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Sandman Mystery Theatre:  The Vamp

by Steven T. Segle and Matt Wagner

DC Comics, $101

Constantine Hellblazer:  Red Sepulchre

by Mike Carey

DC Comics, $101

Nostalgia, they say, isn't what it used to be, but in the case of Sandman Mystery Theatre it surely is. Reprinted as four graphic novels, the latest incarnation is  borne of a series of 1990s comic books that  harked back  to the superhero of the 1930s. It's  nostalgia for the nostalgia of the previous decade. Go figure.

In The Vamp, the third of four instalments, a group of powerful women, who were once in a sorority together, plan to create a secret commune. But one of them, who was brutally raped by fraternity boys in college, has a penchant for vengeance of serial-killer proportions. As the bodies mount up, Wesley Dodds,  aka the Sandman, and his frustrated sweetheart Dian navigate their mutual friends and acquaintances in search of answers, neither realising  the other is doing the same. The plot clips along merrily, and, despite their hard work, more frat-boys turn up dead - until Dian and Wesley join forces.

The Sandman's disguise, a gasmask and fedora, is a powerful symbol of the terror of nuclear attack that dominated all aspects of life in the US of the post-war years. In the mid-90s, many (wrongly) felt that  the country, emerging from the cold war era, was on the verge of  leaving behind its strongman past as a military industrial complex. Sandman Mystery Theatre reflects that strand of thinking. He's a sensitive guy who gets by on brains, but with enough steel beneath the gentlemanly exterior to get the job done. No sock-'em-out superhero, he simply wants justice.

The authors and artist pull no punches when depicting racism in the US and the rich in their high-security enclaves. Naturally, the women want their own safe haven. Part of the message is that bad people - even serial killers on a jag and lazy rich boys - deserve a little understanding.

There's nothing PC about the nostalgia in the Constantine Hellblazer comic series. John Constantine is  a former punk rocker who, having dabbled in the occult and been dragged to hell, went insane, and now walks the earth trapped, like so many 70s bad-boys, in the body of a middle-aged man. Meanwhile, the world has left him behind and become - in his view - seriously tacky.

Constantine has survived hell, alcoholism, lung cancer and British food and now saves people by chatting up demons and occasionally raising the Indian goddess Kali.  He, just like punk rock, is egalitarian, ageing, jaded and more than vaguely  angry at life. He gives the impression of someone who once did too many drugs, but wishes he'd done more.

The lower-class English is rendered with a tin ear. The character's stances are canned. But the story moves along, and moves you with it as a group of acquaintances live their everyday lives while consorting with demons. It's soap opera with flesh-eating monsters thrown in.

In Red Sepulchre, Constantine's niece Gemma  heads for London  to 'take up the family business', meaning the occult. Following, Constantine runs into a passel of old and rather strange friends, who all appear to have rather too much time on their hands,  and has to deal with  a relic of Kali.

If Constantine's attitudes are typical of his countrymen, it's no wonder Kali's followers used to strangle white men by the roadside under the British Raj. But Constantine is somehow still a loveable rogue. Perhaps that's the trick of being English, damn it.



Sandman Mystery Theatre:  The Vamp