How Does ‘Constantine: City of Demons’ Factor Into the Arrowverse?

Constantine: City of Demons made its CW Seed debut this weekend, but could its place in the DC Comics canon be more than meets the eye?

Spoilers for the first five episodes of Constantine: City of Demons below!

As those who have seen the series’ first installment know, City of Demons takes Matt Ryan’s titular hellblazer into a whole new story, and presents a drastically different version of things along the way. The events of both NBC’s Constantine series and Ryan’s appearances on Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow don’t seem to have any weight, the timeline of events is placed months into the future, and characters like Chas Chandler and Astra Logue are changed significantly from their live-action counterparts.

For those who were expecting City of Demons to essentially be a second season of the NBC series, this revelation is a little jarring at first. Some may have begun to wonder if the series was even retconning the events of Constantine, and setting up a new sort of canon for Ryan’s portrayal before he begins to have a larger role in the Arrowverse on next season of Legends of Tomorrow.

Well, according to those involved with the show, that isn’t the case. At the show’s recent WonderCon panel (via CBR), the series’ continuity was linked more to Ryan’s previous animated adventure as Constantine in the DC animated film Justice League Dark.

“This is something we see as launching this corner of the Constantine animated universe,” Warner Bros. exec Peter Girardi said during the panel.

So, for those who were worried about the lasting impact of NBC’s Constantine — which has only been sporadically alluded to throughout Ryan’s three Arrowverse appearances — you can rest easy.

But even then, there could possibly be a way that City of Demons could eventually end up playing a role in the Arrowverse itself – through the Arrowverse’s multiverse. The Arrowverse has certainly shown that it can do so before, allowing Supergirl to cross over with the “Earth-1 shows” from time to time while existing in its own separate continuity. It wouldn’t be too hard to see City of Demons operating in a similar fashion, especially when it has the goings on of Earth-1’s Constantine — first in the NBC series, and now on Legends of Tomorrow — to either play into or go against.

And in a way, the way The CW’s DC-related programming has operated so far simultaneously argues both for and against it. The previous DC-inspired CW Seed animated series — Vixen and Freedom Fighters: The Ray — both have factored into the Arrowverse in some fashion. Vixen featured a slew of appearances from established Arrowverse stars, before Mari McCabe was later brought into the live-action side of things a year later. And Freedom Fighters: The Ray essentially spun off from this year’s “Crisis on Earth-X” crossover, getting fans invested in a hero on a completely different Earth from the main Arrowverse continuity.

Granted, City of Demons has proved so far that it doesn’t need those connections, especially considering the overwhelming love that fans have for Ryan’s portrayal in any capacity. But having City of Demons – or any future installments of that “Constantine animated universe” – be confirmed to be its own extension of the Arrowverse could have its benefits. It would be able to use its platform to tell more comic-based, condensed supernatural stories involving Constantine — and possibly give us a new look at some of the Arrowverse’s other characters in the process.

What did you think of City of Demons so far? Would you like to see it officially confirmed as a part of the Arrowverse? Sound off in the comments below.

The first five episodes of Constantine: City of Demons are now available in CW Seed.