John Constantine is an occult detective and professional conman. He has saved the world on multiple occasions, but despite this, he is a slimy self-obsessed grifter who tends to ruin the lives of everyone around him. That said, for all his faults, he really tries to do the right thing.

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Of course, there is a big difference between trying to do right and actually doing it. On more than one occasion, the English magician has conjured up more trouble than a situation warranted. Please note that this article does discuss serious, sensitive, and political subject matter.

10 The Newcastle Incident

As a young man with a gift for magic, John got together with a group of like-minded occultists. While touring with his punk group, Mucous Membrane, the young magician came across a demon-haunted area in Newcastle., England. He rounded up some of his friends in the magical community to banish the demon.

To help in their banishment, they summoned the dark entity known as Nergal. What better way to banish a demon than to drive it out with another? That seems to have been their thinking. Tragically, the presence of two demons was too much to bear. A girl was damned to hell and the group of magicians disbanded, forever altered by the incident.

9 Gathering Magic Users to Help Swamp Thing

John's first appearance in the world of comics was as a supporting character in Alan Moore's run of Saga of the Swamp Thing. John helped Swamp Thing to manifest his full power and potential. The two worked to stop the threat of a nigh-omnipotent evil, the Great Darkness.

John gathered a group of powerful magic users together, including Sargon the Sorcerer and Giovanni Zatara. The group hold a seance, which ends with Zatara and Sargon dying horribly.

8 Lending Swamp Thing His Body

Swamp Thing is an interesting character. Alan Moore pushed the bounds of horror comics to new literary heights while developing the character of Alec Holland, the main Swamp Thing of DC Comics. Alec and his girlfriend Abbey Arcane found a way to be intimate, but as he is a plant monster and she is a human, there were limits to what they could do together.

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John offered to help by lending out his body so that Swamp Thing's consciousness could enter, using John's flesh to make love to Abbey. She was also willing. Unfortunately, while out of his body, John became attacked by a demon. Overwhelmed by the assault, he retreated to the one safe place he had: his body, which Swamp Thing and Abbey were not done with. Ick.

7 Cybershamanism

John Constantine recruited the help of his old friend Ritchie to help him take on a religious cult, the Resurrection Crusade. Ritchie was a tech mage who used cybershamanism to leave his body and enter the computer networks, employing a form of quantum magic that allowed his consciousness to travel along the digital information networks. As the cult was up to no good (including the kidnapping of people John cared about), he wanted to gain access to the secrets on their computers.

While Ritchie's consciousness was exploring the mainframes of the Resurrection Crusade, his body was destroyed by their magical wards--just one of many friends John got killed.

6 Helping an Old Man

After a brief encounter with an old friend went awry (and the friend was dragged screaming out of reality itself by a mob of fictional characters), John took up residence in the friend's vacant house. When an elderly gentleman came calling for John's friend, Constantine showed the stranger hospitality. He even gave the stranger an envelope from the mantle, which the old man insisted was for him.

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It turned out that this old man was the serial killer known as the Family Man. John's friend has been supplying the killer with victims. Not only did John help the killer, but later, the Family Man would kill someone John loved.

5 Filial Duty

The Family Man was a unique foe in the early Hellblazer comics. While there had been as many human enemies as supernatural ones, the human enemies has usually been political: skinheads, religious fundamentalists, police, and Margaret Thatcher being obvious examples. As a serial killer, the Family Man was an altogether different sort of human evil.

The two played a game of cat and mouse for a while. Eventually, the Family Man killed Constantine's father. Constantine obtained a gun. Then he got his vengeance. However, the comics do not present this as justice. Murder--even vengeance--is blatantly condemned in the comic, for to kill another person is to kill oneself, at least in terms of the mystical principles of the text.

4 Warning Chas about the Apocalypse

Constantine never learned to drive. Why would he need to? The UK's public transportation system always seemed enough for him, while his friend Chas was a cabbie who drove him about when he needed a lift.

When the world seemed about to end, Constantine gave Chas a heads up. Chas sold his taxi, thinking he'd not need it with the world being over. However, Constantine managed to avert the apocalypse, saving the world but leaving his friend financially ruined.

3 Challenging White Supremacists

Racism is bad and has no place in the world, fictional or not. This should not be a hard concept to grasp, but for some incomprehensible reason, racist rhetoric consistently easy ways to gain support. When Constantine stood up against a group of white supremacists, he was making a stand against evil. A stand which, though did not go according to plan, we truly applaud.

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The white supremacists decided to make an example of John Constantine, attacking him and those he was closest to. One of John's friends, a young black man, got the worst of it, being horribly tortured to death as retaliation for what John had done. This death was truly tragic and utterly horrific. Unfortunately, John's efforts did not get the result that he hoped for but the mere fact that he stood up for what is right is truly something we should all look up to and strive towards.

2 Defying a Killer Angel

People are judged by their actions as much as by what is in their hearts. Constantine chose to apply the same standard to the archangel Gabriel. As Gabriel was guilty of mass murder and consorting with white supremacists, John judged the angel to be less than virtuous.

The occultist engineered the fall of the archangel, putting doubt into Gabriel, then hiring a demon to seduce the heavenly representative. However, things soon got out of hand. After Gabriel was cast out by his god, Constantine tortured the angel by shearing off his broken wings with a chainsaw. Then demons moved in to torture the fallen angel even more.

1 The School Shooting Incidents

The story "Shoot" has been a source of controversy, because it accurately looked at root causes of school shootings in the United States and was willing to tell an uncomfortable truth. Unfortunately, just before the comic's release, the Columbine Massacre tragically took place.

The comic shows John at the scene of a number of school shootings. He actively tried to stop this trend. He failed. There is no grand mystery to it or tragic twist. For all his magic, Constantine couldn't exorcise the demon of mass shootings that continues to haunt the United States. While John failed to stop such a serious issue, he should at least be commended for taking a stand against one of the greatest social evils afflicting the country.

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