

Because Hellblazer John is kinda permanently in survival mode, as somebody who went through lotsa trauma since leaving the womb, he had to learn to build defence systems and survival skills. He was failed by his father and by the system as a mentaly ill queer kid from the 50s/60s that ended up homeless in his teens, so alot of his cynical and selfish behavior makes sense when looking at John as a survivor.

The way magic works in his story also supports looking at John as somebody who worked hard to get where he is.

Here comes Distorted Illusions....oh boy.

So firstly Johns mother is alive, his father is absent rather than abusive, and there's a supprtive and seemingly nice step-father. Secondly he lives in a middle-class (or even upper class) household. Has been born with some of the strongest natural talents for magic thanks to his dads blood, making magic something you have to be born a special way to be able to use rather than something you learn through hard work, his step-dad is another very powerful magician, and John is given support and oputurnities to train and learn more magic by his family and family friends, exept he doesn't take them and shoots them down. So already John comes from somebody who's an asshole as a defense mechanism to somebody who's an asshole basicly for the sake of it.

Next is my biggest problem with John in the story, and that's how vengeful he is, everytime somebody doesn't let him do whatever he wants or he experiences consequences for his actions, rather than learn he does something spiteful (like stealing a magic book from the lady that was supposed to teach him, or trying to curse the guy that blacklisted them from every club in the city for burning up his equipment).

So really John went from a lower class survivor that worked for everything and built a hard shell of cynicism and assholery to a middle to upper-class entitled asshole who needed an ego check. While John being a punk in his teens and young adulthood was a reflection of his mindset on life, world and the system that failed him and his mates, DI John is not much more than a poser who likes the aestethic and sound but holds none of the soul and values of punk.

It also changes how we look at the "well-off gentleman" look of John.

His blue suit (and originaly white gloves) is like a smart facade of a smart and elegant man when he's actualy a street rat, it helps the con-man part of John.

Meanwhile DIs Johns "classic" outfit is like a more mellowed out version of his classic outfit, where while both show off his middle-class status and money, his final outfit is more "normal" and "smarter" rather than the pretty obviously artoficialy raggety but still expensive clothes he wore before.

[moltage]

2022 did enough damage to John Constantine with Distorted Illusions alone

[wait----------what]

Sometimes its best to ignore random people's opinions when you didn't ask for them. It probably just got on the wrong end of the Internet for a bit and is fine

Yeah this is not one of those times, this thing deserved the hate it got

[ralsky]

Look at how they massacred my boy

[petty-d4bblr]

Told you he was wizard Barbie!

Fans: can we have a continuation of Spurrier and Co's excellent Hellblazer comics, please?

DC: No. But you can have a Constantine novel where he looks like Wizard Barbie.

[batmanego]

distorted illusions constantine

[takaraphoenix]

Family Trees of the Multiverse: Constantine-Zatara Family

I was honestly not aware that John had that many children; Noah and the demon spawns were new to me. Still, I combined Zee and John’s tree because Zee’s alone would be a little too tiny and they do share two children.

As usual, color-coded for easier visibility on who shares a continuity.

Vertigo universe exclusive: brown

Prime Earth: black

New Earth exclusive: red

Earth-22 [Kingdom Come]: dark pink

Earth-24 [Bombshells]: light blue

Unnamed Earth [Jewel of Gravesend]: purple

Unnamed Earth [Distorted Illusions]: lavender

Also, I chose to feature JoG!Zatanna separately because between the adopted name and the purple-haired redesign, it seemed worth separating, though they are versions of the same character.

[liliegrayson]

constantine: distorted illusions (2022)

writer: kami garcia artist: isaac goodheart

[constantineshots]

THANK YOUUUUUUU

Distorted illusions took 40 years off my lifespan so heres my take on a young 70s punk john instead

[dumbassalex]

Oh..oh my god, i was reading Constantine Distorted Illusions outta morbit interest (save the prayers, i did this by my own choice, i deserve this) and outside of everything mentioned i gotta mention this absolute Great Britain sized FUCK UP

Now most of you will not notice but this...this is not Chechen, this is CZECH. That's a whole another place. This is an official DC property released worldwide and they make this sort of a fuck up.

And here is the funniest part, this shit happened before with the Boston bombings from 2013 and i think Trump once mistaken the two, even tho Chechnya is near Russia, Czechia is basicly right in the center of Europe, even called Heart of Europe at times.

This took me like 20 seconds to fact czech (well technicaly a single fucking second as a native czech but when it comes to Google it was about 20 seconds).

Kami Garcia and Steve Wands (the letterer) and the two editors didn't fucking notice this.

Also i wanna just add some more fire to this, the translation box says "no one listens to these things anymore" when the czech box says "no one buys these things".

[ravensvirginity]

Everytime i remember Constantine: Distorted Illusions i wanna go back to Kami Garcias Teen Titans stuff to see if they were all THAT bad and i am scared of the result.

I've never read the Constantine book but Garcia's Titans books are imo not great BUT I can't just blame her bc they have a huge amount of executive meddling to just create the ideal ya graphic novel

[librarycomic]

Constantine: Distorted Illusions written by Kami Garcia and drawn by Isaac Goodhart. DC Graphic Novels for Young Adults, 2022. 9781779507730. 192pp. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781779507730?partnerid=34778&p_bt

This graphic novel reinvents Constantine as a hot, eighteen-year-old, bisexual British musician/song writer who dresses in black and favors punk music. He's also a talented magician like both his father and stepfather, Roderick. Constantine's relationship with his father is not good, and when Roderick tries to set up an apprenticeship for Constantine, he rejects that, too. But his friend Veronica gets him to reconsider -- if he does the apprenticeship to learn about magic he can be the lead singer for her band. The story is a mix of drama involving the band, its gigs, and demonic magic gone awry.

The way creative teams weave in LGBTQ+ content into so many of these DC graphic novels for young people is great, and this is no exception. The weirdest thing about it is seeing Constantine without his cigarettes (read an adult Hellblazer graphic novel if you don't know what I mean), but seeing him cast as a teenage bad boy who mostly does the right thing is fun. I enjoyed this book, and would have absolutely loved it when I was about fourteen.

[ninelivesart]

Part 2 of my insane plan to draw all the MCs from the books I’ve read this year.

John Constantine from Constantine: Distorted Illusions by Kami Garcia and Isaac Goodhart.