Magical man extraordinaire. Liar, cheat, hero, and many other words, many quite profane, have been used to describe John Constantine. He’s one of the most powerful mages in the Vertigo/DC universe. How does a kid from Liverpool become such a magical force that even God and the Lords of Hell take pause at what it means for him to die? Let’s find out!
John Constantine was born May 10th, 1953, to Mary-Ann and Thomas Constantine. Sadly, Mary-Ann died in childbirth from complications, John’s twin brother was still born and Thomas always held a grudge towards John for all of this. Along with his elder sister, Cheryl, would live with their aunt and uncle whenever their dad ended up locked up for some crime or another. John would learn that his family line were magicians, the kind that wielded true magic and used trickery. Laughing Magicians were what the Constantines were once known for, John set out to bring that back.
Running away from home as a teen, John would begin to travel the world to learn magic. His first act of magic was taking all his childish innocence and locking it away so he didn’t have that vulnerability anymore. He’d befriend Chas Chandler in London and the two would form a band, Mucus Membrane. John would spark up an on again off again relationship with Zatanna Zatarra, a fellow mage. John’s exploration of magic meant eventually he’d try to use his powers to help someone. This first attempt was deadly disaster. Attempting to rescue an abused child from a cult, the child’s fear had summoned a demon who killed many in the cult including her father. John decided to fight hellfire with hellfire and with the assistance of his band mates, summon a demon of their own to fight off the other. Problem was, John didn’t get the True Name of the demon he summoned, it was Nergal. Demon’s can be summoned by any of their names, the trick to controlling them is the True Name, otherwise, the demon is allowed to go free in its new environment. Nergal would torture Mucus Membrane and take leave back to hell by taking the child with him.
This trauma put John in Ravenscar Psychiatric Hospital, with many outsiders thinking John had killed the girl. John is released eventually and meets the Swamp Thing, the two become friends and help each other in adventures. At one point, Swamp Thing possesses a willing John so he may sleep with his human wife once more, fathering a child. Magic friends can have such interesting relationships. Helping a friend who’d sold his soul to the most power Lord of Hell, the First Fallen, John would trick the demon lord into drinking holy water making the demon powerless when it came time to collect. Enraged, the First Fallen laid claim on his soul and to make his death slow and painful, made sure to curse him with the worst bout of cancer John could experience.
Not taking this lying down, John set up a plan, selling his soul. Not to the First Fallen, but to his two greatest rivals in demon lords, with none the wiser as to John’s other deals. Now John’s soul belonged to the three most powerful lords of Hell. Luckily for John, none of them were willing to share, if any of them tried to lay claim on his soul, a war would erupt in Hell so fierce that only God and Heaven could put an end to it. Not wanting to lose their realms, John was cured of cancer and his death was postponed for as long as Hell could have it. Renewed, John would go on many more adventures, he’d even make good on part of his foray into occult heroism by freeing the girl Nergal had taken, he’d also free every other child locked in Hell. To do this, John had to empower the First Fallen while creating a demonic version of himself so he didn’t have to enter Hell.
Over the years, John would end up hurting a lot of his friends, growing tired of his sins he took to communing with God. Not for any sort of guidance, but to threaten God with facts. John had the mystical might to take over Hell once he got down there but he didn’t want to go. If he had to, he’d make it so Hell would be unleashed on Earth and no damned souls could enter the gates of Hell. He’d rather reside in Heaven when the time came. This worked but didn’t mean John wouldn’t die some day still.John would return to his sister, who’d long thought him dead to find that not only did he have a niece, that she was a witch. During his adventuring, John would lose his memories and make a deal with a demon to get them back by fathering three demonic children with her. These demon children would go on to orchestrate the murder of most everyone John had ever known, including his sister, Cheryl. John would journey to Hell to rescue her, John would have to team up with the demon Nergal to do this. They’d encounter John’s self-created demonic form and John would have to allow Nergal to possess him so the two could survive their ordeals in Hell. He’d find his sister was held by the First Fallen and was even willing to finally accept the First’s demand for his soul only to see Cheryl was willing to make a bargain with the First Fallen to stay there out of love for her husband to lessen his torture in Hell, even though her husband had been the one to kill her. He’d go home and have an estranged relationship with his niece. John would battle with shamans who wanted his power and make peace with his dead twin brother’s soul by destroying the parasitic nature he’d been surviving off of John through bad luck upon John.
The Three Fates would visit John in 2013 to let him know his time to die was within five days. He’d lived a life he’d done his best on and was now an older man. He was ready to go and was murdered in his home. Or so it seemed, John had used all this to fake his death so that he could put an end to having his loved ones in danger, if he was considered dead and gone, no one else could get hurt for John’s actions or words. His niece found him and was ready to kill him for real for not saving her mother. He accepted she could do it and when the shot rang out and she opened her eyes, John had vanished.
In the New 52, a younger John Constantine works with the magical division of the Justice League, Justice League Dark. He works with Zatanna as well as other magical heroes to take on the mystical dangers of the world and beyond. Here, John is more of a magical super hero with his own rogues gallery and adventures to another Earth where he finds non-magical version of himself living happily without magic, John would kill this version to help him escape back to his own reality as that one was doomed to die by Darkseid’s forces. In Rebirth, John’s old and new existence somewhat merge in a non-magical sense so that he’s similar to his older self from the Vertigo universe but still a young adventurer in the DC universe.
There you have it! Constantine has been animated in home release movies, he’s been on the big screen and small with his own feature film and television series. He currently shows up in the CW DC hero shows from time to time. Where will we see him next? Time will tell! See you next time!
Suggested Reading
The Saga of Swamp Thing
Hellblazer
Constantine
Constantine: The Hellblazer
The Hellblazer
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
