Hellblazer #11

Issue Details

Synopsis

1988: John Constantine goes up north to the town of Newcastle and strolls through the ruins of what used to be the old Casanova Club. There is very little left of the building, and what remains of it is part of a junk yard. John asks the owner if he can look around and the man asks him what he's looking for. John replies, "memories". Examining a ruined automobile, he finds a broken arm from a doll. Leaning over to look at it, his mind reflects back upon the single most harrowing experience of his life a decade previously. 1978: John & the rest of the Newcastle Crew take shelter at the (now-shut) Casanova Club where they had once gigged and they notice something is not right. They find the bodies of brutally murdered victims and the only living person is a young girl, named Astra Logue , who reveals she had summoned something to take revenge on the adults (including her own father) who had taken advantage of her both physically and sexually. In his arrogance John decides to exorcize the demon from Astra by summoning a more powerful demon (later revealed to be Nergal ) and things do not go according to plan, with John ending up holding onto Astra's dismembered  arm and the club burning down. John would end up in a psychiatric hospital and the lives of the rest of the members of the Newcastle Crew would be devastated too. The Newcastle Crew (1978) consisted of: John Constantine : the self-proclaimed leader and would-be exorcist; Franklin North : on holiday from trouble in California; Judith : hooked up with John at the North Beach Ashram studying tantric yoga; Anne-Marie : a lonely psychic, fat forty & secretly in love with John; Ritchie Simpson : a computer freak, deadhead and quantum magic pioneer; Gary Lester : a musician, counter-culture clone and a small-time conjurer; Benjamin Cox : a spooky 12-year-old genius and encyclopaedia of arcana.