Has Zatanna ever paid for her mind wipes?

[Edwin30]

Zatanna turned Dr. Light into a moron. Did anyone notice that she did not do that on purpose. That that was never her goal. She didn't mean for it to turn out like that.

IIRC they did put him in jail. That's how he got recruited into the Suicide squad.

I don't think Dr. Light really had it that bad. He was free to carry out his will and even live a normal life. Instead he chose to pursue villany and got his ass kicked by Teen titans.

It's much better than what Batman and Martian manhunter did to Prometheus.

JLA (1997) #38
Batman hacks Prometheus's suit and uploads a motor neuron disease turning him into stephen hawking.


Faces of Evil: Prometheus #1
Batman allows Martian manhunter to put Prometheus in a mental loop that repeats his memory of getting punched by Batman. Basically paralyzing him and leaving him drooling in his cell for years. Living life as a vegetable while having the same nightmare over and over.





Atleast what happened to Dr. Light wasn't done on purpose.

[Edwin30]

The Catwoman stuff is the most ridiculous thing to come out of Identity crisis.

In JLA#119, Geoff Johns only makes Batman doubt that Catwoman had been mindwiped.

It was the then Catwoman writer Will Pfeifer who later confirms it in Catwoman#51 and that too is stupid.

Barry Allen in his post death letter to Wally in Flash #214-216 never mentions anybody other than the villain named The Top who they had mindwiped after Dr. Light.

Yet Barry shows up in a flashback in CW#51 asking Zee to hurry it up?

Also

CW #51 - shows mindwipe is like a spell. All it takes is a sentence spoken backwards.

CW #58 - now shows it took 8 hours.

CW #72 - makes Zatanna say Catwoman was already on the path to become a hero and all Zee did was give her a nudge. It was CW who decided how to live her life.



Question- Why couldn't Zee tell that to her the first two times they met? What was the need to mindwipe CW if that had been the case?

Murdering black mask, having a baby with Sam Bradley (Slam's son) someone we barely knew and then giving the baby up for adoption- all this could've been avoided by CW if Zee just told her the whole story.

With the way things turned out it made me suspicious how the appearance of baby Helena Kyle coincidences with Zatanna's appearances in Catwoman. Both kinda come and go in and out of Catwoman's life together.

Then I stumbled upon an interview of Ed Brubaker - the CW writer who started the CW (2002) run.

https://comicsalliance.com/ed-brubak...hree-catwoman/

EB: Yeah, you know, here's something interesting, some inside stuff I haven't talked about publicly. The reason that I quit Catwoman was that I'd pitched a storyline, which you can see it being set up, actually -- there's an issue that Sean Phillips and Stefano Gaudiano did the art on, where it's just Selina and Bruce going on a date, and it ends with Slam going up to her house and seeing her go inside with Bruce and the lights go out upstairs..

That was seeding a bigger storyline that I was going to do. I had pitched this entire storyline, where Selina was going to take over the East End and that storyline was going to culminate with Catwoman dying, and Slam and Bruce afterwards were going to find out she was pregnant when she died, and they weren't going to know who was the father. And then Holly was going to be the new Catwoman for a while.

You can see that being seeded when she was being trained by Wildcat. A lot of stuff I was already laying the tracks for. But I was told, "No, you can't do that, you can't have Selina get pregnant and not know who the father is. Come up with something else," and I just felt like the wind got sucked out of my sails. I'd mapped this whole big thing out, and I didn't have it in me to just go back to the drawing board, so I left the book.

Then a couple years later, I'm over at Marvel, and DC does "One Year Later" and what is happening in Catwoman? Well, Holly's the new Catwoman and Selina's got a baby, and no one knows who the dad is. [Laughs] It turns out that Slam's son -- Slam Jr? -- is the father. I didn't even know Slam had a son, so... that was weird. I would not have had her sleep with both a father and his son, personally. [Laughs]

Ed Brubaker himself points out the similarities in his declined pitch and what Will Pfeifer was doing at that time.

