Find yourself in any of the magic circles in the DC Universe, from the Oblivion Bar to the Rock of Eternity, and you’ll hear the same bits of advice: magic always comes with a price, beware fairies bearing gifts and most important of all, never ever trust John Constantine. But what’s the big fuss, anyway? The trenchcoated con man with a penchant for silk cut cigarettes isn’t a particularly powerful magus. He’s not plotting to upend the forces of magic for domination of reality like some other thaumaturges we can name. And yet, he’s a man who’s earned the wariness of the entire magical community.
And for good reason too. One could write a whole book about why it’s best to steer clear if you catch a whiff of smoke and hear his distinct laugh from the back of the pub. (And someone did—it ran for 300 issues and is called Hellblazer.) But with the news that Constantine will soon be back on comic stands, we thought it might be a good idea to distill things down a bit, just in case you find yourself on the receiving end of one of his requests. Here are five reasons you should never trust John Constantine.
1) He Killed Zatanna’s Dad
One of the first things you learn about John Constantine is that before he ever got his own story, he was a supporting character in Swamp Thing’s. So why did this cigarette-clouded hedge mage cozy up to Big, Green and Mulchy in the first place? Well, he dragged his feet a while about it, but he was preparing Swamp Thing for the “Rising Darkness,” a powerful unknown force which threatened to envelop all of reality (and recently made a return in Dark Crisis).
To help keep it at bay, Constantine sweet-talked some of the world’s greatest mages into forming a magic circle, the feedback of which ended up killing Zatara himself, one of the original heroes of the DC Universe, and leaving Constantine’s on-and-off girlfriend Zatanna an orphan. Worst of all, it was a magic circle nobody really even needed, anyway, because Swampy had it handled. Nice one, mate.
2) He Completely Killed the Mood
The promise was a simple one, after the Blackest of Nights, we can expect the Brightest of Days. The year following the corpse-ridden Blackest Night event was one of reclamation, of old lost friends returning to fulfil a divine destiny. A promise of new beginnings and reunions long desired. And the greatest reunion of all was saved for the very end: the shocking twist at the end of Brightest Day was that after decades of seclusion from the DC Universe under the Vertigo banner, Swamp Thing was finally coming home…and he brought a friend. One whose first order of business is to just stand around and drop a swear word right on the table.
You know, “bollocks” isn’t considered that bad a word here in the States, but try saying it in other English-speaking countries and people might start looking at you funny. And that’s how a year full of hope and promises and brighter tomorrows ends, with John Constantine dropping the “B” word. Way to kill the atmosphere.
3) He Found a Happy Version of Himself and Ruined That Sod, Too
The middle years of the New 52 era were defined by the dual crises of “Futures End,” which depicted a bleak near future, and “World’s End,” where Darkseid was closing in on the multiversal next-door world of Earth-2. John Constantine’s role in all this? To pop on over to the neighbors and see if he could have a better go of it there.
As it turns out, the Constantine of Earth-2 was a happy chap with a loving family of his own and a perfectly normal life to go with it—one which our John completely ruins through his own interference. Never has there been a more literal example of Constantine getting in the way of his own happiness. It gets so bad that John eventually has to beg off back to his own ruddy homeworld, exiling himself from the one unlikely place in the multiverse where John Constantine could have been well adjusted.
4) Oh Yeah, the Astra Thing
Right, almost forgot. There was that one time John damned the soul of an innocent girl to hell forever because he thought he was such a clever, invincible wizard while he was tramping around Newcastle with his naff punk band. The situation got so buggered that John had to check himself into a mental health institution and, to be honest, probably checked himself out a little too prematurely.
In a long career full of horrible mistakes, this is the one that haunts Constantine every day. But does he learn from it? Does he grow from it? Not on your life.
5) He Played Damnation Chicken with the Souls of Every Person in London
John Constantine’s Rebirth-era Hellblazer series was all about returning the character to his roots. The up-to-the-minute (or month, anyway) English political commentary, the morally questionable grays and Constantine’s own complete and utter bastardry. Simon Oliver starts the series off strong by pitting John, newly returned to London after a stint in the States, against the Demon lord Nybbas—against whom John pulls a classic gambit by offering Nybbas the souls of every last poor sap in the entire city. That’s 8.9 million unwitting souls, all unwittingly drafted in Constantine’s game against the low-level hell manager, wagering that he wasn’t equipped to take on that capacity and would be forced to fold at the prospect of it.
Had John miscalculated—which we have seen, time and again, he is prone to do—that would have been all she wrote for the Queen’s capital and its denizens. And if John is willing to be that cavalier about his home, well…how much are you willing to bet your own soul on a team-up with the tosser? Personally, we’ll leave that business to Swamp Thing.
Alex Jaffe is the author of our monthly "Ask the Question" column and writes about TV, movies, comics and superhero history for DC.com. Follow him on Bluesky at @AlexJaffe and find him in the DC Community as HubCityQuestion.
NOTE: The views and opinions expressed in this feature are solely those of Alex Jaffe and do not necessarily reflect those of DC Entertainment or Warner Bros., nor should they be read as confirmation or denial of future DC plans.
