About Me
I'm the one who steps from the shadows, all trenchcoat and cigarette and arrogance, ready to deal with the madness. Oh, I've got it all sewn up. I can save you. If it takes the last drop of your blood, I'll drive your demons away. I'll kick them in the bollocks and spit on them when they're down and then I'll be gone back into darkness, leaving only a nod and a wink and a wisecrack. I walk my path alone... who would walk with me?
In Constantine's early appearances in Swamp Thing, his past was a mystery; his life as a child and young adult were not developed until Jamie Delano's Hellblazer stories. There, we found out that he was born in Liverpool, England, on May 10, 1953. His mother, Mary Anne, died giving birth to John and his twin brother because an early abortion, forced on her by John's father, Thomas, had weakened her womb. Because he was unable to accept responsibility for his wife's death, Thomas blamed John and the pair grew up with a deep dislike for one another. Whilst in the womb, John strangled his twin brother with his own umbilical cord; in an alternate reality glimpsed in Hellblazer #40, the twin survived to become the well-loved and well-adjusted magician that John never was. He and his older sister Cheryl lived briefly with their aunt and uncle in Northampton to escape from their father's alcoholism and imprisonment (for stealing a female neighbour's underwear), then moved back to Liverpool. In the 1960s, a teenage John ran away from home, but not before a botched curse on his father caused him to become withered and frail. John eventually made his permanent home in London in 1969, rooming with Chas Chandler, a young man who went on to become John's closest - and longest surviving - friend.
The Mucous Membrane band. Art from Hellblazer #153 (Oct. 2000). Art by Marcelo Frusin.During the 1970s, John became involved in occult circles in London, and visited San Francisco, where he met Zatanna the magician. He also became enamored of punk rock; after seeing the Sex Pistols at the Roxy Club in London in 1977, John cut his long hair and formed his own band, Mucous Membrane, whose members included Chandler (as a roadie), a drummer named Beano and fellow Liverpudlian Gary Lester.
John's first venture into occult "heroism", as depicted in a flashback in Hellblazer #11, was a disaster. On tour with Mucous Membrane at the Casa Nova Club in Newcastle, he found the aftermath of a magical orgy gone horribly wrong: an abused child, Astra, had conjured a hideous monster that took revenge on the adults who were tormenting her, and the monster refused to leave.
Ever the smart-arse.With typical recklessness, John convinced some members of the band, along with several occultist friends, to try destroying the creature by summoning a demon of their own. Unfortunately this demon was not under their control and after it had destroyed the child's monster, it tormented Constantine's friends and took the child to Hell. The guilt of causing this hung over him for many years until, in his mid-forties, he managed to free her and the souls of every other child trapped in Hell. As for the rest of the 'Newcastle Crew', the incident left the group scattered and both physically and psychologically scarred.
Years later, John was able to persuade the same group to help with his investigation of the BrujerÃa cult in Swamp Thing #37-49, but the cult murdered most of them, including John's lover, Emma. These people, and others who have died due to John's carelessness, have continued to appear to him as silent, reproachful ghosts. Chas is the only human friend who has survived a long-term association with John.
In his late thirties, John contracted terminal lung cancer. During this time, he came to the aid of a dying friend who had sold his soul to the First of the Fallen, the most powerful lord of Hell. When the First came to collect the soul, John tricked him into drinking holy water, which rendered him helpless and prevented him from collecting the friend's soul at the appointed time.
For this, the First promised to make John suffer unprecedented torment in Hell when he died. With his terminal lung cancer slowly killing him, John hatched a plan to save himself from eternal torment. He secretly sold his soul to the other two lords of Hell. When they discovered Constantine's actions they realised that they could not allow him to die, or else they would be forced to go to all-out war over his soul. Due to a recent "civil war" in Hell, the three couldn't dare wage war as the only winner of a war in Hell would be "the Lord of the Hosts" (i.e God) and the Angels. However, they were also far too stubborn and proud to enter anything resembling an alliance. As a result, they were forced to cure John of his cancer.
John Constantine appears in an early issue of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. In the issue, he helps Dream recover a pouch of sand which had served as one of Dream's totems of power. John had purchased the pouch during Dream's imprisonment and it had then been stolen from him by an ex-girlfriend. John and Dream find the woman using the sand as a drug and driven mad by it, and Dream recovers the pouch, granting the woman a peaceful death at John's request and promising to end the nightmares John had been having "ever since Newcastle". John's ancestor Lady Johanna Constantine also plays a significant role in multiple storylines of The Sandman, and an Elizabethan-era "Jack Constantine" is mentioned.
In another of Gaiman's comics, The Books of Magic, John is at hand to show the hero, Timothy Hunter around the then-present day DC Comics Universe, along with Mister E, Doctor Occult and The Phantom Stranger.
Constantine is one of the few people aware of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, and one of the very few to have seen it coming. Although longtime allies Zatanna, the Phantom Stranger, and Swamp Thing are still either active or frequently referred to in the DC Universe's world of superheroics, the world of Hellblazer has become more realistic and no mention is made of John's interactions with superheroes, which include attending the funeral of Hal Jordan (wasn't invited, "...just here to watch the show", as he put it), went drinking with Doom Patrol member Mento, and met Batman (and is subsequently infamous for cheekily referring to the Dark Knight as "Squire"), attended the opening of Guy Gardner's Green Lantern theme bar, and, in his own comic, played host to (a very stoned) Zatanna at his fortieth birthday party.
