Hellblazer #146

Hellblazer #146 opens Brian Azzarello and Richard Corben's five-part "Hard Time" arc, and Tim Bradstreet's cover sets an immediately oppressive tone through three stark, stacked images: a haggard John Constantine — cigarette in hand, staring out from behind prison bars — above a dirt yard littered with spent cigarette butts, above a guard tower silhouetted against a bruised sunset sky. The composition says everything about where Constantine has landed without a word of dialogue. For fans of Vertigo's grittier, more grounded storytelling, this March 2000 issue promises something rawer and more confined than the occult globe-trotting of earlier chapters in John's life.