Hellblazer #5: When Johnny Comes Marching Home
Writer: Jamie Delano
Artist: John Ridgeway

Yep, I’m still on this series and milking it for all it’s worth.  I am yearning a bit more for some God/Devil interaction and perhaps some more demon-type battles. I suppose resurrections of old war heroes will have to do.  Constantine as usual barely influences the situation while smoking/getting drunk, but things tend to work out alright. It’s really a good thing that hes watching out for mankind you know.  The horrors of the Vietnam (and any war really) is quite apparent in the point the author is trying to make.I’m not really talking about the war-type horrors, sure every morning wasn’t napalm strikes and safari adventures, people died, friends lost and general depression all around. It was the way this depression affected the mindsets of the troops and the often extreme measures they went to deal with it. During Vietnam, heroin use was introduced, and of course having something so life-endingly addictive around made it hard for the troops to function without it. Most of this knowledge came from a History Channel special “The Drug Years” which chronicled this drug’s involvement with US soldiers. I also found this source to show the extreme differences between an average civilian and the returning vet as far as this use goes.  I tried to find the exact clip where they show that the government aided in the supply to keep the soldiers functioning, but a search of YouTube was inconclusive and of course filled with too many stupid hippie stoner commenters anyhow. (Kind of sad that I just used the words “YouTube” and “inconclusive” in the same sentence as if it was some research grade material, but whatever.)

I’m definitely not a conspiracy theory person, since most of what the government does is not a conspiracy and is plain in sight. I’m also not a hippie sympathizer, they need to stop being selfish. But this issue was right, the cost to the troops sent over there was immense, and should have caused even more of a stir back home. Maybe zombies were a bit over the top, but it would certainly get the point across.  Who knew a semi-religious comic could be so political? I suppose there is no separation of church and state in the UK.