I mention John Constantine from time to time, because he’s my all-time favorite comics character. Some of you know who he is, but a lot don’t, and quite a few people erroneously think they know who he is because of a movie where the lead character bore about as much similarity to him as Halle Berry’s Catwoman bears to Selina Kyle.
For those of you just joining us: One of the many creations of the great Alan Moore, John Constantine is a magician. He’s also a liar, a thief, a fuck-up, a punk rocker, and periodically a detective, mostly because he’s as curious as a cat and just can’t stop poking anything that looks big and scary enough to possibly eat him. Once in a while he saves the world; at least as often, he’s the one putting it in danger in the first place. He’s amazing and the first template for all the Harry Dresdens and other noir magicians who now litter the fantasy landscape.
But the actual reason I’m bringing him up is because lately I’ve seen a lot of frustration about bi erasure on my dash. So it seemed relevant to let you guys know that among the many other things he is, John is canonically bisexual.
It came up a couple of times in his original comic series, Hellblazer (infact, he spent a whole story arc in a relationship with a man, except since he was out to seduce the guy to his destruction, it’s not necessarily something you want representing the sexuality). Now that he’s moved from the adult comic line over to regular DC in his new comic Constantine, he’s…this shocked the hell out of me…still canonically bi and has had a past relationship with one of the other male characters that keeps coming up, along with an on-again/off-again relationship with noted magical superhero Zatanna.
So, NBC is working on producing a John Constantine TV show. So far it’s looking pretty promising, and I’m keeping an eye on it to see what all they decide to keep, and what they decide to water down because it’s too inappropriate for TV. (Although this is the same network that’s airing Hannibal, so I wonder what their definition for that is, these days.)
