Hey Team it’s Charlie and as requested this video is going to be a history of the Constantine
character in the comics along with an explanation of what’s going on with the show.
I have seen the first episode so I’ll probably just post a non-spoilery review next week.
But yes, it was a lot of fun.
Hello any new people, if you’re just finding me for the first time.
I’ll be doing Constantine videos every friday night this season, be sure to subscribe to
join the team.
We have a good time.
I’m going to start with the story of how the character was created and then I’ll
do his fictional biography inside the canon.
The New 52 reboot changed a few aspects of his backstory, so I’ll try to incorporate
some of those as I go along.
In real life, the character John Constantine was created by Alan Moore inside the Swamp
Thing comics in 1985, he was introduced as Swamp Thing’s Supernatural Advisor.
The design of the character was actually based on Sting, the musician.
The reason he looks like Sting is because the artists on the Swamp Thing comic were
huge Police fans and wanted to draw a character that looked like Sting.
So Alan Moore invented John Constantine.
The funny thing about that is that the first artist to actually draw the Constantine character
was a totally different person.
Rick Veitch drew his debut in Swamp Thing number 37.
There were all kinds of real life occult things that Alan Moore threw into the character like
serial killers, the Winchester House, which is an actual place all piled into Sting’s
appearance.
He did this interview at 1985 San Diego Comic Con where he explained that Constantine was
turning into something much bigger than a simple ‘put our favorite musician into a
story’ character.
At his core he’s a character that always has an answer for everything, has many agents
working for him all at once, seemingly knows everyone and is constantly manipulating people.
DC was originally very worried that Sting would sue them for making a character that
looked like him but Sting himself was really happy about it.
In 1988 the character got his own title, Hellblazer.
Which is what inspired the tv series.
Then in 2011 he was also made a part of the Justice League Dark team, so he appears in
that title and the Hellblazer comic since the new 52 reboot.
Justice League Dark for those that don’t know is just a Justice League made up of all
the supernatural characters like Zatanna, Madame Xanadu, Deadman and Frankenstein.
Here’s his fictional character biography.
A lot of this wasn’t written into the canon until the Hellblazer comic started.
Way after Alan Moore stopped writing the character.
He was born in Liverpool in 1953, because of complications from an earlier abortion.
His mother died giving birth to him and his twin brother.
Supposedly his twin was killed in the womb after John’s umbilical cord strangled him.
His father, who had forced the mother to get an abortion couldn’t handle her death and
blamed John.
Thus they developed an unhealthy father son relationship from the start.
You can already see, he’s got the origins of a crazy person.
His family bloodline descended from the Laughing Mages, a group of mages who had the ability
to trick gods.
Eventually John learned about this and it inspired him to take up magic.
One of his first acts of magic was to distill all of his childhood innocence into a physical
box as a literal way to get rid of it.
He ran away from home and started living with Francis Chandler also called Chas, he’s
being played by Charles Halford in the TV Series.
You’ll see him in the first episode.
Chas became his best and longest surviving friend.
Then John got involved with all the big occult circles in London and eventually started dating
Zatarra.
Started a band named Mucous Membrane and even released an album called Venus of the Hardsell.
Eventually he decided to play the hero, but his first act of good was a disaster.
He finds a little girl in the aftermath of a magical orgy gone horribly wrong.
The little girl had raised a demon to punish everyone for what they’d done to her and
to try and banish the demon, John raised a demon of his own.
But he wasn’t able to control it.
So John’s demon killed the other demon and his friends and took the child to hell.
After which John suffered a mental breakdown and was committed to Ravenscar Psychiatric
Hospital.
He was in and out of that place for years.
In the first episode we learn all about the little girl, since the comics have already
closed that saga I’m just going to skip what happens to avoid spoilers.
But you can imagine.
Before the new 52 reboot he would go on to be involved in several magical wars and big
occult stories in the UK.
The big difference between the character in the Hellblazer comics and the
one in Justice League Dark, they’re two different characters, is that the DC Version
is young and the older Hellblazer version is in his 60s.
DC Comics explained it this way, the Constantine of the Hellblazer stories has aged in real
time since his debut.
So for every year of the comic, he aged 1 year.
In Justice League Dark, he’s a young man.
On the TV Series, they don’t really get into the Justice League Dark stories, but
the do make the character young.
So if you want to read big stories of his that inspired the TV Series, a couple suggestions
are Dangerous Habits, it introduces the idea of Constantine having terminal lung cancer.
The movie dealt with this, but the tv show isn’t really doing it.
Haunted, which is all about a battle with an evil magician named Joshua Wright who starts
going after John’s ex girlfriends.
Hard Time, this is Constantine trying to survive in a maximum security prison.
He has to rely on a lot of his tricksterish ways to get by.
and for some deep cuts there’s Neil Gaiman’s run Hold Me.
It’s from his early early comic book writing days.
It incorporates a lot of folklore that Gaiman has become really famous for.
As a character he does have extensive magical training, he can even use magic to time travel.
He also has this special ability called synchronicity wave traveling.
It gives him the supernatural ability to make his own luck.
Like if you were playing a board game and your character had a luck modifier giving
you a bonus to your dice rolls.
Constantine can manipulate his own modifier.
He can give himself more luck.
Qhe prefers not to use magical spells unless he’s in a big battle.
Usually he relies on quit wit to get himself out of situations.
In the canon, it’s rumored that he’s even been able to trick God and Lucifer as well
as Superman and Batman.
After the new 52 reboot when he joined Justice League Dark, he was retconned and given some
more powerful attack based magic.
He also has demon blood running through his veins, first because of a transfusion from
one of his biggest demon enemies.
And then later sex with a succubus.
The demon blood causes him to age very slowly, and gives him regenerative abilities.
Kind of like Wolverine’s healing factor.
I’m going to do a review of the pilot next week but there have been some big changes
they’ve made to the show since they shot that.
They’re still airing the pilot.
That will be the first episode on Friday October 24th, so mark your calendar.
But here’s the changes.
They re-shot a scene at the end, the big battle they teased in the trailers.
I’ll explain that during a spoiler section of my review.
They also replaced the main actress.
In the pilot you guys will see, the female lead is named Liv.
She’s not a character from the comics, she’s someone they created for the show.
She’s played by Lucy Griffiths.
You might know her as Lady Marian from the BBCs Robin Hood and True Blood.
The said they just felt like the character didn’t work the way they wanted.
So they replaced her in the second episode with the Zed character from the comics.
She’s being played by Angelica Celaya.
She’ll appear in the second episode.
It sounds a little weird, but it’s totally normal for a show to recast roles and make
changes between the pilot and the regular episodes.
I’ll talk about all the other characters on the show when I do my review video.
But they just cast the Spectre.
They basically have free reign of the supernatural corner of the DC Universe.
So they will be bringing on a ton of comic book characters during the season.
Because the premiere isn’t for about 5 more weeks I’m just going to be doing bonus videos
on friday nights.
Be sure to subscribe to join the team.
I’m doing videos for all the new comic book shows.
I’ve seen all the first episodes of the new ones.
Yes some are better than others, but they’re all a lot of fun.
Right now click here to learn about the deadpool movie that they’re making now and click
here to learn about the Arrow and The Flash’s big two hour crossover this year.
Thanks for watching, we shall reconvene for Doctor Who tomorrow.
High Fives!