Marj

MARJ

Real Name: Marj (last name unrevealed)

Class: Human magic-user

Occupation: Peace activist

Group Affiliation: Freedom Mob

Known Relatives: Mercury (daughter), unnamed mother

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Scotland, formerlyEnglish countryside

First Appearance: Hellblazer #14 (December, 1988)

Powers: Marj was a skilled outdoorswoman, and an amateur pagan magician.

History: (Hellblazer #38 (fb, BTS)) - The first time Marj’s mother left her home alone she returned to find that she threw a party with the Satan’s Slaves motorcycle club. Half of them were passed out on the lawn, and half were in bed with Marj.

(Hellblazer #14, 15) - Marj and her daughter Mercury were disaffected former city-dwellers that left to travel in a bus for the countryside with Marj‘s friend Eddy. They were members of the Peace Convoy until the police busted them up. They met a number of other counterestablishment lot, and named themselves the Freedom Mob. Merc had a talent for reading auras, and always knew a person’s character on meeting them. She had a history of taking in strays and wounded animals, so it was no surprise to Marj when she showed up at their bus with magician John Constantine. John had been falsely accused of ritual slayings, even though he fought the demons responsible for conflict on Earth. They wound up on private property that supported the Freedom Mob. Marj and Merc taught him to live off nature, and helped him build a wooden hut. John was amazed that he found an outlet to get back in touch with humanity, but found the outdoors lifestyle to be challenging to his city sensibilities. News spread that John was accused of being a satanic slayer by the city papers. Some feared he’d try to take out Eddy, who was viewed as a shaman and leader, but Merc knew he was innocent. Merc tried to cheer up John, and they followed ley-lines, and found them blocked by a power company. Merc couldn’t stand it, and hopped the company’s fence to complain, before executives sent them both packing. John had a bad trip, and after a walkabout he found Marj watching over him, telling him he needed mothering. They slept together, and John woke to Merc hinting that he should be her new dad.

(Hellblazer #16) - Police in riot gear attacked the Freedom Mob, and disabled all their motors before telling them to clear out. They put Marj and Mercury into custody, and when John tried to fight for them he was knocked uncosious. The police doped up Marj, and dropped her on the side of the road, telling her Mercury was going on vacation. When John woke he decided to venture into town to see if his friends were in custody. He found Marj, sedated out of her mind, at the police station, and the locals denied any involvement in the raid, or knowledge about Mercury’s whereabouts. John and Marj returned to the Mob, who decided to flee to Scotland. Marj recovered, and angrily asked if they remembered that her daughter was still missing. John loved being part of a tribe, and decided to find her. Marj drove him to the city, and he started his case.

(Hellblazer #18) - After weeks wandering Scotland Marj and the Mob found the Pagan Nation, who’d made a retreat on a glen approved for their use by a rock band. They wanted to rebuild life, and find their place in nature, and Marj was enthralled by them, and wanted to share their ways. They had a fire in the longhouse, and after Zed, an old girlfriend of Constantine’s, sang about the world, she initiated mass love-making between the Mob and Nation. Marj thought it was a deep religious experience, and wrote to John telling him to hurry up and find Mercury so they could enjoy the scene with her.

(Hellblazer #19, 20) - Zed convinced Marj that John would fail in his quest to return Merc, and they had to use their pagan magic. Marj accepted that John was a boy and didn’t understand life and love like mothers did, so after assembling a group of women in the secret garden, she performed a love ritual with Zed, and Zed cast her magic on an effigy of Merc to bring her back. Merc escaped Geotroniks, but they’d already used her to power the fear machine by order of Magi Caecus, a secret sect of Freemasons, to summon the god of all gods Jallakuntilliokan. Its presence sent waves of fear throughout the U.K., and Marj and Zed were in the midst of lovemaking when they sensed its presence on the earthly plane.

