What Really Happened To The Pawn On Days of our Lives?

Days of our Lives’s John Black and Steve Johnson are currently obsessed with “The Pawn” thanks to Konstantin dropping the bomb that he knew of the infamous Pawn way back in 1985. But, who was The Pawn and how does he fit into John’s history?

The Pawn Arrives In Salem

Quite simply, The Pawn is John Black (Drake Hogestyn). The title is just another one of John’s many aliases and was who he was known as when he first arrived in Salem. At the time, Steve (Stephen Nichols) was one of Victor Kiriakis’s (John Aniston) henchmen tasked with helping Victor beat Stefano DiMera (Joseph Mascolo) in their race for “the purse, the power, and the pawn.”

The purse was infinite money that would then bring infinite power and they planned to cash in on The Pawn’s real identity. However, nobody knew who this man was when he escaped Steve’s clutches and started wandering around town. His face was heavily bandaged and he had no idea who he was. When he saw the name John Black on a war memorial, he adopted it as his own.

Resurrecting The Pawn In 2024

After his bandages were removed, Marlena tried to help this mystery man regain his memories. For a short time, Bo Brady (Peter Reckell) believed John was really Stefano and tried to kill him, but Marlena (Deidre Hall) discovered the truth — or at least what she thought was the truth. Earlier, Marlena found the doctor who performed the surgery that resulted in the bandaged face, a photo of his alleged original face, kept in an envelope, fell from his bag. She kept it but wasn’t able to look at it.

As Bo and John fought, Marlena located the envelope and was stunned to see it was a picture of her presumed dead husband Roman Brady (then played by Wayne Northrop). She screamed out his identity to stop the two men from fighting. John even lived as Roman for several years and had Roman’s memories, but he returned to life as John Black when the real Roman appeared. However, the one thing we never learned was how John ended up with his new face and what he did during his life as The Pawn.

It looks like DAYS is about to fill in the blanks with this brand-new story involving Victor’s old enemy Konstantin (John Kapelos) and his knowledge of Steve’s past with a mysterious bandaged man. Konstantin only saw his eyes but never forgot what they looked like. Seeing John brought it all back and he’s determined to use his knowledge of John and Steve’s past to get the two men to bend to his will.