Zatanna Zatara Mistress of Magic Appreciation Thread 2022

[Edwin30]

I forced myself to watch the whole arc again. People are getting mad about the wrong things. First off, she gave her proteges the choice to not do it. Secondly, why is she being accused of grooming children in a show where almost every adult hero has a child sidekick.

[Gaius]

I forced myself to watch the whole arc again. People are getting mad about the wrong things. First off, she gave her proteges the choice to not do it. Secondly, why is she being accused of grooming children in a show where almost every adult hero has a child sidekick.

This always been one of the weird things about the YJ show. It takes itself rather self-seriously, almost poe faced, but always skirts around the whole premise of the show being “black ops team of child soldiers”.

There was a scene in the first season where WW, correctly, points out Batman essentially drafted Dick into superheroics and his only response is “well…so he doesn’t end up like me”.

[Lukmendes]

I forced myself to watch the whole arc again. People are getting mad about the wrong things. First off, she gave her proteges the choice to not do it. Secondly, why is she being accused of grooming children in a show where almost every adult hero has a child sidekick.

The problem is how she went about it, she conveniently doesn't tell Thirteen and Khalid that using Fate's helmet makes you into a glorified slave, and Khalid, already knowing that, calls her out on it, and when she goes talk to Thirteen again, all she says is "You can say no" instead of explaining it better.

At the very least, Zatanna recognized that Mary has a power addiction issue and didn't let her be part of it, so she's not making a problem worse, it's just how she's lying by omission to the other two that makes her look bad.

This always been one of the weird things about the YJ show. It takes itself rather self-seriously, almost poe faced, but always skirts around the whole premise of the show being “black ops team of child soldiers”.

There was a scene in the first season where WW, correctly, points out Batman essentially drafted Dick into superheroics and his only response is “well…so he doesn’t end up like me”.

And then Diana gets her own sidekicks... Though neither Donna or Cassie were 9 years old when they started, probably lol.

Also funny that Dick basically became like Batman, so that failed... Unless you remember that seasons 1 and 2 Batman was actually nice and that Dick was a manipulative ******* first, in that case, he succeeded .

[Gaius]

The problem is how she went about it, she conveniently doesn't tell Thirteen and Khalid that using Fate's helmet makes you into a glorified slave, and Khalid, already knowing that, calls her out on it, and when she goes talk to Thirteen again, all she says is "You can say no" instead of explaining it better.

At the very least, Zatanna recognized that Mary has a power addiction issue and didn't let her be part of it, so she's not making a problem worse, it's just how she's lying by omission to the other two that makes her look bad.



And then Diana gets her own sidekicks... Though neither Donna or Cassie were 9 years old when they started, probably lol.

Also funny that Dick basically became like Batman, so that failed... Unless you remember that seasons 1 and 2 Batman was actually nice and that Dick was a manipulative ******* first, in that case, he succeeded .

They don't call him "Dick" Grayson for nothing!

[Mai Zen]

The problem is how she went about it, she conveniently doesn't tell Thirteen and Khalid that using Fate's helmet makes you into a glorified slave, and Khalid, already knowing that, calls her out on it, and when she goes talk to Thirteen again, all she says is "You can say no" instead of explaining it better.

At the very least, Zatanna recognized that Mary has a power addiction issue and didn't let her be part of it, so she's not making a problem worse, it's just how she's lying by omission to the other two that makes her look bad.



And then Diana gets her own sidekicks... Though neither Donna or Cassie were 9 years old when they started, probably lol.

Also funny that Dick basically became like Batman, so that failed... Unless you remember that seasons 1 and 2 Batman was actually nice and that Dick was a manipulative ******* first, in that case, he succeeded .

Then again the idea about rotating shift as Nabu host is recently pop up on Zatanna head after she saying how proud she is with her proteges based on all knowing Phantom Stranger words. The Lords of Chaos immediately sent Child as pre-empitive strike against Zatanna idea, so yeah Zee needed to take action against this threat to the world. Zatanna does talk with her proteges first but Mary and Nabu intervene it before she able to have a proper discussion as you can see She said sorry to Khalid for can't have good talk about it before.

I forced myself to watch the whole arc again. People are getting mad about the wrong things. First off, she gave her proteges the choice to not do it. Secondly, why is she being accused of grooming children in a show where almost every adult hero has a child sidekick.

