Doom Patrol’s Wizard Character Is A John Constantine StandIn

Doom Patrol’s Wizard Character Is A John Constantine Stand-In

Doom Patrol’s wizard Willoughby Kipling may seem like a cut-rate John Constantine, but there’s a reason why the two characters are so similar.



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Doom Patrol’s Wizard Character Is A John Constantine StandIn

Doom Patrol season 1, episode 4, “Cult Patrol,” introduces the team to wizard Willoughby Kipling, who seems curiously cut from the same cloth as John Constantine. With his chain-smoking, trenchcoat and mysterious manner, it would be all but impossible not to think of Constantine watching Kipling in action. This is by design, however and points to one of the odder occasions in the behind-the-scenes history of DC Comics.

The action of “Cult Patrol” centers around Kipling as he arrives at Caulder Manor in search of The Chief. It seems that a sinister society known as the Cult of the Unwritten Book are about to perform a ritual that could destroy all reality and Kipling had hoped his old friend Niles Caulder might be able to help stop them. The Doom Patrol are largely happy to help but soon find themselves put-off by Kipling’s immorality, his slobbishness and his general strangeness and failure to explain exactly how his magic works.

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This portrayal, and indeed much of the action of the episode, is taken directly from Doom Patrol #31 – the comic which introduced Willoughby Kipling and the Cult of the Unwritten Book into the DC Comics universe. When plotting the issue, Doom Patrol writer Grant Morrison had intended to use John Constantine for the story, thinking him a natural guest star to bring in to join with the Doom Patrol in battling some magical weirdness. Unfortunately, the editorial team of Hellblazer – Constantine’s solo series – disagreed.

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While DC Comics had yet to establish its Vertigo imprint for mature readers in 1990, there was still a policy of limiting contact between those characters such as John Constantine whose comics were aimed at older readers and DC’s superheroes. It was also felt that Morrison’s story in Doom Patrol was too fanciful to involve the relatively more grounded Constantine, who was written as a con-artist who played at having more magical talent than he did, rather than a blue-collar trickster mage. Thus Morrison created Willoughby Kipling, who was the more overtly magic-using John Constantine of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing in everything but name.

Though DC’s editorial policy would change later and both Hellblazer and Doom Patrol would both go on to be part of the Vertigo line and a separate shared reality set apart from the main DC Universe, future writers would continue to use Willoughby Kipling even though the need for him had vanished. The Doom Patrol series version of the character, as played by Supernatural’s Mark Sheppard, is both a tribute to the odd history of the source material and a worthy partner to Matt Ryan’s take on Constantine. It remains to be seen, however, if either of these con-man magi will be showing up to plague Alec Holland in DC Universe’s upcoming Swamp Thing series.



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Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word “blogging” was coined. He got his start writing for the legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing, before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on to write for over a dozen websites, including 411 Mania, Comics Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog – My Geeky Geeky Ways – which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series making up The Arrowverse as well as his comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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