Welcome to the Pick of the Brown Bag, I'm Ray Tate, and I review comic books. This week I look at Zatanna, the character and her new series, which by now should be available in trade paperback: Zatanna: It's Showtime! ISBN: 9781799505501.
This whole thing started with Mandrake. With the exception of the Shadow, Mandrake the Magician was the first character to use apparently occult powers to battle criminals. Mandrake was not a sorcerer, as in the more familiar Stephen Strange and Scarlet Witch. Neither was the Shadow for that matter. Mandrake instead used mesmerism and trademark hypnotic illusion to fight crime in the comic strips. In other words: an exaggerated form of stage magic.
Zatanna is the daughter of Mandrake knock-off Jonathan Zatara. Believe it or not. Zatara debuted the same time Superman premiered in Action Comics.
Yes. You may have seen the dapper fellow in Zatanna's flashbacks, but he really was an individual character who had his own adventures. Some. Quite queer.
He furthermore was a genuine wizard. Zatara used backward spoken spells in addition to other bizarre methods to serve justice.
Later in his adventures, Zatara fell for and married Sindella...
...a witch from the species Homo magi. So, two powerful forms of magic course through Zatanna's blood line.
It's really surprising that such an omnipotent being is so down to earth. Zatanna by trade is an accomplished stage magician, She furthermore doesn't cheat with sorcery. That's for her superhero gig.
While putting on such a show in an allegedly haunted theater, Zatanna is lured into battle against Lady White, a vampire's ghost. Perhaps, "production manager" Jamal Campbell intended that origin as a double-whammy of supernatural to reflect Zatanna's double-dose of magic.
Lady White snatches Zee's crew to a magical realm, and Zee needs to thwart the many obstacles in the domain to find them. However, the abduction is actually a distraction to what's really going on. An intricate revenge scheme against the Zatara Family.
Though Zatanna is one of the most powerful characters in the DCU, she can be beaten temporarily with chloroform and/or a sap to the head. Temporarily. The apparition seeks a more permanent solution. Lady White employs a magical artifact whose power dates back beyond the time of the Vikings. No, it is not the Spear of Destiny. Campbell's tale never really veers to the predictable.
Zatanna is among other things a people person. Thanks to Paul Dini, she's one of Batman's oldest friends. When she debuted in the sixties, she sought out the Justice League to help her rescue her father. She joined the League sometime later.
In Campbell's story, Justice League Dark gets involved. I've been somewhat ambivalent toward the newer lineup of Justice League Dark, but I must admit. The team is growing on me.
The goofy Blue Devil also shows up in issue two, and here's another character I'm warming to thanks to Campbell's skillful characterization.
I remember seeing advertisements for Blue Devil way, way back, and thinking: what's the big deal? After reading, my opinion went: I'm not sure that he warrants this kind of hype.
In this new series, Blue Devil makes for an excellent partner for Zee. She needs magical brawn as well as wits. Sure. She could have called the Justice League, or borrowed Supergirl, Power Girl, Black Canary, anybody to accompany her on the mission. Blue Devil fits with the milieu.
Because the Lady in White is a the spirit of a 1930s film star, her magical conjurings leans to the period. Though Campbell isn't averse to including a few anachronisms.
Mind you. Batman did premiere some eighty-seven years ago. As did psychopath Basil Karlo. Give or take a year.
Basil Karlo in context of the Rebirthed DCU is a different sort of animal than the one who got himself unceremoniously slain by his copycat in the pre-Crisis. The Lady in White knows just how to manipulate Karlo into killing Zatanna.
So what's Lady White's beef with the Zatara family? Turns out it's based on falsehood, as is the entirety of the evil.
This latest Zatanna series is pretty entertaining. The magic cloth is pulled with the help of the entirety of Justice League Dark, and there's reveal after reveal.
All of these twists as well as, an uncharacteristically unheroic ending, makes sense if you've been paying attention. So, bravo to Jamal Campbell, who provides the words and the sweet, sweet artwork in a superb magical performance.
No comments:
Post a Comment