All this makes me feel like Zee was used as a patsy to bring in Helena Kyle and excuse Cw for sleeping with Sam Bradley.

So Zee was almost a villain from 2007 to 2010 for putting CW through unnecessary pain.
Up until Gotham city sirens #18 came out from a new writer and confirmed she did erase parts of her memory that prevented her from becoming a hero.


Still much better than what the Justice league did to the white martians in JLA (1997) #4.



Martian manhunter basically lobotomized 70 white martians to shapeshift and live as humans among humans, have fake memories, do jobs they didn't want to, have relations with humans etc.
All this without a single objection from Batman, Superman, Wonder woman, Kyle Rayner and Wally West.

Zee just erased parts of memories whereas manhunter basically rewrote thier effing existence. Who they are, what they do and who they fcck.

JLA #4 came out in 1997. Seven years before Identity crisis 2004. JLA is the same series where JL does this to the white martians in issue #1-4 then complain about the Identity crisis in issue #115-119.

[Gaius]

Has Batman ever paid for creating Brother Eye which saw inocent people turned into OMACS? Heroes never pay for their mistakes. The only one who I can think of that did was Vance Astro over at Marvel who went to jail willingly for accidentally killing his abusive father.

Yeah, when Bats gets held accountable for OMAC or his contingency torture plans, that DC pretty much lionizes him on with regards to the later, then we'll talk about if Zatanna should be made to suffer some comeuppance.

[hairys]

Bruce hasn't slept with her since the mindwipe.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Dr. Light deserved to die or to go to jail, he didn't deserve to get his personality overwritten.

And Catwoman very explicitly did not ask for Zatanna to brainwash her into being good ("Nrut morf nialliv ot oreh") https://annotated-dc.tumblr.com/post...-was-among-the

And I didn't see it anywhere but I definitely remember the implication being that they did this explicitly to give Batman a girlfriend which is very gross.

Ah yes, DC's short but terrifying eugenics period.

[John Venus]

Then why did they do it?

(asking genuinely)

Catwoman had reformed in her own title thanks to the writing of Brubaker and Darwyne Cooke and she became the protector of East End. It was very well written and nuanced. Something that Dan Didio, Geoff Johns and their ilk don't understand. Identity Crisis was Didio editorials pet project. Folks hated it because it tainted a very straightforward innocent period of JL by saying that the heroes were up to no good all along. During that period, it wasn't uncommon for editorial to 'hijack' certain writers plot lines in order to fit their agenda. I'm sure Judd Winnick never intended for Jason Todd's resurrection to be a result of Superboy Prime punching a fucking wall but editorial wanted major events to have more connection. Same way, they decided that Selina reforming due to her own choices and circumstances weren't enough. They decided she had to have been forced into it.

[Frontier]

Yeah, when Bats gets held accountable for OMAC or his contingency torture plans, that DC pretty much lionizes him on with regards to the later, then we'll talk about if Zatanna should be made to suffer some comeuppance.

It's part of why the Trinity had an issue with him Infinite Crisis, if nothing else.

Bruce hasn't slept with her since the mindwipe.

They've never even kissed. That's why there's huge sexual tension between them .

[John Venus]

-It sounds like the OP has an idea for a fan fiction and should probably get on that. I recommend Archive of Our Own.

-Be sure to tackle the gaping plot hole in Identity Crisis and it's follow ups; like if Zee and the JL have been mind wiping criminals for years unbeknownst to the heroes, why didn't they do anything about the Joker, Lex Luthor, Ras Al Ghul, Mr Zsaz or any number of bad guys who have done terrible things? Especially if they were able to do it in secret for years without the Trinity knowing?

-Zatanna has answered for what she did. Morrison's Seven Soldiers, Dini's 'Tec run and even her own ongoing.

-To add to Edwin's post, Sasha from Casually Comics also did a descent and funny break down on all the problems with IdC:

[Thezmage]

I do think a better question is has Brad Meltzer ever paid for writing IDC?