I think the fans frustration is already pent up with some of the show criticisms plus to clouded with Khalid questions to Zatanna. Also first two arc is so promising about focus to the OG member that tied to the arc. That happened to me at least xd, but I can't deny that the damage is huge to Zatanna as character in people perception

[Mai Zen]

Love to share some fanarts I found

[Mai Zen]

In the Insert Image function, go to the "From URL" tab and unclick the checked box that says "Retrieve Remote File and Reference Locally". Then put a URL address for the image you want to use.

Hei it's working, Thank You for the information. Grazie !!!

I saw teasers of that piece on IG, it looks even more spectacular together.

-Anyway, I recommend Zatanna fans to check out JLA Vol 1 #225-227. I just finished reading it and it's a fun little story arc wherein the League takes on a centuries spanning cult that wants to use a newly discovered element with mystical element to free a demon that "not even hell could contain". Zee plays a substantial role in the story arc including in defeating the biggest threat. If you want to wipe the disappointment caused by her YJ arc, I recommend checking this story arc.

Also if they ever do another solo, they really need to bring back the aforementioned cult; the Cult of Fiatlux and the demon called Hellrazer.

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Gotta go into my reading list

[Rac7d*]

I forced myself to watch the whole arc again. People are getting mad about the wrong things. First off, she gave her proteges the choice to not do it. Secondly, why is she being accused of grooming children in a show where almost every adult hero has a child sidekick.

becaue Nabu could suddenly choose to hold anyone of them hostage if he so chooses and there would be nothing she could do. Also the Request is a trap, you can't say no to it. It doesn't matter if it an older man or a loan agency, "you don't have to do this, but your 18 so its your decision " to an 18 year old girl is quite predatory. Especially one who is altruistic and trusting.

But since khalid asked the question, the show is aware of the issues. the helmet is gonna crack, nabu released, khalid is the permanent fate, hopefully without drawback of being a permanent helmet head and Zatarra will die in some way.

[Lukmendes]

They don't call him "Dick" Grayson for nothing!

For sure .

Then again the idea about rotating shift as Nabu host is recently pop up on Zatanna head after she saying how proud she is with her proteges based on all knowing Phantom Stranger words. The Lords of Chaos immediately sent Child as pre-empitive strike against Zatanna idea, so yeah Zee needed to take action against this threat to the world. Zatanna does talk with her proteges first but Mary and Nabu intervene it before she able to have a proper discussion as you can see She said sorry to Khalid for can't have good talk about it before.

It's weird that when Khalid asked her if she was planning that since she started training them, she doesn't answer, it's Phantom Stranger who mentions it was a recent idea, but I guess it could sound like she was lying.

But either way, the thing is how Khalid makes those accusations and she avoids making eye contact, and again, she conveniently didn't tell Thirteen about the glorified slave part even after Khalid mentioned that very important detail, she just says "You're 18, you can say no", that alone is going to make Zatanna look bad no matter what.

I think the fans frustration is already pent up with some of the show criticisms plus to clouded with Khalid questions to Zatanna. Also first two arc is so promising about focus to the OG member that tied to the arc. That happened to me at least xd, but I can't deny that the damage is huge to Zatanna as character in people perception

Yeah it just sucks that the first two arcs got good focus on the characters who are in the intro, and by the way, M'gann and Artemis are already the most developed characters in the cartoon, so they didn't even need that much, then, when it's Zatanna's turn, a character whose development stopped all the way back in season 1, and she gets, this lol.

Is this how magicians get rabbits out of their hats? .

becaue Nabu could suddenly choose to hold anyone of them hostage if he so chooses and there would be nothing she could do. Also the Request is a trap, you can't say no to it. It doesn't matter if it an older man or a loan agency, "you don't have to do this, but your 18 so its your decision " to an 18 year old girl is quite predatory. Especially one who is altruistic and trusting.

But since khalid asked the question, the show is aware of the issues.

More or less, YJ points out that characters' actions are shitty, but consistently fails to grasp at how bad they are.

Plus, the characters hardly ever get punished for 'em, they generally get rewarded even (Kaldur'ahm pretended to be evil, only Dick, Wally and Artemis knew he wasn't, he fought, and kidnapped his friends to get on Light's good side, and then in season 3 he's one of the League's leaders), so maybe Zatanna will win the lottery or somethin'.

the helmet is gonna crack, nabu released, khalid is the permanent fate, hopefully without drawback of being a permanent helmet head and Zatarra will die in some way.

