Many people are curious about how Lady Johanna Constantine is linked to John Constantine in Netflix’s “The Sandman” due to casting confusion. John Constantine and Johanna Constantine are two separate people who have lived three centuries apart yet are connected by a common family curse. This point was complicated by choice to replace John Constantine in Netflix’s “The Sandman” series with Johanna Constantine, a sidekick character initially performed by the same actor as John Constantine.
Alan Moore, Stephen R. Bissette, John Totleben, and Rick Veitch initially developed John Constantine in 1985 as a supporting figure for the comic book Swamp Thing. The working-class warlock quickly became well-liked and was given his series, Hellblazer, in 1988. A year later, writer Neil Gaiman gave John Constantine a significant role in the first chapter of The Sandman and collaborated with artists Michael Zulli and Steve Parkhouse to create John’s ancestor, Lady Johanna Constantine. “The Sandman” #29, “Thermidor,” features Lady Johanna, who first appeared in a cameo during the “The Doll’s House” story arc. In this issue, Lady Johanna assists the Dream King with a personal situation during the French Revolution.
It has never been determined how John Constantine and Lady Johanna are related. Later comics, however, proved that one Constantine in a lineage going back to the time of Merlin is blessed with the power of magic while being cursed to witness all of the people they care about succumb to the forces of evil. The casting announcements for Netflix’s “The Sandman” adaption and the casting of Jenna Coleman as two different characters named Johanna Constantine complicated this very simple narrative.
Why John Constantine Isn’t Included In “The Sandman” TV Series
There was a backlash from people who believed Jenna Coleman’s casting was an arbitrary attempt to diversify the cast of Netflix’s “The Sandman” by replacing John Constantine with a similarly named woman when it was initially revealed in April 2021 that Jenna Coleman would be playing Johanna Constantine. However, those more familiar with the original comic book knew that Coleman had been cast as Lady Johanna Constantine, John Constantine’s great-grandmother. But due to licensing complications, the show could not use John Constantine. This forced the creators of “The Sandman” to double-cast Coleman as a new character with the same name as the original Lady Constantine and the same personality as John Constantine to solve the issue.
The character rights to John Constantine are reportedly locked up in a Constantine revival series that J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot production company is now developing for HBO Max. Although Warner Bros. has changed its prior rule prohibiting the existence of more than one live-action rendition of a DC Comics character at once, bringing in John Constantine for just one episode might have been more hassle than it was worth logistically. While some Hellblazer readers may find this change disappointing because they had hoped to see Matt Ryan from the Arrowverse reprise the role, early reviews and trailers for Netflix’s “The Sandman” indicate that Jenna Coleman’s Johanna Constantine is faithful to the original and that viewers of both series will be pleased with her performance.