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[CHARACTER INFO]
CHARACTER NAME: John Constantine
FANDOM: Comics
CHRONOLOGY: Issue 96.
CLASS: Anti-hero
SUPERHERO NAME: N/A
ALTER EGO: N/A
BACKGROUND:
Constantine comes from a world much like our own, save that things like superheroes, aliens, and magical beings are all commonplace. As he's from the Vertigo line of DC comics, his existence is rather far removed from the cape and cowl shenanigans that his allies and contemporaries have all had to deal with, leaving us with two very different takes on who John Constantine is, exactly, in the world at large.
In DC-canon, he's seemingly the wetworks guy: that one magician that everyone in the business knows but who they also really, really don't enjoy being around. He's vulgar, arrogant, and none-to-happy to be involved in things whenever he does pop up -- which isn't often -- and he's almost never the star of the show. We're not going to be looking too deeply into this part of his life, but I do have to mention it because it does exist; what really defines John as a character, however, are the events that happen in his ongoing series, Hellblazer. Here, John is not only that guy when it comes to everything magical, he's also the Magician: the be-all end-all representation of how powerful and dangerous magic can be.
Okay, uh. Let me just preface this by saying I have NOT read everything that John shows up in outside of his original Hellblazer series, but plan on doing so. I know how the most of the major story lines go -- like the Swamp Thing using Johnn as a surrogate father, and that he helped Tim Hunter discover what magic really is -- but I don't know the finer details.
That said, John's history is one of both personal tragedy and harebrained triumph. As a young child, he discovered magic early on, and used it and his magical way of thinking as a coping mechanism. Because he had killed both his twin and his mother when he had been born, John's father loathed the boy, and regularly treated him as though he were a stain upon his life, verbally and sometimes physically abusing himself until John, finally tired of the treatment, inadvertently cursed the man to waste away, but never die. This is first dalliance with magic and one of his most powerful; he also seals his innocence and childhood into a box during this time, and runs away from home to join a punk rock band called Mucous Membrane sometime in his teens.
During this time period, John finds like-minded individuals in what would later be termed the "New Castle group." Seven in all, the band of would-be mages and witches tours alongside Mucous Membrane and partakes in John's growing infatuation with magic, electing him as some sort of head "Magus" throughout their drug and sex-addled practice of "ritual" and "magic" -- I put these two words in quotation marks because it isn't until John actually does try a proper ritual in Newcastle that he gets a taste of what magic really is, and how often it likes to kick pompous arseholes right where the sun don't shine.
In Newcastle, John and company hear about a girl that's been possessed by a demon some yuppies accidentally forced her to summon during a magical orgy. Thinking it a right laugh, John, in all of his arrogance, thinks that he can take the demon on, and tries to do so -- to disastrous results. The girl, named Astra, is freed of the demon's influence, but John isn't fast enough, isn't powerful enough to drag her out of hell. He comes back only with her arm, severed at the shoulder, its fingers still twitching in his hand. The sight of his failure, made so real and physical, causes him to snap and forces his band-mates to put him into an insane asylum.
Fast-forward a few years -- since all John finds in the asylum is abuse because the orderlies think he's the one responsible for Astra's death -- and we find that some poncy crime lord out of London needs John to try and revive his dead son. Since he's not able to do this, naturally, he cons his way out of it by forcing a few "friends" to get a demon to inhabit the corpse, which he quickly forgets about and puts behind him.
You think he would've learned.
Years even later still, John begins his stint as an occult "hero" by getting the Newcastle Group back together to investigate a cult of Brujería. Since these events take place in the Swamp Thing series, I can't really expand upon them other than saying that it's here that John gets a good many of his longtime friends killed for some reason -- these same friends are the ones who would go on to haunt him, later in life. It's also around this time that John comes into conflict with the groups: "The Damnation Crusade," and "Resurrection," as he saves his niece, Gemma, from a member of the former, and has to deal with his sister being married to a member of the latter. This draws him to attention of the demon Nergal, who is both the leader of the Damnation Army and the selfsame bastard he failed to bind in an effort to save Astra.
