The most terrifying demon that you will encounter in Hellblazer! Over the course of his life, Hellblazer, also known as John Constantine, has faced numerous foes. Nergal, the most terrible demon in the Hellblazer series, is one of the most dangerous foes this young occultist must confront.
This demon, created by Jamie Delano and John Ridgway, is an underworld lord who originally appeared in Hellblazer Comics [#6]. Since then, Nergal has been wandering between universes and causing havoc with the help of his damned army of followers. Let us have a look at his roots in the comics and find out more about this devil that believes Constantine to be his arch-enemy!
His blood-soaked first appearance
Nergal first appeared in the Hellblazer comics issue titled ‘Extreme Prejudice’ [Issue #6], where his character subjects his victims to unthinkable horrors right from the start. The comics introduce a group of delinquents that go by the name ‘British Boys’ and terrorize civilians, leftists, and especially homosexuals. However, the boys are unaware of the demon Nergal, who has been watching their activities and is planning to teach them a lesson.
When the boys plan to attack a homosexual man on the streets, they are cornered by Nergal instead. Constantine watches from afar as Nergal forces himself upon the group in a public toilet, rip them apart and even fatally attacks them. Moreover, Nergal writes the words’ Damnation Army’ with the blood of his victims on the toilet’s walls and then disappears with the corpses of the British Boys to his underground den. Here, he reanimates the boys’ bodies into a monster named ‘Ironfist’ with the heads of all the four British Boys.
In the meantime, Constantine investigates the public toilets and finds the Damnation Army sign. He looks into the name and finds out that Nergal and his army of wrongdoers have been behind several crimes in recent days. Exhausted from the day’s events, Constantine decides to pay a visit to his girlfriend ‘Zed.’ Here, he comes across unwanted guests who have been calling his girlfriend ‘Mary’ instead of Zed and have been trying to persuade her to join them.
Sensing Zed’s discomfort, Constantine intervenes and gets the guests to leave her house. Zed refuses to talk about the situation, and the couple goes to bed together while Nergal’s new creation, ‘Ironfist’, makes its way to Zed’s residence. It appears that the Damnation Army is after Zed too, and Nergal has sent Ironfist to capture her.
While Zed sleeps peacefully, Constantine lurks around her house and reads her diaries to find the truth about her past. He hears the disturbances caused by Ironfist, who has managed to break into Zed’s bedroom. She screams for help, and Constantine enters the room to find the four bodies of the British Boys sewn together in the form of a monster. He laughs at their current state and manages to distract them by pointing out the differentiating football tattoos on their bodies. As they break out into a fight over football, Constantine escapes with Zed, and they seek refuge at a friend’s house.
While Constantine ponders over the day’s events, he gets a call from Nergal late in the night. In a cryptic message, the demon forewarns him not to join hands with his enemies any further and even invites Constantine to join his Damnation Army.
Some disturbing origin stories
Initially, writer Garth Ennis introduced Nergal as an ordinary mortal who preyed on young children. However, this narrative was soon revised in future volumes of the comics, and Nergal was introduced as a demon who ruled the underworld. He was born to the gods Enlil and Ninlil, and was initially the god of war and pestilence. As the times changed, Nergal became the god of death and spent his life traveling across dimensions and creating havoc.
On his misadventures, Nergal also came across a young John Constantine in the year 1958. The demon had disguised himself as a mortal child and even offered a cigarette to John, who was just a kid at this stage. Nergal found great joy in corrupting the young child but soon realized that Constatine had stealthily gotten his hands on the entire cigarette pack.
As the years passed, Nergal continued to wander across dimensions, and once again, he ran into Constantine at a club in Newcastle. Only this time, it was the year 1979, and Constantine had been working with a group known as the ‘The Newcastle Crew.’The group had learned of a mass killing by a demon at the club and broke into the place to find that the crowd had been brutally killed by the demon known as ‘Norfulthing’. The demon was summoned by ‘Astra’, a young girl who had been abused by her father and his associates.
She had summoned Norfulthing to get rid of the men, but Astra was unable to control the demon. Constantine then attempted to perform an exorcism and eventually summoned another demon to control Norfulthing, and this demon turned out to be Nergal.
Nergal managed to kill Norfulthing and, at the same time, decided to claim ‘Astra’ and take her to hell with him as a form of payment for getting rid of the demon. Unable to save Astra, Constantine blamed himself for being unable to bind or control Nergal after summoning him. The situation drove Constantine to insanity, and he was also admitted to Ravenscar Secure Facility for a little while.