[John Venus]

I think the fact that he hasn't penned any major event for DC is enough.

[Sutekh]

I'm not a fan of fictional characters having to 'pay' for horrible writing decisions. It's the writers whose pee-pees should be smacked.

[I'm a Fish]

Catwoman had reformed in her own title thanks to the writing of Brubaker and Darwyne Cooke and she became the protector of East End. It was very well written and nuanced. Something that Dan Didio, Geoff Johns and their ilk don't understand. Identity Crisis was Didio editorials pet project. Folks hated it because it tainted a very straightforward innocent period of JL by saying that the heroes were up to no good all along. During that period, it wasn't uncommon for editorial to 'hijack' certain writers plot lines in order to fit their agenda. I'm sure Judd Winnick never intended for Jason Todd's resurrection to be a result of Superboy Prime punching a fucking wall but editorial wanted major events to have more connection. Same way, they decided that Selina reforming due to her own choices and circumstances weren't enough. They decided she had to have been forced into it.

Didio does seem to like leaving characters in a bubble were they can never change, and if they do it's for the worse. Figures it wouldn't be enough for Catwoman to change on her own, and they had to turn Zatana into a victimizer.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'm not a fan of fictional characters having to 'pay' for horrible writing decisions. It's the writers whose pee-pees should be smacked.

Exactly. I have no interest in seeing Zee or any of the other Satellite League paying for this. I don't want to see Bats pay for OMAC, War Games, or a whole slew of ****. I don't want to see Hal still paying for Parallax or the epic fail of the Arisha relationship. Sick of seeing Max Lord brought up for Wonder Woman. Cass Cain shouldn't have to pay for the OYL stuff.

It should all fall into the "let us never speak of it again" category

[I'm a Fish]

Exactly. I have no interest in seeing Zee or any of the other Satellite League paying for this. I don't want to see Bats pay for OMAC, War Games, or a whole slew of ****. I don't want to see Hal still paying for Parallax or the epic fail of the Arisha relationship. Sick of seeing Max Lord brought up for Wonder Woman. Cass Cain shouldn't have to pay for the OYL stuff.

It should all fall into the "let us never speak of it again" category

Man, I'm so tired of people bring up Diana killing Max as the excuse for why she's a "cold blooded killer". They never bring up Batman and Brother Eye, or locking KGBeast in a closet to starve to death.

Even Zatanna's mind wiping habits have been largely forgotten (I haven't read much Hal Jordan's Green Lantern so idk if that's still a thing, I don't hear many people talk about it regardless).
I guess if Man of Steel did anything "right" it took some of the pressure of Diana with Clark killing Zod. Only problem is people know Superman doesn't really do that, but they don't know Wonder Woman doesn't really do that either.

DC just won't let Diana shake it off. Hopefully the movie showed DC they can finally move past it.

[Eskana]

Has Batman ever paid for creating Brother Eye which saw inocent people turned into OMACS? Heroes never pay for their mistakes. The only one who I can think of that did was Vance Astro over at Marvel who went to jail willingly for accidentally killing his abusive father.

My same thought. Honestly, I like Batman, but I've always held a sort of grudge against him for 1) being paranoid to the point of being destructive towards his teammates, and 2) not listening to Ted, and then he gets killed. I know it doesn't make sense, but for some reason I emotionally blame Batman for Ted's death (even more than Max in a way, since as far as I'm concerned, he pretty much already WAS a bad guy.)

According to some people on here, Zatanna's already paid for this, and while I don't know how fair it is to have characters pay for bad writing, I think that if the event is considered to be canon, it shouldn't just be swept under the rug without consequences. For example, Harley shouldn't be allowed on a super-team, no matter how much she plays the "gray character." She's done too much damage to too many innocent people, and even if she has a change of heart and is SOMEHOW not in jail, there should be some kind of consequences.
I always figured that Batman's hard to catch, and would have to admit he'd done wrong before you could really apply anything. Zatanna probably would punish herself.