Naturally, they come to blows, and Constantine is lft to come up with a scheme to get himself out of the fire. At the crux of the matter lies Constantine's then-lover, Zed, who is the "child of prophecy" that both the Damnation Army and Resurrection Crusade need to bring about their own versions of the end-times -- the Damnation Army needs her to birth the anti-christ, while the Crusade needs her to birth to Second Coming. Long story short, John tricks Nergal into infusing him with his own demonic blood, and then "ruins" Zed by having sex with her. He then agrees to be the surrogate father to the Swamp Thing's child, which further robs Hell of the chance of having him sire the Anti-Christ somehow, since his daughter essentially belongs to the Green. (Again, I haven't read the storyline where she's born, but that's the gist of it.) He then tricks Nergal into inhabiting the body of his friend Ritchie Simpson, whose soul was outside of said body at the time. Nergal burns out the shell nearly immediately, dies, and John loses another friend -- though this time, it's a bit more deliberate. He even says he's sorry before sealing Ritchie inside the internet, which was the plane he had been exploring during his out-of-body experience.
John travels a bit afterward and goes about having a couple of adventures with a traveling band of hippies who are investigating the corruption of England's magical leylines. Here, he meets Zed again and comes close to settling down with a woman named Marj and her potently psychic daughter, Mercury, who he saves from a scientist that wants to use her abilities to create a machine that channels concentrated fear at people. Afterward, he leaves the commune by way of a metaphysical super event -- he essentially heals the leylines of Britain by giving metaphysical "birth" to a "God of all gods" -- that drops him off somewhere in the sea. Cue more wandering, more adventuring, and, several months later, we find John dealing with an investigation into a murderer named: "The Family Man."
As you can imagine, since he's done so much good for people with Zed and company, something horrible has to happen to John in opposition; over the course of his investigation, the Family Man murderers John's father to try and rouse fear in the man, which causes John, in righteous, indignant fury, to actually use a gun to exact his revenge. It's the first man he's ever killed, and the only one -- thus far -- that he's killed with his own two hands. He's as broken up about as you can imagine anyone else to be, and regrets that he never really got to patch things up with the man.
Things only get worse when John starts coughing up dark, viscous amounts of his own blood. In his early thirties, the magus finds out the he's contracted lung cancer from the numerous years he's spent smoking nearly a pack a day. This leads him to try everything in his power in the effort to find a cure. It also eventually leads him to friend and confidant Brendan Finn, a fellow magician with a penchant for drinking himself into a stupor; sadly, Brendan is also dying of cancer of the liver, and has no means to help John, save for spending his final hours with the man and sharing a lager that he sold his sold to the Devil to make.
When said Devil -- who is not Lucifer, but a thing called The First of the Fallen -- comes to collect Brendan's soul, however, John is less than pleased. He tricks the thing into drinking holy water and "defeats" him, sending him back to Hell so that Brendan's soul can ascend to Heaven. Understandably incensed, The First vows to kill Constantine...only to be tricked yet again, weeks later, when John makes a bargain to sell his soul to each of the three Lords of Hell and tries to kill himself, which sets each of the three against each other. As they can't decide which one of them has the more legitimate claim to Constantine, the three decide to keep the man alive, and heal him of his wounds and his cancer all at once.
It's here that John begins thinking that he should settle down. It's also where he starts to romance Brendan's ex-wife, Kit Ryan, who does about as much good for John as he, in turn, turns her life upside down. They move in together, but Kit says, point-blank, that she doesn't want to be involved with any of the shadowy mess that John has a habit of bringing to other people's doors. It's such a strong love that he even considers hanging up his coat and going straight, but...as you and I both know, an addict is an addict, and magic is one of the most powerful drugs there is. Though John is wholly, irrecoverably in love with Kit, he still can't help but want to help people, which leads him to have to bring some of his work home -- namely, Kit finds some of his magical writings, is then unknowingly drafted into the latest mess John is undertaking, and understandably freaks out. She breaks things off with him soon after, which leaves John both homeless and devastated.
Now transient, John meets the King of the Vampires, who offers the ailing magician the world so long as he kneels at the man's feet. John refuses, and decides to turn his life around after a few months of homeless wandering; it's here that he, yet again, becomes involved in the politics of both the natural and the supernatural world. He attends the Brixton riots in London and finds himself having to face the First of the Fallen yet again after the thing realizes its the one true lord of hell and kills of the other members of its triumvirate to establish power. Now, without the threat of having to deal with a war, the First comes after John with all it has, which forces the man to run to Ellie -- a succubus who owed him a favor -- and the Angel Gabriel for help. In the end, the First is killed (seemingly) along with many of John's closest friends (not so seemingly) and John goes on to continue adventuring for awhile, eventually ending up in Australia of all places.
