#john Constantine stop selling your soul goddammit

[foxgivenblank]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Danny Phantom, Hellblazer & Related Fandoms Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: John Constantine & Danny Fenton, Danny Fenton & Frostbite Characters: Danny Fenton, John Constantine, Frostbite (Danny Phantom) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghost Cores (Danny Phantom), John Constantine is a Mess, constantine is danny fentons dad, kind of it's complicated, ghosts can get extra parents-for fun and as a treat, lore about the yetis, no beta we die like danny, Not Beta Read, it is so funny to me to imagine that the yetis have all these medical diagrams that are so so old Series: Part 2 of The DC and Phantom ones Summary:

John Constantine sold his soul as often as he had to. Came with the job of wanting the earth to keep spinning and people to keep living. Demons bought his soul just as often because if you couldn't even get a deal out of Constantine, what kind of demon were you anyway?

Danny was just minding his own business tripping in the portal and it just so happened that shortly before he opened the portal on top of himself, a demon had discarded the latest shard of Constantine's soul in the zone on their way to the hells. Nobody has a say in this and nobody is really happy with it either.

@stealingyourbones

[awesome22123]

LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS

Right off the bat I wanna say I love Constantine, the character, John is my favorite bisexual arsehole. And I got really excited when I first heard the news that we’d be getting more comics about him. Sure I’m a little late in picking them up but better sometime than never right? Here’s some of the things that have been glaringly obvious on my first read through

The most recent [and I’m talking like 2015-6 recent] attempt at DC to make Constantine a more mainstream character. Since he’s always been a more callous and dark story it could be tough to get the age group DC usually aims for with most of their comics [13+] to get into reading a swearing, dark magic abusing alcoholic. That’s the kinda junk bad guys do. So they’ve tried to sort of tone him down.

While I love John,  he’s my favorite idiot, I’m used to the grungy bastard from the original DC run and Vertigo’s guy.

Even though that’s still kinda new, 2000′s ish, but it’s a good representation of the kind of grunge I expect from John Constantine. 

This guy still looks too clean cut. Like you might still introduce this dude to your friends, maybe a brother. Older Constantine is someone you’d kick back into the gutter to get away from if you saw him in the middle of the night. That’s the John I know.

Before we even talk about all the other junk that stuck out to me, this stuck out every single time mentioned. John has more eyes for blokes [one in particular in this volume] but they’re showing off more of John’s attraction towards men from the start here. Yes he’s bisexual, yes that’s how it’s been since the beginning, he’s a bi character, you’ll never take him from me, not even from my cold dead hands. And while it does touch on his life’s big in love moment, and it was with a woman, it feels like they’re trying to showcase his bisexuality more and his tastes in men. I’m all for that, I love that, I WANT THAT IN MORE BOOKS GODDAMMIT. 

It still feels slightly like a very obvious statement on his sexuality, like I can’t put it into words very well but it’s like they’re trying to make up for him having more sexual interaction with females in the past by inserting more thoughts on how he sees the men around him. And it feels a teeny bit in your face almost. I don’t know if that’s cause I’ve gotten so used to seeing that kinda shit from a straight persons point of view in comics and books and EVERYWHERE, so my brain is picking up on it more easily cause I haven’t seen it as much. Or if it is as forced in there as other romances usually are in plots these days. Still unsure about that, gunna think on it a bit more.

Let’s get back to that attempt at mainstreaming this storyline eh? DC’s ratings go from E- for everyone up to mature. So if we’re talking mainstream comics and culture we’re talking shit that’s somewhere between E for everyone and  Teen Plus [which is 15+]. Now, considering most of the shit that happens in Hellblazer; selling your soul to demons, hanging out with them, summoning them, rampant alcoholism, non-stop smoking, possessions, blood and carnage, random shagging [sometimes demonic sometimes not] it feels like it should be more for mature readers. Yanno intense violence, extensive profanity, nudity, sexual themes.

Here’s what they’ve done to mainstream John

They censor the swear words, mostly Fuck [like oh no we can do all the others but not the big bad F word]. Which is more Teen+

John gets little pentagrams

And the ghosts get these cute little skulls 

Of course there’s nudity 

It’s mostly censored nudity, so even though everyone knows its there we don’t actually get to see it. So they can still let it pass for Teen+ [graphic imagery and/or suggestive themes]

But here’s something that hedges the dangerous side of the fence

We know he’s having a shag, we don’t see any of the bits and pieces, but it’s quite obvious he’s having a shag. Now yeah, I get what you’re saying, they didn’t show nothing, it still falls under suggestive theme. I would agree if it wasn’t for the definition of the mature rating, they’re bumped up from suggestive to sexual themes.

We are very aware that he’s having a shag, there’s nothing to suggest here lads, we know damn well it’s happening. Now, I’m not hung up on a technicality, maybe a tinge, but we’re talking about shagging a demon mate, that’s gotta bump it up a notch. 

Then we have our main issue of the comic, a vengeance monster coming along and going after all of John’s ghost friends [by that I mean all the friends John had who ended up dead cause he done ballsed something up and they ended up as ghosts haunting his arse]. And halfway through, he has a depressive episode, drinks himself stupid, and gets them destroyed into nothing. Lemme simplify, he already got these people killed once, and then he fucks up a second time and gets their ghosts turned into NOTHING during a drunken stupor. There ain’t nothing Teen+ about that besides John’s immaturity in handling the situation.

If we’re gunna show all of that crap but censor swearing, then you shouldn’t be wasting time with censorship to try and make this accessible to a slightly younger crowd. 

I want more John, but I want raw John, this feels more like a John that’s been watered down enough so you can give a half glass [with ice] to your younger brother so he doesn’t get fucking wasted cause you’re stuck babysitting but you wanted to throw a party with booze. 

I’m still gunna read the rest of this, I wanna see where they take him. I wanna see if we hit real grundge. And I would recommend it, but I’d recommend it after you’ve read some of the older stuff so you can see the difference between original and new.