This past Saturday, a day after the anniversary of the iconic occult detective's first appearance, WonderCon attendees were treated to a special premiere of the first five episodes of the new CW Seed webseries Constantine: City of Demons at a panel with producer Peter Peter Girardi, series writer J.M. DeMatteis and Constantine himself, Matt Ryan. Shortly thereafter, all five episodes were released on via CW Seed, with five on the way for the show's first season.

With the first five episodes out (each of which runs around six or seven minutes, making for a highly bingeable half-hour), it's safe to say that this show has found its voice and tone a lot faster than 2014's live-action Constantine series ever did. And, honestly, it's a lot better than its NBC predecessor.

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The series, produced by Warner Bros. Animation, DC, Berlanti Productions, Phantom Four Films and Berlanti Productions, and animated by Digital EMation, Inc., is based on the 2005 Vertigo OGN John Constantine, Hellblazer: All His Engines by writer Mike Carey and artist Leonardo Manco, though it updates things a bit.

Set in the modern day, rather than the 2004 of EnginesCity of Demons sees Constantine (Ryan), struggling with the spectre of a monster invading his mind, called on by his estranged best mate Chas (Damian O'Hare) to help save his daughter Trish (Laura Bailey) recover from the coma she's fallen into. Constantine initally thinks it's demon possession, but with the help of his fellow magic-user and ex-lover Asa the Healer, the "Nightmare Nurse (Bailey)," he determines that Trish's soul is being held by the demon Beroul (Jim Meskimen) in Los Angeles. So off he and Chas go to the City of Angels, where they're forced to make a shady deal, indeed.

The animated series hits the same notes as fellow Arrowverse webseries Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray, mainly telling a highly engaging story about a character who can't always appear onscreen in the Arrowverse due to scheduling conflicts, actor commitments, or storyline issues. The animation is very crisp, on par with the best of the DC Universe direct-to-video films, and it's evident that great care has been taken by director Doug Murphy and his staff (right down to hiring DCAU vet Butch Lukic as a producer).The cast is all top-notch, too. Ryan continues to be aces as everyone's chain-smoking, magic-using bastard, and O'Hare (who, funnily enough, plays a sillier take on Constantine on Justice League Action) perfectly captures Chas' man-out-of-his-depth bewilderment. Meskimen oozes slimy menace as the disgusting Beroul, and Bailey (Critical Role) perfectly captures Asa's jadedness.

But the show's strongest possible recommendation for it? It understands the world and appeal of John Constantine better than Constantine ever did.

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Mostly for tax incentive reasons (which is why most Marvel Studios productions film there, too), NBC's Constantine filmed its 13 episodes (which are all also available to stream on CW Seed) in Atlanta, GA. That's fair enough -- even Sherlock, a show set in London, filmed mostly in Wales. But it was the choices made from there that made the show become utterly baffling.

Chas (as played with an admittedly winsome touch by Charles Halford) was made American, and was given a unique ability. Caught in a nightclub fire where 47 people died, Chas survived thanks to a protection spell John had placed on him without his knowledge. As part of the enchantment, he absorbed the souls of all of the deceased, meaning he had a storehouse of extra lives that would enable him to survive anything, with each death using up one of the lives.

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While this provided a nice, ticking time bomb that would've presumably lasted throughout the series as a tension-builder, it's an odd storytelling decision. What makes Chas work is that he's so far out of his depth when it comes to John and his escapades, but he keeps diving in anyway, a dynamic that was lost in the live-action series. In City of Demons , the survival of Chas' daughter is at the core of the story, a move that essentially restores the urgency to the danger he and Constantine are facing that would otherwise be lost since, well, Chas can die and die again with little immediate consequence.

Furthermore, although she's yet to play a truly direct role in the story outside of stabilizing Trish and determining what happened to her, Asa -- who gets a truly amazing intro line about how "I was right in the middle of a threesome with a dryad and a sylph. And they were much more entertaining than you ever were, John." -- already has a lot more to her than Constantine's Zed (Angélica Celaya) ever did.

Reimagined from her British mystic origins as a Hispanic-American psychic who drew her visions, Celaya gave a fine performance, but Zed never really felt fully realized. Other characters from the mystic side of the DC Universe, like Felix Faust and Papa Midnight, absolutely did, which was great -- but also highlighted a major problem with the series. When your main female character is as poorly underwritten and underutilized as Zed was, it detracts from the entire show. Thankfully, that doesn't appear to be an issue with the animated series.

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Additionally, because it's animated, City of Demons can get a lot more fanciful with the way it chooses to depict demons and monsters. The pilot episode's tiny, little demons representing Constantine's inner sins are a delightfully creepy example. So is Beroul; while his design is more streamlined from Marco's truly disgusting original, he still oozes menace and a certain sort of wicked charm.

With only a few episodes released so far and still so much of its source material to adapt, it's hard to say where City of Demons will go next and what directions it will take. But seeing how it manages to fold a very concise, smart take on John's horrific mistake at Newcastle (as close to an origin story for the magus as you can get), into itself already, it's safe to say this team knows what they're doing. If they can keep up the momentum, fans will be discussing and praising City of Demons for years to come.