Part of Series
The streetwise, chain-smoking con-magician John Constantine finds himself in receipt of a most perplexing birthday gift: a memory wrapped up in a warning. As Constantine tries to figure out what it means, the brutal African war-mage known as Mako hits London—and he's taking no prisoners... As bloodthirsty war-mage Mako carves a bloody swath through London's occult underworld, John Constantine tries to rally his former allies. But he has burned a lot of bridges lately, and he's starting to look like a man with a target on his back. Just a few hours away, there is a room at the heart of the Vatican known as The Confessional, where any act may be committed without fear of guilt or sin. Here, the temptations of the flesh are drawn out and expunged through indulgence. But when something goes horribly wrong, a priest with a terrible secret is forced to turn to an outsider for help ... an outsider named John Constantine. John Constantine finds himself ensnared in a web of scandal that penetrates to the very heart of the Vatican. But Constantine has friends in low places, and his own hidden agenda that revolves around an ancient book buried deep within the Vatican's forbidden library. Collects: John Constantine: Hellblazer Vol. 21 collects John Constantine: Hellblazer #239-249 and Hellblazer Special: Lady Constantine #1-4
Authors
Jason Aaron grew up in a small town in Alabama. His cousin, Gustav Hasford, who wrote the semi-autobiographical novel The Short-Timers, on which the feature film Full Metal Jacket was based, was a large influence on Aaron. Aaron decided he wanted to write comics as a child, and though his father was skeptical when Aaron informed him of this aspiration, his mother took Aaron to drug stores, where he would purchase books from spinner racks, some of which he still owns today. Aaron's career in comics began in 2001 when he won a Marvel Comics talent search contest with an eight-page Wolverine back-up story script. The story, which was published in Wolverine #175 (June 2002), gave him the opportunity to pitch subsequent ideas to editors. In 2006, Aaron made a blind submission to DC/Vertigo, who published his first major work, the Vietnam War story The Other Side which was nominated for an Eisner Award for Best Miniseries, and which Aaron regards as the "second time" he broke into the industry. Following this, Vertigo asked him to pitch other ideas, which led to the series Scalped, a creator-owned series set on the fictional Prairie Rose Indian Reservation and published by DC/Vertigo. In 2007, Aaron wrote Ripclaw: Pilot Season for Top Cow Productions. Later that year, Marvel editor Axel Alonso, who was impressed by The Other Side and Scalped, hired Aaron to write issues of Wolverine, Black Panther and eventually, an extended run on Ghost Rider that began in April 2008. His continued work on Black Panther also included a tie-in to the company-wide crossover storyline along with a "Secret Invasion" with David Lapham in 2009. In January 2008, he signed an exclusive contract with Marvel, though it would not affect his work on Scalped. Later that July, he wrote the Penguin issue of The Joker's Asylum. After a 4-issue stint on Wolverine in 2007, Aaron returned to the character with the ongoing series Wolverine: Weapon X, launched to coincide with the feature film X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Aaron commented, "With Wolverine: Weapon X we'll be trying to mix things up like that from arc to arc, so the first arc is a typical sort of black ops story but the second arc will jump right into the middle of a completely different genre," In 2010, the series was relaunched once again as simply Wolverine. He followed this with his current run on Thor: God of Thunder.
Andy Diggle is a British comic book writer and former editor of 2000 AD. He is best known for his work on The Losers,Swamp Thing, Hellblazer, Adam Strange and Silent Dragon at DC Comics and for his run on Thunderbolts and Daredevil after his move to Marvel. In 2013 Diggle left writing DC's Action Comics and began working with Dynamite Entertainment, writing a paranormal crime series Uncanny. He is also working on another crime series with his wife titled Control that is set to begin publishing in 2014.
