#it almost feels like ennis dialing up all the aspects of his original run to up to 11 but it doesn't quite work either

[mutalieju]

tbh garth ennis did not focus on john's relationships with kids which is probably the weakest aspect of ennis's characterization of john. Of course even he writes john's relationship with gemma well.

With the way even being reminded of astra is obviously massively traumatic to john a charitable reading would be that john is just avoiding it all but it's just true that children as a rule are conspicuously absent as characters in his run over all.

(There is of course 'son of man' aka the later arc he pops in to write which infamously has a two-page rant by john about how much he hates kids but you do really need to consider how you want to engage with that considering the overall story and the levels of irony and unreliable narration the story is working on.)