John Sargent

== Biography ==
=== Background ===
Thousands of years ago, the African wizard-king Nommo created the Ruby of Life after the destruction of his empire, Kor. He gave the pendant to his favorite subject, and the last survivor of Kor. Nommo hoped that through the generations, the bearers of the Ruby would breed with homo sapien and create new subjects for him.
However, Nommo underestimated the greed in human nature. The Ruby would eventually be shattered by the many children of that subject, and then became scattered to all corners of the globe. One piece of the Ruby wound its way into the private collection of an esteemed archeologist - Joseph Gardner. After Gardner married a woman named Sharon Parker, he decided to sell his collection, and gave it to his favorite employee - Richard Sargent, who fashioned it into a pendant for his wife, who was pregnant with their child at the time.
=== Early Life ===
John Sargent was born on April 9th, 1950 to Richard and Mary Sargent. Richard was a World War Two veteran who had been a museum curator but moved to Fallville, Iowa and became a history teacher shortly after John’s birth. The family lived the perfect post-war nuclear family life, with John’s older sister Grace completing the picture.
From the moment John was born, he was always very drawn to his mother. Richard caught him trying on her clothes and jewelry many times and would often fall asleep near his mother’s ruby pendant, finding it a source of comfort. Richard saw this as his son being “soft” and tried his best to toughen him up. When John was in middle school, Richard convinced him to join the JROTC. While John felt he had more of a penchant for theatrics, he agreed to join to please his father.
Also at his father’s suggestion, in high school he dated the Turkish foreign exchange student, Sindella, although she could tell his attention lay elsewhere, specifically with his fellow JROTC cadet, Cyril “Speed” Saunders. Sindella confronted John about this, to which he revealed to her that he was gay, but felt he couldn’t reveal this to his family.
Still conforming to the path his father wanted for him, John finished ROTC and was drafted into the Vietnam War. On the day he was set to ship out, his mother tearfully grabbed him and placed her ruby pendant into his hands. John kept it right under his dog tags for the entirety of his tour. When Operation Wrath of God occurred, John was finally able to return home, although he was forever changed due to the horrors he witnessed.
John was moving through life in a daze. He didn’t go back to work and continued to live with his parents and spent most of his time drinking or sleeping. One night, while about to black out at the local bar, he looked up to see Sindella standing there with a baby and a man by her side. John mumbled something incoherent before she cast a spell and they were all teleported to their home, the Shadowcrest.
When John sobered up, she told him that she could detect the magical energy permeating from his ruby pendant. They gave him a history lesson and explained that their JSA friend Joseph Gardner had been killed and they were trying to track down the artifacts he had sold off - and it happened to bring Sindella and John back together.
=== Sargon the Sorcerer ===
John handed them the pendant and tried to walk off, but Sindella wouldn’t allow it. Instead, they convinced John to let his life have a new purpose - using the Ruby to become a do-gooder. John was pretty adverse to the idea, so her husband, Giovanni Zatara, offered to employ him as a stagehand while he thought about it, and he would hold on to the pendant for safekeeping until then. He agreed to this.
He went to work for Zatara, and in their off-time from the show, Zatara taught him a couple of magic tricks and made him his second protege. The other man, a Peruvian named Gregorio de la Vega, was his first protege. Gregorio and John grew close while working with Zatara, he eventually convinced John to fully embrace the powers of the Ruby and they became straight-up crime fighters together. They also became something more, eventually becoming lovers and being married (although they lacked the legal certificate). When they shacked up, they moved on from being Zatara’s stagehands, although they felt guilty for leaving him after Sindella’s “death”.
John eventually brought Gregorio to meet his aging parents and finally came out to them. While his father pretty much exploded, his mother admitted to knowing and was a bit more accepting - although she eventually fell in line with her husband, and John was essentially shunned from the family.
This hit him way harder than he expected, and he started to hit the bottle pretty hard. But, Gregorio managed to pull him out of that dark place. They moved to New Orleans and started up their own magic show, using real magic, and became pretty big stars, with John going by the stage name of “Sargon the Sorcerer”. However, when the 70s gave way to the 80s and the AIDS Crisis began, rumors began spreading about their relationship, and they were essentially blacklisted from performance venues.
John and Gregorio were summoned to form the Sentinels of Magic at the Tower of Fate. There, they reunited with Zatara who convinced the two to return to Shadowcrest with him to meet Zatanna - now a full-on teenager. However, upon arriving at the estate, Zatanna was nowhere to be found.
They spent the next few years helping Gio search for his daughter, exploring many realms and making allies with significant figures including the Shining Knight, Desperado, Ibis the Invincible, Taia, the Starman of the time, and Nightmaster. However, their search would be brought to an end when Gio secretly brokered a deal with Nabu to become the new Doctor Fate, despite their pleas for him not to.
=== Retirement ===
Around the turn of the millennium, Gregorio and John decided to settle down from the stage life and the superheroics. They became Zatanna’s stand-in father figures, as Gio was now 24/7 working for the Lords of Order. They raised her for the remainder of her young adult life and discovered that she was a better sorcerer than either of them could ever hope to be.
When the Titans came knocking, they were more than happy to encourage her to be on her way and join them (and eventually - the Justice League). And when she came back to say she wanted to open a training camp for the mystically inclined members of the Titans - they proudly backed Mystik U and became mentors themselves. They also adopted a daughter, Suri.
After Zatara sacrificed himself (as Doctor Fate) to stop Eclipso from destroying Mystik U, John discovered that Zatanna was secretly dabbling in the mystic arts looking for a way to bring him back to life. He had to sit her down and convince her of the natural order of life and talk her down from pursuing it any further. It was a long and difficult road for Zee, but John guided her through it. Since then, John has become a respected mentor of Mystik U. He’s essentially retired the moniker of “Sargon the Sorcerer” but he has not stopped being a master of the mystic arts, a consultant of the Shadowpact and the Sentinels of Magic, and most importantly - a loving husband and surrogate father.
== Notes ==
* His design is based on the design of his grandson, David, in the comics, as his original design is a bit insensitive.
* His marriage to Gregorio de la Vega is unique to Earth 76. In the comics, Gregorio was married to Hugh Dawkins aka Tasmanian Devil.
* April 9th is listed as his birthday on the old DC Comics calendars.