Editing John Constantine (section)

===Youth===
In John Constantine's early appearances in ''Swamp Thing'', his past was a mystery; his life as a child and young adult was not developed until [[Jamie Delano]]'s ''Hellblazer'' stories. He was born in [[Liverpool]] on 10 May 1953, the son of Mary Anne and Thomas Constantine. Mary Anne died giving birth to him and his stillborn twin brother because an earlier abortion, forced on her by Thomas, had weakened her womb. Since he was unable to accept responsibility for his wife's death, Thomas blamed John and the pair grew up with a deep dislike for each other.<ref name=family>{{cite book|title=Hellblazer vol. 4: The Family Man|author=Jamie Delano|publisher=Vertigo|isbn=978-1-40121-964-2|year=2008}}</ref> While in the womb, John strangled his twin brother with his own umbilical cord; in a [[Parallel universe (fiction)|parallel universe]], the twin survives to become the well-loved and well-adjusted magician John never was.<ref name=Bogeyman>{{cite book|title=Hellblazer vol. 5: The Bogeyman|author1=Jamie Delano |author2=Garth Ennis |publisher=Vertigo|isbn=978-1-40123-802-5|year=2013 }}</ref>

In their childhood, John and his older sister Cheryl lived briefly with their aunt and uncle in [[Northampton]] to escape from their father's alcoholism and subsequent imprisonment for stealing a female neighbour's underwear. They moved back to Liverpool when their father was released. John's bloodline and ancestry were known as the Laughing Magicians, legendary mages who have the power over [[synchronicity]] and were infamous for bluffing and tricking gods.<ref name="Hellblazer #239">{{cite book |author=Andy Diggle |title=The Laughing Magician |publisher=DC Comics |year=2008 |isbn=978-1-40121-853-9}}</ref> This ancestry later drives John to partake in his lineage and practice magic. One of John's first acts of magic, as a child, was to hide all of his childhood innocence and vulnerability in a box to rid himself of it.<ref>{{Cite book | last =Jenkins | first =Paul | title =Hellblazer/The Books of Magic Book One: Ascent  | publisher =Vertigo | date = December 1997 | title-link =The Books of Magic }}</ref> Later, in the 1960s, a teenaged John ran away from home after a botched curse caused his father to become withered and frail. John eventually made his permanent home in [[London]] in 1969, rooming with [[Chas Chandler (comics)|Chas Chandler]], who would later become his closest and longest-surviving friend.

During the 1970s, John became involved in [[occult]] circles in London. He travelled to other countries and visited [[San Francisco]], where he began dating Zatanna Zatara, a female magician he had previously met in [[New York City]].<ref>{{cite book|title=Justice League Dark 0|author=Jeff Lemire|publisher=DC comics|date=August 2012}}</ref> He also became a fan of [[punk rock]]; after seeing the [[Sex Pistols]] at the Roxy Club in London in 1977, he cut his long hair short, called himself Johnny Con-Job, and formed a band called Mucous Membrane. Its members included Chandler (as a roadie), a drummer named Beano, and fellow Liverpool native Gary Lester. They released an album called ''Venus of the Hardsell''. John also performed as a [[stage magician]] in the 1980s, where he became famous for predicting the assassination attempt on [[Ronald Reagan]].<ref>''Hellblazer'' #1</ref>

John's first venture into occult "heroism" was a disaster. On tour with Mucous Membrane at the Casanova Club in [[Newcastle upon Tyne]], he found the aftermath of a magical orgy gone horribly wrong; an abused child named Astra Logue had conjured a hideous monster that took revenge on her father, the club's debauched owner, and the other adults who were tormenting her, but the monster refused to leave. With typical recklessness, John convinced some members of the band and several occultist friends to try destroying the creature by summoning a demon of their own. Unfortunately, this demon was not under their control and tormented John's friends after it had destroyed the other demon before taking Astra to [[Hell]]. John had summoned the demon by one of its names, but not its true name of [[Nergal]], which would have been required to bind and control the demon. Nergal went on to be a regular antagonist throughout the series. John suffered a nervous breakdown after this incident, and was committed to Ravenscar Psychiatric Hospital, which he drifted in and out of over the years.<ref name="dc-ency">{{Cite book | last = Wallace | first = Dan | contribution = Constantine, John | editor-last = Dougall | editor-first = Alastair | title = The DC Comics Encyclopedia | page = 87 | publisher = [[Dorling Kindersley]] | place = New York | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-7566-4119-1 | oclc = 213309017 }}</ref>

The guilt of Astra hung over John for many years. In his mid-40s, he used some magic and trickery to free not only her but also the souls of all the other children trapped in Hell. As for the rest of the "Newcastle Crew", the incident left the group both physically and psychologically scarred. After helping [[Dream (comics)|Dream]] retrieve his sands from John's own dying ex-girlfriend Rachel, Dream in turn relieves Constantine of the nightmares that had plagued him since the incident.<ref>''[[The Sandman (Vertigo)|The Sandman]]'' (vol. 2) #3</ref>