I love comic books. Always have. I used to read all the usual BS books when I was a kid; Richie Rich, Archie, Casper and the like. My first real comic, as with just about everything I love to this day, was my brother’s.

The year was 1982. I had no idea how Regan was fucking up the economy, a cold war was people fighting in the snow, and nuclear weapons were just a cool premise for movies. Polyurethane roller skates were hip, and so was Van Halen. I was nine years old.

For reasons unknown, my brother brought home a copy of Uncanny X-men #162. Not much of a reader, the book was quickly discarded, and snatched up by yours truly. No stranger to hand-me-downs and eager to be down with what the cool 12 year olds like my brother were into, I tended to acquire all his cast-off possessions.

X-men #162 is sitting on the desk next to me as I write this. It is NOT in mint condition. In fact, according to comic collector lingo, it would rate as:

FAIR (FR) Very heavily read and soiled, but still complete. Damaged beyond being collectable for most collectors, brings 30 to 50 percent of the good price.

It is a comic that was well read and well loved over the last 23 years, and it shows. In the story, the X-men have been kidnapped by an alien race called the Brood, who are kind of like gigantic scaly killer bees. The brood lay their eggs in host bodies, like a human being, and when the egg hatches, it forces the host into a metamorphosis into a young brood with all the knowledge and abilities of the host. Thus, the X-men, with their mutant powers, make excellent hosts, as their powers will pass on to the hatchling when it matures.

The X-men are drugged and taken to Broodworld, where they are all implanted with eggs and hypnotized into thinking they are the honored guests of a beautiful avian race.

But Wolverine, with his hyper-senses and mutant healing abilities, pierces the illusion, and escapes. Alone on broodworld, Wolverine must evade the brood hunters (he calls them Sleazoids) who track him while simultaneously fighting the influence of the hatchling inside him.

Wolverine goes on what Uma Thurman would call a roaring rampage of revenge, killing Sleazoids and alien yuk-monsters galore, and finally killing the egg within him. Realizing that his teammates, lacking his healing ability, have no hope of surviving the hatching of the eggs within them, he decides to kill them before they can become Sleazoids themselves. The issue ends with him vowing to kill all his friends.

Sweet baby jesus, that was a great book! Much of the nerd I am today is thanks to that incredible book. If it hadn’t been so good…

Anyway, I say this not to bore you with my nostalgia, but to try and convey what comics mean to me. I was never terribly popular in school. I didn’t really get my social wings until college. Up until then, I had a handful of friends, and my comics. More often than not, the comics WERE my friends.

So when a movie is made based on comic characters, I don’t give it a free pass. Nay, I judge it all the harder, because the source material is so dear to me. It’s like sizing up a guy to see if he’s good enough to date your sister… only more so, since this is actually important. That’s why I get so incredibly angry at bad comic book movies. More often than not, the producers of the movie have no real understanding of the characters they’re working with, and you get shit movies like Daredevil, or Catwoman. I’d rather they not make comic movies at all than take a character who’s like an old friend to me and just… piss on them.

On the flip side, movies like the recent Spider-man and X-men films really show just how much you can do with these characters, if you have a good story and good FX. I can watch any of those four movies 10,000 times and not get tired of it.

Which brings me to Constantine. It’s coming out this week. Tomorrow, I think.

For those of you who don’t know, Constantine draws its name from John Constantine: Hellblazer, a comic from the Vertigo line of DC comics. Vertigo books tend to exist outside of the traditional DC universe, and are much more hard-hitting than your average issue of Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen, or whatever. Vertigo books are marked ‘for mature readers only’, and frequently contain profanity, nudity, and enormous amounts of violence.

Seriously. I’m talking some sick-ass, fucked up violence. What you’re picturing right now is about a 4. Crank that shit up to 11.

Hellblazer is a book about John Constantine, a foul-mouthed Brit with a thick accent, a bad attitude, and a penchant for alcohol and fags (cigarettes, not boy-bum). John is kind of a paranormal investigator, though more by heritage than any love of the job. He’s angry, miserable to be around, and brings misfortune to everyone he meets.

The thing I love best about John is that he seemingly has no powers. He knows a lot about magic, but he never really uses any. He gets out of his problems by way of sheer attitude and resourcefulness.

Yet he runs with the best of them. John regularly confronts arch-fiends, demons, magi, and the devil himself. And he comes out on top. Like Batman, he keeps up with the big boys on sheer willpower.

John will get sucked into Hell, let’s say, by some punk goth kids whose ouija board got away from them. The next day, he’ll show up and kick the crap out of the kids and scare them straight. When the kids have run off, someone will say, “John, how did you ever escape Hell?”

And John will reply, “Oi, well, I tricked me this sodding chaos-demon into thinking oy ‘ad the gem of Mogadushoo in me pocket, but it was just a bottle-cap. When the scaly tosser took me to the seventh layer, oy gave him the cap and a kick in the bollocks for ‘is trouble. Then oy lit me a fag and waited for a dimension hopping flarg-devil to come by. Flarg-devils are right-stupid, so oy told ‘im…”

Etc, etc. Essentially, John just has to bullshit his way out of everything. He gets his ass kicked all the time, but never stops cursing out the kickers, and in the end, you see he was playing them for fools all along. Awesome character. Awesome book. Give it a try. I recommend starting with Dangerous Habits.

So I was kind of intrigued when I heard they were making a movie. Hellblazer is a pretty obscure book. It’s not a property you acquire at random. I thought the odds were good that the producer would be a fan of the book and would do it right.

Then I heard they were making Constantine American. Right off, I was worried. Without words like sodding, bollocks, and tosser, would it be the John Constantine I knew and loved?

Then I heard they were casting Keanu Reeves. I prayed I was wrong. We know from Dracula that Keanu can’t do a British accent for shit, so that explained that, but still. That asshole can’t act his way out of a paper bag.

There have been good movies starring Keanu Reeves. I don’t deny it. Bill & Ted, Speed, the Matrix. All good movies, but I would argue that they were so in spite of him. In Bill & Ted acting wasn’t really needed. He just needed to be stoned. Piece of cake. Speed… shit, I don’t know how that one worked. There was a magic formula that I’ve never seen repeated. And the Matrix was just right for Keanu, because the whole movie hinged on him being the clueless character the audience follows, so we learn about everything at the same time he does. As the subsequent movies show, once he stopped being clueless, his weakness as an actor became VERY apparent.

So, shit. Bad actor, no British cussing… what next? Would he stop chain smoking? Well, this is Holywood, so I bed that’s true, too. In the comics, you never see JOhn without a cigarette in his hand. I bet he doesn’t light up in the movie more than twice, if at all.

But still, I hoped. So I watched the previews. Now I’m really worried. So far as I can tell, this movie has absolutely nothing to do with the character from the comics.

Which would be fine. Make your movie about Keanu Reeves the paranormal investigator, and call him something else! But no, they want to ensure that the hardcore geek audience is a locked in demographic, so they pervert the Constantine name, knowing that all the suckers will now have to see it.

What galls me is that now when this movie tanks, there will officially be no hope of them ever doing it right.

Bollocks.