I don't think the helmet breaking means Khalid is gonna become fate 24/7, if Klarion and Child are any hint, if what keeps you on Earth is destroyed, then you can't stay on Earth for long, unless possessing a human is fair game, but Lords of Order explicitly don't do that.

They could always make a new helmet, the crack might've happened just to show how strong Child is.

[Vordan]

[John Venus]

Just finished reading the most bizarre Zatanna story arc ever written which ran in JLA Vol 1 #247-257 and then later wrapped up in Spectre #7 and #8.

The events of the story arc takes place after the death Giovanni in Swamp Thing #50 and the 1987 Zatanna Special.

The story starts off interestingly enough, Zatanna is investigating the disappearance of a girl she sublet her apartment to when she left NY to join JL Detroit. She believes the disappearance might be mystic in nature and follows the trail to a yacht filled party goers. (Side note: it was pretty cool to see Zee in this kind of low fantasy setting at the beginning of the story) Zatanna finds the girl among the party goers and it turns out the girl has joined a cult but before Zee realizes something is wrong, she is knocked out by one of the party goers. It turns out everybody on that yacht is part of the same cult.

Next time we see her, she is bound and hooked up to a machine studying her. Zatanna meets the cult leader, Adam, who believes life is divided into two; hunter and prey. He takes a blood sample from Zee and explains that his plan is to use her Homo Magi genes to become a sorcerer himself.

The next couple of issues features Zatanna attempts to escape from her cell but is unsuccessful several times while Adam is undergoing an experimental procedure to become a Homo Magi himself. While drugged up and chained to a bed, Zatanna also begins to hear her fathers voice calling out to her from beyond the grave. Despite being drugs and chain, she manages to overcome it through her will power and magic, cause a minor earthquake in the building, escape from her bounds and alert the JL while making a break for it. Unfortunately, at that point Adam has grown powerful enough to defeat her then impersonate her to fool the JL into thinking it was a false alarm.

Despite this Zatanna manages to summon Martian Mahunter, Cynthia Reynolds and even Cynthia's new friend Pamela to where she is. Now here is the part where the story gets interesting, turns out Adam has gotten more power he could handle. According to Zatanna, he accidentally managed to do something that other Homo Magi could only dream of which is to achieve; a God like awareness of everything. Adam has become so aware of and connected to every living thing in the world,the universe, its become too much for him. J'onn goes into his mind and we learn that Adam's ego has come into contact with the 'Godhead' and it's consuming his mind.

This is when the arc gets trippy, Zatanna and Cynthia goes into Adam's mind to separate his consciousness from the Godhead with the Martian acting as their tether to the human world. This is when JM DeMattis takes over the writing duties from Gerry Conway and also shout out to Luke McDonnell who went all out on art duties providing us with trippy visuals of Zee and Cynthia going through the layers of Adam's mind, giving each 'layer' a distinct look and feel. At some point, the journey gets so dangerous that Zee sends Cynthia back to the human world. Zee goes deeper into Adam's mind, seeing everything from manifestations of Adam's mind, a never ending maze, she can also hear her father's voice guiding her at times through some of the more difficult parts of the journey Meanwhile, Pamela freaks out as Adam's powers begin to warp reality around them even as the journey takes it toll on Zatanna.

To tell you the truth, the journey is the most memorable part of the story arc and it keeps you hooked until you reach the climax when Zatanna reaches the core of Adam's mind and sees his ego being consumed by the Godhead. There, goaded by her father's voice (whom we don't actually see, just appears in text boxes which casts doubt on whether it's really him), she dives into the Godhead and instead of saving him, she lets him be consumed by it. Cutting back to earth, with Zee now back in the human world, MM chastises her for not doing enough to save Adam (which I thought was very insensitive of J'onn) but it turns out that Adam isn't catatonic at all now. In fact him and Zee have both been changed by their encounter with the Godhead, having seen everything that ever was and ever will be, they've both achieved a zen like state of mind. There is some mumbo jumbo about how the ultimate plan is that there is no plan then both Adam and Zatanna hold hands and disappear claiming they need to figure things out since they're the only ones who can understand what the other has gone through. And while I think J'onn is an ass for chastising Zee for not doing enough to save a man who kidnapped, drugged and experimented on her, that's overshadowed by the writer having Zatanna run off with the dude after achieving 'enlightenment'. Though to DeMattis credit, he does have the rest of the JL point out how sketchy the whole deal was.

This is Zatanna's last appearance in Justice League of America Vol 1 as the book is cancelled after #261. Zatanna's subplot is a part of a much larger one of the JL Detroit slowly being dismantled one by one as each member either leaves the team, is killed off or simply quits. After the Millenium and Legends cross over, the book would be relaunched as Justice League International.