After saving the world -- twice! -- from those who would do it harm, John finds himself back in London again doing the same song and dance he's always done; this time, a demon named Buer is trying to manipulate events to put the First of the Fallen back into power, and has possessed the son of one of Constantine's old touring mates to try and put John in a position that would land him back in hell again. John does his best to make things go his way -- and, in the doing, frees both Astra and every other innocent child consigned to hell before their time -- but doesn't succeed as much as he'd hoped to: though he tricks Buer and sends only his evil to Hell, the First comes back into power anyway and vows to do things right this time.
Shortly after that, cue him arriving in the city, confused as all hell and wanting a smoke.
PERSONALITY:
Oh god, where to begin. John is a very damaged individual -- almost horribly, incurably so. He is wrapped up in survivor's guilt and remains haunted by every person he feels he's ever gotten killed. His arrogance legendary; so much so that, even demons respect it, and he's possessed of an insane, off-the-walls tenacity that leaves people broken and bleeding in his wake. He is a both a liar and a cheat, a manipulative, untrustworthy confidence man, and the only thing standing between this world and destruction.
John cares -- he cares so much that, when presented with death and the easy way out, he almost always knuckles up and does his best to save everyone but himself. He is possessed of sympathetic, cynical heart that wavers between giving everyone a second chance and severely punishing those who abuse what they have unrepentantly. He hides behind a rough, devil-may-care attitude, and naturally alienates people who gets too close and don't understand his line of work. He is a charismatic hardass, and collects friends as easily as some people collect bottle-caps; invariably, however, these same friends are the ones he ends up failing the most, since his manipulations either involve or put them indirectly in the line of fire more often than not. No one is safe when they get to know Constantine.
This never stops him from trying to do right by his own set of moral codes, however. He plays at being the tired, world-weary magus conscripted into saving the world, but he is always given the option to walk away, to leave and never look back, and he never does. Not once. He might stumble into depression once or awhile, but he never turns his back on someone in need and always eventually tries to do what's right. He's haunted by his mistakes and lives to try and redeem himself -- pissing off every big name evil force in the universe is just a fringe benefit.
POWER:
John is capable of using a fair bit of ritualistic magic, and favors illusions over evocations and showy displays of force. He's not exactly going to Dr. Strange it up, but he does have a fair bit of power to throw around...He just doesn't always use showy magic for his fear of having to pay double of what he does to someone later in life. It's all about balances, is what I'm saying.
Constantine is capable of the following, as per CnC's three-limit rule:
- MAGIC: described here as a more rules-based system than is seen in normal DC/Vertigo canon. Constantine is not a showy, explosive magician full of evocations and fireballs, and prefers to use illusions, mind games, ritual, and minor cantrips to confuse and annoy his enemies. Using magic, he's also able summon and bind demons, perform divination, raise the dead, curse others, channel spirits to perform seances, raise golems, create zombies, commune with a person's "soul," and create defensive wards. He usually has to pay for his negative spells in some way, however, be it physically or through some turn of bad luck.
- PSYCHOMETRY: Constantine can "read" both objects or people, which allows him to get a vague sense of who and what they are, and if they're dangerous to him or not. With a bit of focus, he can even dig into a person's mind to learn about their past, uncovering what he wants to know -- usually something traumatic -- even if it's buried in a place they don't want to be seen, or rightly know about. This isn't really a PSYCHIC ability, so much as a magical one, as he's said before that he uses mental wards to "keep himself safe" from other mind-mages.
- THE SYNCHRONICITY HIGHWAY: Constantine possess the supernatural ability to be in the right place at exactly the right time. This has led John to uncanny luck at games of chance, the ability to avoid harm and to meet the right kind of ally to help prevent or stop an apocalyptic event from happening. It also proves fatal to people he knows, since bad luck has a habit of bouncing off him and attaching itself to someone else in the immediate vicinity.
