Talk:John Constantine (Arrowverse)

Do we actually know the NBC character is the same as the Arrowverse character?
Is there a reference anywhere that actually says Ryan's appearance on Arrow retconned the NBC show into the Arrowverse, as the article currently claims?

Sure, both characters are played by Matt Ryan, but so is the Constantine in the DC Animated Movie Universe, and that doesn't mean the DCAMU and the Arrowverse are the same universe. (And if that were all it took to establish a shared universe, the 1990 Flash would have been in the Arrowverse from the moment Amanda Pays showed up.) I know Ryan said somewhere or other that he's playing (paraphrasing) "the same character, the same DNA", but he was talking about the DCAMU as well as the NBC series and the Arrowverse, so that doesn't tell us anything.

As far as I'm aware, there have been no public announcements about the rights to the NBC show. The showrunners have been intentionally coy and ambiguous about it, and the press mostly seems to treat it that way. For example, in [this article](https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/10/29/arrowverse-elseworlds-crossover-smallville-revival-90s-flash-john-wesley-shipp-barry):


 * Following the cancellation of NBC's short-lived Constantine series, Matt Ryan has begun reprising his role on multiple Arrowverse series and in several animated films. None of these projects ever really directly reference the events of the Constantine series, leaving it up in the air as to whether this John Constantine is the same character from that series or if Ryan is merely playing a different, very similar version of his character.

In-universe, there have been obvious references since Ryan joined Legends of Tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure they've carefully referred only to things that also happened in the comics. Besides, the Arrowverse is full of winking references to all kinds of other DC-comics-based properties—not just 1990 Flash, but also Smallville, the Supergirl movie, Superman Returns, and probably more that I'm forgetting. --157.131.170.189 (talk) 06:53, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The NBC Constantine and Arrowverse version are the same character as per Arrow showrunner Wendy Mericle, and here is an explanation by Matt Ryan himself. The version seen in Constantine: City of Demons is not, but that is in the same universe as Justice League Dark. -- Kailash29792 (talk)  07:22, 1 February 2019 (UTC)
 * There's nothing in that Ryan interview that confirms anything—in fact, it's the exact same one I was referring to, where he says that _all_ versions of the character (NBC, CW, City of Demons, and JL Dark) are "the same DNA of the character".
 * But the Mericle interview seems to clinch it—it's hard to argue with someone in charge answering with the single word "Absolutely" and then going on to back it up further. :) It's certainly odd that later interviews with her, Berlanti, and others backed off from ever being nearly that unequivocal… but since none of them ever contradicted the original statement, I think it stands.
 * Any way we could work Mericle's affirmation (and the citation, of course) into the article? I think the Arrowverse section in Creation and Development starting off with LoT without any mention of Arrow is a bit odd, so adding a sentence about how he came to be on Arrow first is probably a good idea anyway. I can't think of how to write it smoothly right now… but after I sleep on it, if nobody else has come up with a good sentence, I can try. --157.131.201.206 (talk) 05:28, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * The best I could come up with right now is something like "The season 4 storyline of Arrow needed an occult character, and when the producers discovered they could use Ryan's John Constantine, they brought him on for what was initially a one-shot crossover." That sounds clunky ("an occult character" is odd phrasing…). It also unnecessarily takes a position on a trivial and nearly-forgotten fan dispute (whether Constantine was really brought in for plot reasons as claimed, or whether they wanted a crossover and found a way to cram it in). --157.131.201.206 (talk) 05:39, 3 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Bailey Tippen, who played Astra in the NBC series, returned as Astra's voice in Necromancing the Stone. Perhaps that further helps solidify the connection between the NBC Constantine and the Arrowverse version. You can use the wording as seen in Haunted (Arrow). Kailash29792 (talk)  05:46, 3 February 2019 (UTC)

Two questions
While editing the article to better separate the fictional biography and behind-the-scenes stuff, I had two questions I wasn't sure what to do with.


 * Constantine ended on a cliffhanger, which Arrow/Legends has explicitly decided not to resolve. I don't _think_ that's worth mentioning, but I'm not sure.
 * The entire half-season was a loose adaptation of the Brujeria story arc from the comics, and "A Feast of Friends" and "The Saint of Last Resorts" also loosely adapted the eponymous arcs. I suspect that probably belongs in the Development section of the series, but not of the character. --157.131.201.206 (talk) 07:52, 23 February 2019 (UTC)
 * Write as you please, but with sources and no WP:OR. -- Kailash29792 (talk)  08:34, 23 February 2019 (UTC)