In a few years, Nergal hears rumors about a prophecy about a child with divinity that will be born on Earth. He learns that the Resurrection Crusade – a fanatic group of Christians, was planning on creating a new Christ in the name of the prophecy. Opposed to this, Nergal created a ‘Damnation Army’ of his own and was determined to make sure that no new Christ child was born on Earth. He even created a new monster known as ‘Ironfist’, but Constantine managed to escape Ironfist as we have explored in the comics above.
In the meantime, the Resurrection Crusade heckled ‘Zed’, who they believed to be the divine child’s prospective birth mother. Zed was also Constantine’s girlfriend, who was at the time in a hospital after an accident. While Constantine was recovering, Nergal paid him a visit and even gave him a blood transfusion that immediately healed John from the injuries he suffered.
However, John now carried some of Nergal’s blood and would forever be tainted by the demon. Constantine saw this as his chance to help Zed out, even if it meant aiding Nergal in his plans. John slept with Zed, which led her to be second-handedly tainted with demonic blood. This made her unfit to carry the divine child and caused quite an uproar when the Resurrection crusade summoned an angel to impregnate her. The angel sensed the demon’s presence, causing it to go into a frenzy and brutally murder the entire Crusade.
After resolving this issue, Constantine decided to ensure that the Damnation army did not bring a demon child into existence. Since the prophecy had not been fulfilled, John gave up his body to his acquaintance Swamp Thing’, a humanoid who was also a plant. Swamp Thing then procreated with his girlfriend ‘Abigail Cable’ who was a human, and she gave birth to a divine child who was free of any demon influence.
In the meantime, Constantine’s spirit wandered in the astral planes where Nergal followed him. Constantine decided to get rid of Nergal by luring him closer to the borders of Heaven.
Eventually, Nergal fell for his plans and entered the astral planes that were too close to Heaven. He was attacked by an angel, who ripped the demonic god into pieces. However, Nergal is too powerful a demon to be defeated so easily, and he eventually builds himself back up from his pieces.
How does this shapeshifting demon prey upon its victims?
Nergal is a sadistic villain who can change his physical form at will, and shapeshift into many deadly forms to prey upon his victims. In his demonic form, Nergal possesses fangs and claws as sharp as a knife and is a well-built demon with red skin. However, with his ability to shapeshift, he can also take the form of various animal species and even combine them to look half-human and half-animal. In some of his forms, Nergal also has wings, and in one instance, Nergal’s physique appears to be a combination of flies, dogs, and a human. Though he can shapeshift, Nergal usually wanders the universe in his demonic state and does unthinkable things to his victims.
Nergal in the Constantine TV series
Nergal briefly appeared in the Constantine TV Series, where he was portrayed by actor Joey Philips. He first appeared in the series’s pilot episode titled ‘Non Est Asylum’ in a flashback as John Constantine falls unconscious and gets flashes from his past. In the flashback, John relives the events at the club in Newcastle when he tried to perform an exorcism but accidentally summoned Nergal in order to save Astra Logue. Nergal had returned to hell with Astra, and John had blamed himself for Astra’s eternal damnation all along. Nergal also appeared in another one of John’s flashbacks in the episode ‘Rage of Caliban’.
This demonic villain was also written into the animated ‘Constantine – City of Demons series as well as the live-action movie by the same name. Though the storylines vary across different forms of media, Nergal is always portrayed as a terrifying demon who is Constantine’s arch-nemesis.
What makes this one of John Constantine’s toughest enemies?
Nergal’s demonic powers are quite unmatched, and he is a lot more powerful than any ordinary villain. He is considered to be an immortal demon god who rules hell and has the ability to perform magic, possess the minds of others, and even create an army of warriors from corpses.
Nergal can also bend reality, perform telekinesis, and even travel across dimensions.
He can manipulate the minds of others, and lure them over to the dark side by taking control of their minds and imbibing his sadistic ideas in them. He also has control over energy and can manipulate it to use it as a weapon against his opponents.
As a demon, Nergal also has the ability to perform advanced pyrokinesis and summon fire directly from hell in the form of fireballs. He is also immune to most physical weapons of torture, making him undefeatable in physical combat.
Nergal has been tainting Constantine’s life right from the start and is one of Constantine’s most formidable enemies. Though Constantine cannot overpower Nergal in physical combat, sometimes he gets the best of Nergal even if the demon refuses to accept his reality.
In any case, Nergal is a super-powerful entity and cannot be easily defeated.
Conclusion
Though the Hellblazer lore is filled with many such creatures, Nergal’s demonic persona definitely makes him one of those villains that stand out. He is one of those hellish creatures whose presence is quite appealing to fans, and we hope to see this terrifying demon in more live-action adaptations in the future!