Creation Story
John Constantine is Alan Moore’s design for a British working-class occultist who could operate within DC’s supernatural framework without being a superhero. Moore had been writing The Saga of the Swamp Thing since 1984 and was looking for a recurring occult-adjacent supporting character for the American Gothic arc he was building toward. Stephen Bissette and John Totleben designed the visual character at Moore’s request: a blonde English man in a trenchcoat, deliberately modeled after Sting, the English musician who was at peak visibility in the mid-1980s.
The Saga of the Swamp Thing #25 (June 1984) contains Constantine’s first cameo: an unnamed silhouetted figure in the final pages, barely visible, introduced as a character the reader would learn about later. The character appears in the background of several subsequent issues before being named and given full visual treatment in The Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 (June 1985). Moore’s American Gothic arc (issues #37 through #50) uses Constantine as Swamp Thing’s occult guide, introducing him as a working-class Liverpool-born magician with dangerous competence and a habit of getting the people around him killed.
The character was popular enough that DC commissioned a solo title. Hellblazer #1 (January 1988) launched under the new mature-readers framework that would become Vertigo in 1993. Jamie Delano wrote; John Ridgway pencilled the first issue. Hellblazer ran 300 issues through 2013, one of the longest continuous runs in Vertigo’s history.
The Ennis era
Garth Ennis took over Hellblazer with issue #41 (May 1991) and wrote through issue #83 (November 1994). His run is widely regarded as the definitive Hellblazer era. The “Dangerous Habits” arc (Hellblazer #41 to #46) is the most-cited Constantine story: Constantine is dying of lung cancer and tricks the three Lords of Hell (Lucifer, Beelzebub, Azazel) into curing him by forcing them to recognize that civil war for his soul would follow if he died. The arc established the character’s defining trick-the-devil framework.
Subsequent Hellblazer writers (Paul Jenkins, Warren Ellis, Brian Azzarello, Mike Carey, Andy Diggle, Peter Milligan, Peter Tomasi) each brought distinct takes to the character across the 1990s and 2000s. The book’s consistent tone across decades is unusual in mainstream comics.
The adaptations
Constantine (2005) with Keanu Reeves Americanized the character but has developed a cult following. Reeves is confirmed to return in a 2026 sequel.
Matt Ryan’s Constantine (NBC, 2014) is widely regarded as the most faithful screen performance. The show was cancelled after one season, but Ryan continued the role across Arrow, Legends of Tomorrow, multiple DC animated films, and the 2024 Constantine: The House of Mystery animated series.
Collector context
The Saga of the Swamp Thing #37 is the Constantine Copper Age key. High-grade CGC 9.8 copies have crossed $1,500 at auction. The book’s value moved with each major adaptation.
Secondary keys: The Saga of the Swamp Thing #25 (cameo) is a cheaper entry for collectors targeting the technical first. Hellblazer #1 (1988) is the first solo title and a collector target for Vertigo-imprint collectors specifically. Hellblazer #41 (1991) starts the Ennis run and is an era-starting key.
