There are hardly many foes in the DC Universe that John Constantine would like facing off against. Papa Midnite is one such bad guy who causes a lot of difficulty for Constantine. He is a strong sorcerer who is frequently viewed as John Constantine’s rival, yet on a number of instances, they have worked together to combat a common foe.
They constantly have a love-hate relationship, and Papa Midnite frequently outduels John Constantine in battle. Even though Papa Midnite has been an occult magician since he was a little child, he made the unfathomable decision to acquire more power.
We will examine every aspect of Papa Midnite’s persona in this video, including his history and all of his interactions with John Constantine. So let us watch the video now without further ado.
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He killed his own sister to gain supernatural powers
Linton Midnite, commonly known as Papa Midnite, first made his appearance in the Hellblazer universe of DC Comics in issue #1 of the 1988 comic book Hellblazer. He was developed by John Ridgway, a comic book artist, and British author Jamie Delano. Garth Ennis takes up the character’s creation in the later issues where he appears, though.
Papa Midnite was born in a small town in Jamaica known as Trenchtown. He lived in a house that was no stranger to voodoo magic. He also had a sister named Cedella, and along with her, he grew up around voodoo magic since their parents were professional practitioners.
From an early age, they taught both Linton and Cedella about the dark arts of magic. However, Papa Midnite was always a fast learner and a step ahead of his sister. After the death of Papa’s mother, his father taught him everything about voodoo magic and passed on his legacy to his son.
After gaining the necessary knowledge, Papa Midnite soon began to grow hungry for more power. For a long time, he continued to use his skills in the dark arts in order to do some minor tricks on people and con money out of them under the pretense of helping them. He had gotten into the habit of tricking people so much that he stopped seeing any boundaries. Soon after, he made a drastic decision that would become the turning point of his life.
He was approached by an enslaved person who wanted to overthrow his masters and start a rebellion. So, he paid Papa Midnite to make a magic powder that would stop bullets. Papa then decided to give the man some colored magic powder because he became greedy for money.
But obviously, the powder was fake and it did not have any such powers. Papa thought that the slave would never dream of executing this plan, but his assumptions backfired on him because the enslaved person ended up actually using the so-called magic powder.
The man gathered other enslaved people from the area and attacked the white landlord’s mansion, but they were quickly defeated in a shower of gunshots. A huge number of slaves died due to Papa Midnite’s con. However, the few survivors decided to take their revenge and went out in search of Papa Midnite. This made Papa even more eager to attain ultimate power that would help him go beyond the limits of some petty tricks.
That is when the thought of the lords of hell struck him and he decided to betray his sister Cedella. When the enslaved people finally found him, Papa Midnite decapitated his sister and used her skull to practice magic in order to send her to hell forever. By doing this, he wanted to gain constant access to hell so that he could build a massive illegal magic empire in New York City.
As a result, Papa began ordering his sister to trade with demons and sleep with them in order to acquire secrets and power for him. He eventually rose to become one of the world’s most prominent specialists in the occult arts, particularly in the concepts of curses and necromancy.
Papa Midnite in the 2005 Constantine movie
The character of Papa Midnite is played by the Beninese American actor Djimon Gaston Hounsou who is also known for playing the role of Korath the Pursuer in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In the film, Papa Midnite and John Constantine are seen as allies and long-time friends. Papa Midnite is shown as a subdued yet powerful witch doctor. In fact, in the past, he has stood against the forces of hell and battled them.
Now, John Constantine is on a mission to help detective Angela Dodson figure out the truth behind the suicide of her twin sister Isabel. He finds out that Lucifer’s son, Mammon, is trying to take over the Earth by possessing a powerful psychic because he wants to create his own kingdom on Earth. Both Angela and Isabel were born psychics. But Angela subconsciously repressed her psychic powers and admitted Isabel into a psychiatric hospital because she denied her sister’s claims of seeing visions.
Now, John and Angela realize that Isabel killed herself because the demon Mammon was trying to use her as a vessel. So, John helps Angela revive her powers, but she gets kidnapped. John then decides to go to Papa Midnite for help. Papa Midnite runs a nightclub in New York City that also acts as a neutral meeting place for the forces of Heaven and Hell. This is because Papa Midnite has taken an oath of neutrality based on which he will not choose sides between Heaven and Hell.
Now, John has come to Papa Midnite asking to use his infamous chair. It is an old electric chair from the Sing Sing Prison, which was used to kill over 200 people. So it has immense dark magic stored within it, and Papa Midnite is able to use it for his purposes. He denies John any access to the chair but soon, the demon known as Balthazar arrives at Papa Midnite’s club and John starts accusing him and is ready to fight him. But Papa gets enraged and warns the two that if they want to stay at his club, they need to follow his rules.