Other than that, he's a normal -- albeit highly resilient -- human with a penchant for pissing people off
CHARACTER NAME: John Constantine
FANDOM: Comics
CHRONOLOGY: Issue 96.
CLASS: Anti-hero
SUPERHERO NAME: N/A
ALTER EGO: N/A
BACKGROUND:
Constantine comes from a world much like our own, save that things like superheroes, aliens, and magical beings are all commonplace. As he's from the Vertigo line of DC comics, his existence is rather far removed from the cape and cowl shenanigans that his allies and contemporaries have all had to deal with, leaving us with two very different takes on who John Constantine is, exactly, in the world at large.
In DC-canon, he's seemingly the wetworks guy: that one magician that everyone in the business knows but who they also really, really don't enjoy being around. He's vulgar, arrogant, and none-to-happy to be involved in things whenever he does pop up -- which isn't often -- and he's almost never the star of the show. We're not going to be looking too deeply into this part of his life, but I do have to mention it because it does exist; what really defines John as a character, however, are the events that happen in his ongoing series, Hellblazer. Here, John is not only that guy when it comes to everything magical, he's also the Magician: the be-all end-all representation of how powerful and dangerous magic can be.
Okay, uh. Let me just preface this by saying I have NOT read everything that John shows up in outside of his original Hellblazer series, but plan on doing so. I know how the most of the major story lines go -- like the Swamp Thing using Johnn as a surrogate father, and that he helped Tim Hunter discover what magic really is -- but I don't know the finer details.
That said, John's history is one of both personal tragedy and harebrained triumph. As a young child, he discovered magic early on, and used it and his magical way of thinking as a coping mechanism. Because he had killed both his twin and his mother when he had been born, John's father loathed the boy, and regularly treated him as though he were a stain upon his life, verbally and sometimes physically abusing himself until John, finally tired of the treatment, inadvertently cursed the man to waste away, but never die. This is first dalliance with magic and one of his most powerful; he also seals his innocence and childhood into a box during this time, and runs away from home to join a punk rock band called Mucous Membrane sometime in his teens.
During this time period, John finds like-minded individuals in what would later be termed the "New Castle group." Seven in all, the band of would-be mages and witches tours alongside Mucous Membrane and partakes in John's growing infatuation with magic, electing him as some sort of head "Magus" throughout their drug and sex-addled practice of "ritual" and "magic" -- I put these two words in quotation marks because it isn't until John actually does try a proper ritual in Newcastle that he gets a taste of what magic really is, and how often it likes to kick pompous arseholes right where the sun don't shine.
In Newcastle, John and company hear about a girl that's been possessed by a demon some yuppies accidentally forced her to summon during a magical orgy. Thinking it a right laugh, John, in all of his arrogance, thinks that he can take the demon on, and tries to do so -- to disastrous results. The girl, named Astra, is freed of the demon's influence, but John isn't fast enough, isn't powerful enough to drag her out of hell. He comes back only with her arm, severed at the shoulder, its fingers still twitching in his hand. The sight of his failure, made so real and physical, causes him to snap and forces his band-mates to put him into an insane asylum.
Fast-forward a few years -- since all John finds in the asylum is abuse because the orderlies think he's the one responsible for Astra's death -- and we find that some poncy crime lord out of London needs John to try and revive his dead son. Since he's not able to do this, naturally, he cons his way out of it by forcing a few "friends" to get a demon to inhabit the corpse, which he quickly forgets about and puts behind him.
You think he would've learned.
Years even later still, John begins his stint as an occult "hero" by getting the Newcastle Group back together to investigate a cult of Brujería. Since these events take place in the Swamp Thing series, I can't really expand upon them other than saying that it's here that John gets a good many of his longtime friends killed for some reason -- these same friends are the ones who would go on to haunt him, later in life. It's also around this time that John comes into conflict with the groups: "The Damnation Crusade," and "Resurrection," as he saves his niece, Gemma, from a member of the former, and has to deal with his sister being married to a member of the latter. This draws him to attention of the demon Nergal, who is both the leader of the Damnation Army and the selfsame bastard he failed to bind in an effort to save Astra.
