The Red Right Hand collects the remaining issues of Denise Mina's run of Hellblazer and, well, fuck, I wanted more. Not more issues by Mina, but more from the conclusion of her run. In the previous volume, Empathy is the Enemy, she does a good job of setting things up as the world is fucked as empathy becomes rampant, driving people to suicide from feeling the pain of others. How John and co. deal with the problem, though, left me wanting.
Don't get me wrong, there are some nice bits, like how the fate of the world relied on the England/Portugal World Cup game and . . . actually, that was the only thing that really impressed me.
Most of the story is everyone standing around, figuring out what to do while they're conveniently not affected by the empathy "virus." Sure, there are reasons, but it's just hard to take it seriously when over half a dozen people are standing around, trying to figure it all out.
Really, the biggest problem I had with this collection was the ending itself, which is supposed to have weight and meaning, but falls flat with a sacrifice made by a character we barely care about. Who cares?
It's not that the story itself is bad, it's just not great. It's a serviceable, mediocre story really. The set-up was good, but the delivery just couldn't live up to its promise.
And I see that next month (unless Wikipedia lies to me) has the final collection of Mike Carey's run released. After I get that, maybe I'll begin buying up the Delano and Ennis trades.
Phoenix #5 annotations
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