After John is unable to find Angela, he goes to Papa Midnite, demanding to use the chair. Papa dislikes John’s attitude, so he sends John flying through the wall with a simple hand gesture using his telekinesis. However, after hearing about Mammon’s plans, John is able to convince Papa to let him use the chair. Through the dark magic of the chair, John is able to see visions and finds out that Mammon has already put his plan into motion to take over Angela’s body.
John tries to persuade Papa Midnite to join his side and fight alongside him, but due to his oath, Papa has taken the decision not to fight for either side and stay out of the war. Eventually, with the help of Lucifer himself, John is able to stop Mammon and save the day.
Papa Midnite’s character has been adopted with maximum accuracy from the comics and Djimon Hounsou has brilliantly portrayed it. He is a complex character and is the modern anti-hero who stays true to his values and principles. There is no denying that he does not do anything evil. In fact, he often uses his powers to get what he wants. Despite that, after walking the path of neutrality, Papa Midnite did not waver from his words.
He has also been a part of a TV series
The character of Papa Midnite appears in the Constantine TV series which was released in 2014. He is one of the main antagonists in the series and is portrayed by the American actor Michael James Shaw. In the series, Papa Midnite is an immortal voodoo priest who sometimes goes against John Constantine and fights him. John Constantine is a demon hunter who constantly battles several supernatural threats that are brought into the world by an imminent evil force.
He often has to rival Papa Midnite because Papa’s actions prove to be harmful to his investigations. On one occasion, when John visited Papa and tried to insult him, Papa’s men immediately attacked John and knocked him out without sparing a second.
Papa Midnite has also tortured John several times like injecting an anti-coagulant into his neck or cutting his arm when the two end up in a disagreement and John refuses to give Papa what he wants. He shows no remorse for his cruel actions and does not seem to care about the consequences of his actions. In fact, one time, he also made a voodoo doll that looked like John and burnt it.
When John Constantine was on another mission to investigate the mysterious killings that were being caused by a ghost, he found out that Papa Midnite and his cult were contacting the dead in order to help grieving people. In reality, Papa Midnite was performing rituals for women who had lost their husbands. This ritual allowed the spirits of their husbands to temporarily take control of Papa Midnite’s body in order to communicate with their wives.
However, Papa later finds out that his spells were not working as he intended them to and he had accidentally resurrected one of the husbands. In order to send the spirits back to where they came from, Papa Midnite joined hands with John and together, the two were able to perform a ritual that managed to release the spirits that were stuck.
In the series, Papa Midnite’s powers are a bit different from those of John Constantine. He is the most powerful rune magician and has the ability to do anything he wants with rune spells. His immortality also gives him an edge as he is able to improve and constantly increase his powers. He has also used his magic powers in the series in order to change reality.
What makes him so powerful?
Papa Midnite is the master of voodoo and has the ability to actually create and control voodoo zombies. With the help of his occult powers, he is also able to change his physical form as and when he pleases. Papa Midnite is also well acquainted with various occult rituals and customs as they are related to Voodoo and dark magic. In every version, the common curse that Papa Midnite is suffering from is that of immortality.
Apart from this, he is also well versed in the art of necromancy and has the ability to summon the spirits of the dead. He can also summon demons based on his needs by performing a rather powerful ritual. He sure does not shy away from doing anything that will give him more power. Now, since Papa Midnite runs multiple businesses in order to hide his illegal dark magic, he also has the necessary knowledge required for business management and is actually quite skilled and sharp as a businessman.
The most important thing that Papa Midnite possesses and that also serves as the source of concentration of his powers is the skull of his dead sister Cedella. He used to communicate with her in hell and force her to gather necessary information for him. For a short period of time, Papa Midnite was also in possession of an occult relic known as the Ace of Winchesters. It is a magical rifle that is made for killing demons. But the one that Papa had acquired was just a collector’s item.
As the most lethal sorcerer in all of Manhattan, Papa Midnite has the potential to be the most inhuman villain in the DC Universe. His dynamic with John Constantine brings out the best as well as the worst aspects of his personality. In fact, their shared story has some of the most amazing plots that can be explored in detail. Moreover, the build of his character as an anti-hero creates a lot of possibilities for adapting Papa Midnite as the main character in a film.
In fact, with today’s filmmaking technologies, a story about a voodoo practitioner with such a dark history would certainly excite the audience and create a massive buzz for DC fans. The fact that he killed his own sister and carried her skull around with him wherever he goes is in itself a major selling point.