The Arrowverse has accumulated a pretty significant array of DC Comics characters over the years, including Matt Ryan’s fan-favorite portrayal of John Constantine. While Ryan initially began playing the character on NBC’s Constantine, he found a second life on The CW’s Legends of Tomorrow, and it sounds like that’s where he’ll stay for the time being. During the network’s presentation at the Television Critics Association press tour, the CW president Mark Pedowitz revealed that there have not been talks of reviving Constantine, but that Ryan’s portrayal of the character will be firmly tied to Legends’ next Big Bad.
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The final episodes of Legends Season 4 essentially set this in motion, with the reveal that Astra Logue (Olivia Swann) – the young girl that John regrets dooming to Hell – had grown into a rather vengeful adult. In the last scene of the Season 4 finale, Astra was seen casting the souls of various evil historical figures into the real world, causing a problem for the Legends in the episode to come.
“In the finale, we are going to see a terribly nuanced version of Astra.” showrunner Phil Klemmer told ComicBook.com. “She, unlike most people in Hell, isn’t going to appear evil through and through. Should we have the chance to continue the story next season, there’s a flipside to the coin of this girl — now woman — who resents him and had been corrupted by her experience. She blames him for everything that went wrong in her life.”
“Again, I feel like there’s a chance to get underneath all that.” Klemmer continued. “For us, it’s just always about revealing new sides of these characters that you think you know inside and out. I never would have thought that John Constantine would fit in with the Legends and onboard the Waverider, but I think for next season, we want to keep digging deep on this guy, because obviously he feels pretty bottomless. He’s a bottomless pit of darkness, but also, there’s no end to the pathos and the tragedy. There is such a pure impulse to what John does. Beneath all the self-loathing, he’s such noble man. I guess that’s why we keep wanting to know what happens next, because it’s like he’s endlessly fascinating.”
The fifth season of Legends of Tomorrow is expected to debut in early 2020.
Additional reporting by Scott Huver.