Naturally, they come to blows, and Constantine is lft to come up with a scheme to get himself out of the fire. At the crux of the matter lies Constantine's then-lover, Zed, who is the "child of prophecy" that both the Damnation Army and Resurrection Crusade need to bring about their own versions of the end-times -- the Damnation Army needs her to birth the anti-christ, while the Crusade needs her to birth to Second Coming. Long story short, John tricks Nergal into infusing him with his own demonic blood, and then "ruins" Zed by having sex with her. He then agrees to be the surrogate father to the Swamp Thing's child, which further robs Hell of the chance of having him sire the Anti-Christ somehow, since his daughter essentially belongs to the Green. (Again, I haven't read the storyline where she's born, but that's the gist of it.) He then tricks Nergal into inhabiting the body of his friend Ritchie Simpson, whose soul was outside of said body at the time. Nergal burns out the shell nearly immediately, dies, and John loses another friend -- though this time, it's a bit more deliberate. He even says he's sorry before sealing Ritchie inside the internet, which was the plane he had been exploring during his out-of-body experience.
John travels a bit afterward and goes about having a couple of adventures with a traveling band of hippies who are investigating the corruption of England's magical leylines. Here, he meets Zed again and comes close to settling down with a woman named Marj and her potently psychic daughter, Mercury, who he saves from a scientist that wants to use her abilities to create a machine that channels concentrated fear at people. Afterward, he leaves the commune by way of a metaphysical super event -- he essentially heals the leylines of Britain by giving metaphysical "birth" to a "God of all gods" -- that drops him off somewhere in the sea. Cue more wandering, more adventuring, and, several months later, we find John dealing with an investigation into a murderer named: "The Family Man."
As you can imagine, since he's done so much good for people with Zed and company, something horrible has to happen to John in opposition; over the course of his investigation, the Family Man murderers John's father to try and rouse fear in the man, which causes John, in righteous, indignant fury, to actually use a gun to exact his revenge. It's the first man he's ever killed, and the only one -- thus far -- that he's killed with his own two hands. He's as broken up about as you can imagine anyone else to be, and regrets that he never really got to patch things up with the man.
Things only get worse when John starts coughing up dark, viscous amounts of his own blood. In his early thirties, the magus finds out the he's contracted lung cancer from the numerous years he's spent smoking nearly a pack a day. This leads him to try everything in his power in the effort to find a cure. It also eventually leads him to friend and confidant Brendan Finn, a fellow magician with a penchant for drinking himself into a stupor; sadly, Brendan is also dying of cancer of the liver, and has no means to help John, save for spending his final hours with the man and sharing a lager that he sold his sold to the Devil to make.
When said Devil -- who is not Lucifer, but a thing called The First of the Fallen -- comes to collect Brendan's soul, however, John is less than pleased. He tricks the thing into drinking holy water and "defeats" him, sending him back to Hell so that Brendan's soul can ascend to Heaven. Understandably incensed, The First vows to kill Constantine...only to be tricked yet again, weeks later, when John makes a bargain to sell his soul to each of the three Lords of Hell and tries to kill himself, which sets each of the three against each other. As they can't decide which one of them has the more legitimate claim to Constantine, the three decide to keep the man alive, and heal him of his wounds and his cancer all at once.
It's here that John begins thinking that he should settle down. It's also where he starts to romance Brendan's ex-wife, Kit Ryan, who does about as much good for John as he, in turn, turns her life upside down. They move in together, but Kit says, point-blank, that she doesn't want to be involved with any of the shadowy mess that John has a habit of bringing to other people's doors. It's such a strong love that he even considers hanging up his coat and going straight, but...as you and I both know, an addict is an addict, and magic is one of the most powerful drugs there is. Though John is wholly, irrecoverably in love with Kit, he still can't help but want to help people, which leads him to have to bring some of his work home -- namely, Kit finds some of his magical writings, is then unknowingly drafted into the latest mess John is undertaking, and understandably freaks out. She breaks things off with him soon after, which leaves John both homeless and devastated.
Now transient, John meets the King of the Vampires, who offers the ailing magician the world so long as he kneels at the man's feet. John refuses, and decides to turn his life around after a few months of homeless wandering; it's here that he, yet again, becomes involved in the politics of both the natural and the supernatural world. He attends the Brixton riots in London and finds himself having to face the First of the Fallen yet again after the thing realizes its the one true lord of hell and kills of the other members of its triumvirate to establish power. Now, without the threat of having to deal with a war, the First comes after John with all it has, which forces the man to run to Ellie -- a succubus who owed him a favor -- and the Angel Gabriel for help. In the end, the First is killed (seemingly) along with many of John's closest friends (not so seemingly) and John goes on to continue adventuring for awhile, eventually ending up in Australia of all places.