(Hellblazer #21, 22) - John met up with Merc at a roadside stop, and they returned to Marj and her new friends. Their camp had been ravaged by the fear magic, so John used the ley-lines to understand the horror, and saw a vision of the Freemason Webster sacrificing his captured friends, starting with Hughes, to fully birth Jallakuntilliokan. The connection to such a primal force called up the Terror-Thing, which Merc had accidentally created by powering the fear machine, but fortunately John was rescued from the mystic realm my Merc. The Terror-Thing followed, but Merc put her creation in its place. The Pagan Nation had a pow-wow, and John theorized that Jallakuntilliokan was an archetype borne of the time when humans were more left-brained and open to the possibility of gods. Zed’s idea was that Jallakuntilliokan was part of Earth itself, a male manifestation of the ley-lines, without the life-giving female counterpart of Feng Shui, or the Dragon Liners to balance it out. Webster was using the Terror-Thing to further the birth of Jallakuntilliokan, so they had to disrupt the ley-lines. Zed ordered Eddy and warrior members of the Nation to disrupt the lines, and assured John his role rested in staying put. John visited Marj bathing in a waterfall, and even though he was completely unsure of his own feelings at that point, he told her he wanted her. She responded that Zed said that had to wait. Merc used her astral self to contain the Terror-Thing, and Zed encouraged John to help her and Marj with tantric magic that would summon the other half of the god of all gods. Their love-making created an egg, and it hatched to summon the female anima. With the ley and dragon lines in balance Jallakuntilliokan’s influence was eradicated. John was swept up in a tidal wave during the ceremony, and rescued by sailors, who assured him the world had gone back to normal. John said that was exactly what he was afraid of.

(Hellblazer #34) - Mercury and Marj staid on the run, and Mercury realized her mother was weak and couldn’t see the patterns of the world, so when she was strong enough she’d have to leave her behind. John Constantine, blind drunk and ravaged with guilt, found them, and Merc was disgusted, but Marj was enthralled. Merc refused to have anything to do with him, telling her mother he was looking to spread around his hurt, and Marj claimed she was jealous that someone wanted to spend time with her, and not her all-knowing messiah daughter. Marj sent Merc on her way, saying she’d do what she wanted for company, and took John into their trailer. John told her he’d lost all purpose and faith, and realized that his every action was guided by a nihilistic darkness inside himself. Marj refused his company, finding John ugly when wrapped up in self-loathing. She wanted him to talk about his feelings, and he somehow won her over talking about the darkness he found when he discovered a dead-boy’s heart as a youth.

(Hellblazer #36) - John woke up refreshed after his night with Marj, but Merc confronted him, reviling his sickness. He said he’d just had a rough few days, but Merc had been poking around his aura and realized he felt responsible for the deaths that always occurred around him. He admitted his fear of death and the inevitable hellfire and revenge that awaited. He was ready to bail, but Merc said they needed him, and she told him death was a painless moment between lives, and said she could prove it. Without his permission they traveled into his subconscious, and she showed him a number of tarot death cards, and said he had to choose one. John found himself 80 years old, a survivor of apocalyptic events taken in by the Rising Generation that offered sanctuary because he represented a cautionary tale to the new generation. He broke their rules repeatedly, and was cast out, nearly devoured by dogs before falling from a bridge and drowning. John’s body strangled himself to simulate drowning, and Merc panicked. Mark was awake and reading tarot cards to understand John, realizing he was a passionate lover, but demons had their hold on him, and he was unable to be close to her. Merc had to call Marj to save John, and she resuscitated him. John thought it odd that Merc tried to kill him, but laughed it off and suggested breakfast.

(Hellblazer #37, 38) - John agreed to stay with Merc and Marj, and the adults trusted Merc when she assured them they needed to take their bus to the backroads of East Anglia. The bus broke down, and John and Marj tried to fix it, but realized they had no idea what they were doing. Merc ran off to explore a nearby nature reserve, and found a young man name Martin, a budding naturalist with a black eye he admitted his father gave him. Merc took Martin back to the adults, and they gave him some tea and sympathy. His father Archibald Acland came by in a truck, and demanded he come with him. Marj and John had to hitch a ride to find a mechanic, but Merc said she was staying local because she couldn’t stand to see people not being free, and John shrugged and figured she knew what she was doing. They returned to find the bus covered in offal. Merc didn’t offer an explanation, but Martin’s father was the culprit, and Merc had used her psychic powers to make sure he never hurt anyone again. They fixed the car and started driving, picking up Martin’s mother, who told her son she was finally free since Archibald had been taken to a mental asylum.

(Hellblazer #39) - Autumn set in, and John, Merc, Marj and their new friends met up with Zed and Errol who directed them to a beachfront property near a church. Marj woke up John one morning, and he said he felt like he already did this commune thing before. He described his nightmares of drowning and snakes, and Marj interpreted it as his fear and desire of the women around him, and worried he’d leave. She said everything would be fine if he just let her and her friends love him, but John warned that he wasn’t capable of true love, and he’d just ruin her. John had a vision of the Golden Boy that visited him on and off in childhood, and ran after him, crying when he disappeared. Marj wanted to help, but John knew Zed’s magic expertise was the only thing that could save him.

Comments: Created by Jamie Delano & Richard Piers Rayner.

Marj had a cameo in Hellblazer #40.