Dylan Dog meets John Constantine

I read the Batman / Dylan Dog limited series, three issues, all available now on the subscription service, DC Universe Infinite Ultra or whatever it is called. I've never read any Dylan Dog material before, I thought this was very good, apparently written and drawn by creators in Europe. Dylan's assistant Groucho (who resembles Groucho Marx) cracked me up - would this be possible with any modern celebrity?

The second issue of this team-up is the best, because it really doesn't involve Batman very much. The story is about Dylan Dog, who needs to take a trip to Hell to see if a serial killer named Killex is still there - or has his soul been called back to Earth? To accomplish this, Dylan Dog, who is in London, looks up John Constantine, Hellblazer. Constantine takes Dylan to Hell - but this version of Hell looks like the modern Piccadilly Circus!

This leads Constantine to reminisce about what this location was back in the good old days - the 1980s. I visited here around 1978 and remember it pretty much the way Constantine does. People were sitting around that fountain, eating fish and chips or smoking a cigarette. It was very busy but not overcrowded. When I re-visited this area in 2015, I was astonished at how commercialized the area was and people were swarming the streets. I imagine people have the same feelings about Times Square in NYC.

Constantine continues his take down on modern life, music and social media on the next page. Everybody has their own personal version of Hell - for Constantine, this is it, modern-technological Piccadilly Circus. Dylan rebuts this take-down on the next page, by calling Constantine a "boomer". Later in the story, they are aided by another supernatural DC character, The Demon. 

All in all, this was a fun series and it was good to learn about Dylan Dog. Hardly any of his adventures seem to be translated to English. John Constantine was very entertaining in this second issue and is prompting me to re-read some of the other Vertigo stories.