Rake At The Gates Of Hell Part 2: In which the plot gets slightly advanced, despite the best efforts of Garth Ennis.
This, in essence, is what happens: John gets threatened by Sarah; Chas and Lucy turn up with a friend and save John; Phil tortures someone, and then finds Sarah; The first of the Fallen gloats like a melodrama villain, acts like a two-bit thug, and destroys he-whose-name-isn't-Beelzebub and he-who's-name-really-isn't-Azazel, leaving other writers to do the continuity stuff.
That's about it for the plot. There is some other nonsense about John finding out about George, questioning a copper, and deciding George can sort himself out. And George gets a talk with the local cross-section of the black community. And John treats the readers to a homily on The Depths Of The Human Soul. And that, except for a talk with his old friend Nigel, in which a mentioned character's name changes from Mary to Mark within five sentences, really is all the news.
It's not all aborted and going-nowhere storylines, though. Ennis does keep things going - there's a few pages where John warns Gabriel that there will be an opportunity to fight the First of the Fallen soon, in between taunting him and taunting him. And there's the final panel, where Satan's right hand entity plots to destroy him. It's just that these foreshadowings only seem to promise scenes like the last, where Satan acts like a being unlikely to keep control over a rowdy bar, let alone the hordes of hell. The art is the usual Steve Dillon, and the cover by Glenn Fabry is, as always, gorgeous.
All in all, one to skip.
Art:3
Writing:.5
Andrew