History

  An Arch-Duke of Mendacity, the diabolic Nergal was supposedly once a mortal man, so tainted with evil that he became a demon in the afterlife. In ancient Babylon and Sumeria he became known as a god of death. In the 1940s, he returned to Earth and fought Dr. Fate as Black Nergal. Decades later, he became a frequent enemy of John Constantine as the leader of the Damnation Army, a group that Constantine opposed. After making a deal with Constantine, Nergal gave him a blood transfusion that now makes him related by blood to both Constantine and his biological daughter Tefé. It has recently been revealed that Nergal was also the one who gave Constantine his first cigarette when he was still a child.

  Nergal had his own hell-city, Mashkan-Shapir, which was devastated by Anton Arcane. Nergal himself was demoted by the First of the Fallen.

  [Note: This Nergal apparently has nothing to do with the renegade Oan who also posed as the Babylonian/Sumerian death-god Nergal (see Nergal II). It is possible that they were both impostors of a real deity.]