The First of the Fallen

Over the years, the First of the Fallen continued to torture John and his friends. The First realized that the Second and Third of the Fallen were not as powerful as him, and the First killed them both and decided to claim John Constantine's soul, but this was actually a long-standing scheme orchestrated by Constantine, and the First was seemingly killed by the succubus Ellie, who stabbed the First with a knife made from the remains of the Second and Third of the Fallen.

The First, in fact, was reborn as a fisherman, retaining memories of his previous life. The First and a demon named Buer attempted to deceive John Constantine, with the demon Buer blackmailing John by threatening his friends and family. John sold his soul to the First of the Fallen, and although the First was restored to power, he did not gain John's entire soul, only the pieces he deemed best to remove from himself, thus allowing the First to deceive again.

The First of the Fallen is John Constantine's most dangerous enemy. The First was created by God before Heaven, Earth, and life itself; he was meant to be God's confidant and conscience, but when the First discovered God's declining mental state, he was banished to Hell. He was soon followed by The Second and Third of the Fallen. The First of the Fallen assumed the other two were as powerful as he was, and the three became the unholy trinity of Hell, but they were soon overthrown by the next banished one, Lucifer, the second most powerful being after God. Lucifer held control of Hell for thousands of years before leaving Hell, leaving the unholy trinity in power once more. Although it seems Garth Ennis was trying not to disrupt the continuity Neil Gaiman was establishing with Sandman, since The First of the Fallen mentions that The Presence placed Duma and Remiel in authority over Hell.

The First of the Fallen first encountered John Constantine when John was in Ireland seeking a cure for his cancer and discovered that his friend Brenden had sold his soul to the First of the Fallen. John distracted the First while he was waiting and drinking in a bar, turning his beer into holy water, which caused the First to vomit blood; at that moment midnight passed and, as the First failed to collect the soul for Hell, it was placed in Heaven. The First decided to take revenge on John by torturing him in Hell when the cancer took John's life (because John had killed his father, Hell was where he would go after death), claiming that John's soul was his "by right of insult," but was tricked into discovering that John had sold his soul to the Second and Third of the Fallen and cut his wrists. To avoid a war over Constantine's soul, the unholy trinity had no choice but to bring John back to life without cancer, which became the basis of the rivalry between the First of the Fallen and John Constantine.

First, he contacted John Constantine himself in Ireland, where the demon witnessed the death of an alcoholic who had sold his soul in exchange for the world's largest wine collection. Constantine was also visiting his friend, trying to find a magical cure for his terminal lung cancer, and delayed the First in claiming the soul by tricking him into drinking holy water. This invoked a clause in the contract that allowed the alcoholic's soul to go to heaven because it wasn't collected until midnight. The First decided to take revenge on Constantine as soon as his cancer took his life – but when he came to claim the soul that was his "by right of insult," he discovered that Constantine had managed to sell his soul to both the Second and Third of the Fallen. To avoid an all-out war over who would claim the soul, the triumvirate was forced to cure the magician's cancer and save his life; their poor consolation was to do so in the most painful way possible. This only served to increase the First's thirst for revenge against the mortal who had defeated him.

Things only worsened when the First discovered that Constantine had a spy in Hell, the succubus Ellie. Attempting to punish the demon, the First was again defeated by Constantine, who invoked an ancient law stating that a demon defeated three times by a mortal would receive his torment instead. The First, being the most powerful being in Hell at the time, refused to receive Constantine's intended torment, but this did not improve his disposition towards the sorcerer. The First took this revenge against Constantine extremely seriously: he spent twenty years making nightly visits to a priest in an asylum, tormenting him to suicide just to show Constantine the kind of torment that awaited him. The priest was driven to the edge upon hearing the First's confession that he himself had seen God as insane and acting against His will.

The First continued to worry about Constantine, until he discovered the true nature of his "brothers" in the triumvirate. Realizing that, although they might be powerful, they shared the weaknesses of other demons, he destroyed them and began to claim Constantine's soul. Unfortunately, the whole plan turned out to be a long trap set by the sorcerer: the First of the Fallen was killed by the succubus Ellie, wielding a knife made from the remains of the Second and Third of the Fallen.

The being who would become the First of the Fallen was originally the first being created in the universe, created to be God's companion and the personification of His consciousness. However, he soon came to believe that God was insane and, as a result, was banished from Heaven and cast into Hell – becoming the first of many others who would fall. Soon after, he was joined by the Second and Third of the Fallen, whom the First presumed to be beings like himself, when in fact they were merely very powerful demons. Based on his misunderstanding, the First assumes that the Second and Third share his power and that the establishment of a ruling triumvirate is the only way to avoid a disastrous war in Hell. The triumvirate lasts only until the arrival of the next fourth banished from Heaven: Lucifer, the most powerful being that exists after God. However, once Lucifer abdicates, the triumvirate resumes its previous positions, and the First regains his former title of Satan.

The Triumvirate: He ruled Hell along with the Second and Third Fallen (Beelzebub and Belial) before the arrival of Lucifer.

The difference with Lucifer: He is not Lucifer Morningstar. While Lucifer is a proud archangel who renounced Hell, the First of the Fallen is a cruel, petty ruler focused on torturing souls.