Comicon Advent Calendar Day 18: Constantine & Luthor, A Christmas Carol

Welcome once more to the annual Xmas blow-out that is the Comicon Advent Calendar, bringing you a Christmas comic treat every single day of this advent season. After all, chocolates are so bad for you…

For this 18th day of advent, we’re heading back just a single year, to 2024 and DC’s ‘Twas The Mite Before Christmas collection, an anthology of Christmas-themed tales, from which the Lex-Tacular Christmas Carol stands out – with Lex playing the traditional role of Dickens’ Scrooge, as you can clearly see from that first page above.

Now, I have to admit, I’ve not got that much time for modern John Constantine, the youthful version cavorting with the capes. I much prefer the nasty, sarcastic, doom-laden, friend-destroying Liverpudlian magician that I grew up with through Alan Moore‘s Swamp Thing and Jamie Delano/Garth Ennis‘s Hellblazer, perfectly portrayed by the likes of Bisette, Totleben, Veitch, Ridgeway, Piers-Raynor and so many more greats on art. But in recent years, DC have taken this arch mage, the epitome of the whole original Vertigo thing, back into the whole wider DC Universe. Some of it’s been interesting, a little of it’s even been good. But so much of it has just been as bloody awful as you’d expect.

But going back to Hellblazer and the Constantine of the 90s, we were even blessed with one of the greatest of all Christmas tales – Lord of the Dance by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, from Hellblazer #49 (dated 1992 but out in time for Xmas 1991). A beautifully done thing, probably the reason why both myself and Anton picked it as a perfect example of getting Xmas comics right – I did it back in 2021, Anton did it this year. We both adore it.

So, given that modern, rubbing shoulders with the supertypes Constantine really isn’t my thing, plus the fact that the perfect Constantine Christmas story has been done a long time gone, imagine my surprise when I found myself actually rather enjoying this Christmas Constantine tale.

Although, as you may have realised already, this 10-pager is more Luthor than it is Constantine – with dear old (although annoyingly youthful looking) Johnny only actually making an appearance on page 8 of 10. Oops, spoilers.

Anyway, of course it’s all about Dickens’ Christmas Carol, with everything falling predictably into place as Luthor plays the role of Scrooge. We get the whole Bah, Humbug thing, see Luthor making his poor employees’ lives a misery, especially pestering Bob in production, whose young lad, Timmy, of course, has his own medical issues – it might be Christmas Eve, but Luthor needs those numbers… yes, say it with me, Bah, Humbug.

All of which brings us to Luthor and the traditional Christmas Eve visitations – Luthor ‘s dad taking the role of Marley here, followed by the usual hauntings of the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, all with the notion they’re going to change Scrooge Luthor’s ways. First it’s Amity Arkham, then Boston Brand/Deadman, and finally, The Spectre….

Or rather, as Luthor immediately worked out, Constantine…

Credit where credit is due, the whole thing of the Spectre being his usual pompous self only to have John tell him to do one… that’s a nicely timed bit of funny right there.

So, John’s done all this purely to stick two fingers up to ‘The Man’ and Luthor? Well, it wouldn’t be a Christmas Carol if he didn’t turn around on Christmas Day and be just a little changed.

Sure, it’s not ‘My’ Constantine, but what the hell, it’s Christmas, let’s cut the tale some slack. Merry Christmas Lex Luthor, Merry Christmas this new John Constantine.

‘Twas The Mite Before Christmas #1 (2024) – Lex-Tacular Christmas Carol – by Ethan Stacks and Soo Lee, colours by John Kalosz, letters by Becca Carey