Here is some pages from that story arc, Luke McDonnell's art is really fantastic here and this is just the tip of the iceberg. His best work imo, was in the Despero arc.

Lot of striking visuals here and I like how he depicts her as extremely graceful and carefree when she is flying and almost menacing and terrifying when she emerges from the waters when she is journeying through Adam's mind:




So what happened to Zatanna after that?

Well, the subplot is picked up in Spectre Vol 2 #7, even though the JLA story makes you think Zee and Adam went to some other dimension, the story begins with Zatanna at a stage show doing tricks when suddenly....her arm disappears. The show goes haywire and after dealing with that, Zatanna goes off to check on Adam and it turns out he is dead and disintegrated into dust ('nooo, not Adam! We hardly knew ye!' said nobody). You can already tell this story is more of a retcon than a follow up. The rest of the story involves Zatanna dealing with her limbs disappearing for a period of time then reappearing as though nothing happened. Weirdest part is that she can still 'feel' her missing limbs. Zatanna goes to Madame Xanadu for help. The latter is working with the Spectre in this volume and they begin to figure out what the eff is going on.

Turns out Wotan is the one stealing Zatanna's limbs and replacing it with similar ones so he can gain access to our dimension through her body. He also has the ghost of Zatara with him. The 'Godhead' that Zatanna and Adam saw is retconned to have been the other dimension that Wotan resided in and he has been using psychic powers to manipulate Zatanna. The story gets weirder with the Spectre binding Zatanna so she doesn't disappear even further, thus she is now just a floating head plus limbs, meanwhile Spectre's human half, Jim Corrigan, chases after the Demons Three as they carry around Zatanna's real body sans head around the city like a mannequin.

Like I said, it's really weird. The sketchy, muddy art style doesn't help things either. Thankfully, the story ends with Zatanna's body restored whole, Wotan's hold over her is gone and she gets to say goodbye to her father. Unfortunately the Spectre is a colossal idiot and ended up releasing Wotan into our world anyway. Woops.

[John Venus]

All this because she sublet her apartment to a random girl who turned out to be crazy.

Next up: 1987 Zatanna Special

[Zee_Fan]

All this because she sublet her apartment to a random girl who turned out to be crazy.

Next up: 1987 Zatanna Special

I read that yesterday.

[Frontier]

There was a scene in the first season where WW, correctly, points out Batman essentially drafted Dick into superheroics and his only response is “well…so he doesn’t end up like me”.

With the attention of catching the killer of Dick's parents because he never caught Joe Chill in that universe.

It's weird that when Khalid asked her if she was planning that since she started training them, she doesn't answer, it's Phantom Stranger who mentions it was a recent idea, but I guess it could sound like she was lying.

I guess because she was ultimately getting what she wanted, which was her father back, she couldn't really deny the self-serving reasons for it even if it wasn't 100% why she was training them to begin with, so she kept quite.

But either way, the thing is how Khalid makes those accusations and she avoids making eye contact, and again, she conveniently didn't tell Thirteen about the glorified slave part even after Khalid mentioned that very important detail, she just says "You're 18, you can say no", that alone is going to make Zatanna look bad no matter what.

And Traci's probably been her protege for a while so she likely felt like she was doing Zee proud by agreeing to it.

[John Venus]

I forced myself to watch the whole arc again. People are getting mad about the wrong things. First off, she gave her proteges the choice to not do it. Secondly, why is she being accused of grooming children in a show where almost every adult hero has a child sidekick.

Yeah, the idea doesn't occur to her until the end of their training session. However, I don't think the arc still did right by her.

She's still asking them to sacrifice 1/4th of their lives so she can spend a little more time with her Dad. We don't really see her grappling with the decision or going through any sort of internal conflict. She doesn't answer Khalid and while the show tries to soften her decision, it's still all over the place.

Reminds me of Clark not accepting Kon early on in season 1 and like I said back then, you can't 'graft' a flaw on to a character. Instead of exploring Clark's feelings of violation or why he is blowing off this kid that's been dropped on his lap, the show just played it for drama and then resolved it off screen. Here we have Zatanna contemplating an ultimately selfish wish but instead of showing her struggling with it or trying to find alternate routes to save the day, she spends the majority of her arc as a background character and this revelation is just dropped on our laps.

I read that yesterday.

What did you think of it?