Hellblazer #209

Leonardo Manco's interiors and Tim Bradstreet's cover art make this August 2005 Vertigo entry a compelling package — Bradstreet renders a close, moody portrait of John Constantine, cigarette in hand, while a gallery of grotesque, scarred, and monstrous faces looms above him in the darkness. It's a composition that captures the series' signature atmosphere: one very human figure surrounded by forces far more dangerous than he looks. Mike Carey's six-part "Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go" reaches its midpoint here, and the cover alone suggests Constantine's world is getting considerably more crowded with the wrong kind of company.