The face of the magical DCU: Doctor Fate vs. Zatanna vs. Wonder Woman

[Confuzzled]

Zatanna, despite being a character I like a lot, I don't see her offering nearly as much as the others, aside from cheesecake.

Wait what? Young Justice gave her one of the strongest storylines with the least sexualized take.

[king81992]

Choice #4: Raven.

No immediate Marvel counterpart comes to mind. Pros: more modern public recognition than Fate or Zatanna thanks to TEEN TITANS GO! Cons: maybe too dark to be the face of the magical DCU?

I'm surprised that writers haven't had Raven, Khalid(is he still around? I liked him as Dr.Fate) and Dr.Fate team up yet.

[Agent Z]

I think I agree with Robotman that the DC's magical corner doesn't need a face (in fact pushing one character over others is something DC could do less of).

That said if I were to pick one, I'd go with one of the younger characters for wider appeal like Traci 13, Khalid Nassour, Amethyst or one of the Wonder Girls.

Lol I missed this. Nico Minoru from Runaways is a very blatant Raven counterpart.

I'd argue Nico is a DC equivalent to Traci 13. Especially given both have been depicted as LGBT.

If Raven has a Marvel counterpart it's either Jean Grey or Magik.

[Frontier]

Wait what? Young Justice gave her one of the strongest storylines with the least sexualized take.

The least sexualized take would have been those web shorts where she wore normal clothes. I mean, have you seen her adult look on the show ?

[Ulysses]

I like hot characters that also have good stories. Best of both worlds.

[Vampire Savior]

Wait what? Young Justice gave her one of the strongest storylines with the least sexualized take.

Compared to Amethyst, Zatanna does not have a very developed world or premise. Not even compared to Dr. Fate. Seeing as she lacks development, I would not make her the face of anything. We usually see her on teams, which is likely where she is best utilized.

[Lee Stone]

Compared to Amethyst, Zatanna does not have a very developed world or premise. Not even compared to Dr. Fate. Seeing as she lacks development, I would not make her the face of anything. We usually see her on teams, which is likely where she is best utilized.

Zatanna had lots of development up until the end of JLA.

From JLA #187-






The whole search for her father, and then her mother. Then her involvement at the end of American Gothic where Zatara sacrifices himself to save her.
Then, after her first special and the Secret Origins issue, she just kinda got turned into a story device.

Later, creators would take her back to her Zatara-styled costume because they never read the story above, obviously.

And one of the few advancements she had that I liked was her mentoring Misty, an apprentice from her Seven Soldiers mini, which also seems to have been forgotten.

(And yes... the food was overcooking. And with Barry being superfast, he must've been pretty busy not to have turned the fire off...
Interesting that Barry would be drawn to Zatanna while Wally was drawn to Raven.)

[Tzigone]

Interesting that Barry would be drawn to Zatanna while Wally was drawn to Raven.)

Well, Raven sort of used her powers to prompt feelings in Wally, at least initially, if memory serves. I mean, she did it to save it to save the world, so not for personal/selfish reasons. Still kinda creepy. Also, I find Raven of the early 1980s absolutely nothing like Zatanna of the satellite era. I like both characters, but they don't remotely make me think of each other.

[Vampire Savior]

Zatanna had lots of development up until the end of JLA.

Maybe. But she doesn't have anything nearly as interesting, distinctive, or ripe for exploiting as Gem World and the characters therein. At least, IMO. She just doesn't have nearly as much going on as Amethyst, who has her whole corner of the DCU to play with, similar to how Batman has Gotham. Amethyst is just better developed as a solo heroine.

[Frontier]

Maybe. But she doesn't have anything nearly as interesting, distinctive, or ripe for exploiting as Gem World and the characters therein. At least, IMO. She just doesn't have nearly as much going on as Amethyst, who has her whole corner of the DCU to play with, similar to how Batman has Gotham. Amethyst is just better developed as a solo heroine.

Paul Dini was slowly carving out a niche for her in her solo book before that was unceremoniously ended .

[Shockingjustice]

Maybe. But she doesn't have anything nearly as interesting, distinctive, or ripe for exploiting as Gem World and the characters therein. At least, IMO. She just doesn't have nearly as much going on as Amethyst, who has her whole corner of the DCU to play with, similar to how Batman has Gotham. Amethyst is just better developed as a solo heroine.

Does Amethyst really have that much development and world building to be the figure head of magic? Is she really that popular?

[Lee Stone]

Maybe. But she doesn't have anything nearly as interesting, distinctive, or ripe for exploiting as Gem World and the characters therein. At least, IMO. She just doesn't have nearly as much going on as Amethyst, who has her whole corner of the DCU to play with, similar to how Batman has Gotham. Amethyst is just better developed as a solo heroine.

Well, up until Bendis' Young Justice, Amethyst's whole world existed pretty much isolated from the DCU until her involvement in Crisis, and was barely seen outside her comics.
DC Comics Presents #63 appears to be her only appearance in the DCU outside of her involvement in Crisis.
Of course, DC did try to incorporate her into the DCU post-Crisis by mixing her with the Lords of Chaos and Lords of Order.

Arion had as many issues as her, and also had a well-developed world during his run.
But DC also kept him separate from the DCU until Crisis. He also only made one DCU appearance, his being in DC Comics Presents #75.
Then post-Crisis, they added Power Girl as a descendant and did multiple attempts to do something with him, most often turning him into a villain.
While Arion would be one of my choices, his world just can't seem to co-exist with Aquaman.
I think a good writer could make it work, however, by putting the characters of his world in an Atlantean version of Mount Olympus/Asgard.

[Vakanai]

Face of magic? Not really. Faces of magic? Definitely see Dr. Fate, Zatanna, and Constantine kind of make up the magic trinity it feels like.

[Vampire Savior]

Well, up until Bendis' Young Justice, Amethyst's whole world existed pretty much isolated from the DCU until her involvement in Crisis, and was barely seen outside her comics.

I don't really see that as much of a problem. A writer, like Bendis, can fix that by writing her interacting with other characters, which I believe is more feasible these days than building a whole bunch of stuff from the ground up like a creative team would have to do for a character like Zatanna. Rather, what a writer would most likely do with a character like Zatanna is steal/borrow stuff from other corners of DC and rely on other characters like Constantine, and while that might work, I feel that approach would be kind of cheap for a character you would want to represent a subgenre, and you may just end up with Justice League Dark-lite, which in the long run I'm not sure that would work. Again, you're faced with the issue of the hypothetical lead character just not having a developed enough world or setting the way characters like Superman do. My tactic would be to take the magical character that does have a pretty developed world, setting, and character and utilize it.

[Confuzzled]

Maybe. But she doesn't have anything nearly as interesting, distinctive, or ripe for exploiting as Gem World and the characters therein.

Zatanna had Mystik U



Can see it working in adaptations thanks to its familiar Harry Potter-esque concept.

Also, Amethyst is more 'fantasy warrior princess' than 'magic user'. There should be a difference.