After saving the world -- twice! -- from those who would do it harm, John finds himself back in London again doing the same song and dance he's always done; this time, a demon named Buer is trying to manipulate events to put the First of the Fallen back into power, and has possessed the son of one of Constantine's old touring mates to try and put John in a position that would land him back in hell again. John does his best to make things go his way -- and, in the doing, frees both Astra and every other innocent child consigned to hell before their time -- but doesn't succeed as much as he'd hoped to: though he tricks Buer and sends only his evil to Hell, the First comes back into power anyway and vows to do things right this time.
Shortly after that, cue him arriving in the city, confused as all hell and wanting a smoke.
PERSONALITY:
Oh god, where to begin. John is a very damaged individual -- almost horribly, incurably so. He is wrapped up in survivor's guilt and remains haunted by every person he feels he's ever gotten killed. His arrogance legendary; so much so that, even demons respect it, and he's possessed of an insane, off-the-walls tenacity that leaves people broken and bleeding in his wake. He is a both a liar and a cheat, a manipulative, untrustworthy confidence man, and the only thing standing between this world and destruction.
John cares -- he cares so much that, when presented with death and the easy way out, he almost always knuckles up and does his best to save everyone but himself. He is possessed of sympathetic, cynical heart that wavers between giving everyone a second chance and severely punishing those who abuse what they have unrepentantly. He hides behind a rough, devil-may-care attitude, and naturally alienates people who gets too close and don't understand his line of work. He is a charismatic hardass, and collects friends as easily as some people collect bottle-caps; invariably, however, these same friends are the ones he ends up failing the most, since his manipulations either involve or put them indirectly in the line of fire more often than not. No one is safe when they get to know Constantine.
This never stops him from trying to do right by his own set of moral codes, however. He plays at being the tired, world-weary magus conscripted into saving the world, but he is always given the option to walk away, to leave and never look back, and he never does. Not once. He might stumble into depression once or awhile, but he never turns his back on someone in need and always eventually tries to do what's right. He's haunted by his mistakes and lives to try and redeem himself -- pissing off every big name evil force in the universe is just a fringe benefit.
POWER:
John is capable of using a fair bit of ritualistic magic, and favors illusions over evocations and showy displays of force. He's not exactly going to Dr. Strange it up, but he does have a fair bit of power to throw around...He just doesn't always use showy magic for his fear of having to pay double of what he does to someone later in life. It's all about balances, is what I'm saying.
Constantine is capable of the following, as per CnC's three-limit rule:
- MAGIC: described here as a more rules-based system than is seen in normal DC/Vertigo canon. Constantine is not a showy, explosive magician full of evocations and fireballs, and prefers to use illusions, mind games, ritual, and minor cantrips to confuse and annoy his enemies. Using magic, he's also able summon and bind demons, perform divination, raise the dead, curse others, channel spirits to perform seances, raise golems, create zombies, commune with a person's "soul," and create defensive wards. He usually has to pay for his negative spells in some way, however, be it physically or through some turn of bad luck.
- PSYCHOMETRY: Constantine can "read" both objects or people, which allows him to get a vague sense of who and what they are, and if they're dangerous to him or not. With a bit of focus, he can even dig into a person's mind to learn about their past, uncovering what he wants to know -- usually something traumatic -- even if it's buried in a place they don't want to be seen, or rightly know about. This isn't really a PSYCHIC ability, so much as a magical one, as he's said before that he uses mental wards to "keep himself safe" from other mind-mages.
- THE SYNCHRONICITY HIGHWAY: Constantine possess the supernatural ability to be in the right place at exactly the right time. This has led John to uncanny luck at games of chance, the ability to avoid harm and to meet the right kind of ally to help prevent or stop an apocalyptic event from happening. It also proves fatal to people he knows, since bad luck has a habit of bouncing off him and attaching itself to someone else in the immediate vicinity.
Other than that, he's a normal -- albeit highly resilient -- human with a penchant for pissing people off