Review: Zatanna #1 - #6
What? A review of six issues of Zatanna? Well, not really - at least, not issue-by-issue. Rather, I wanted to sit down and get out some thoughts about the first story arc in this book, as Zatanna is easily in my top five favorite DC characters and I was extremely excited when I found out she was getting a book of her own.
The executive summary is that this book feels really Bronze Age: a little dark, a disturbing criminal story, a kind of ridiculous soap opera-y start and an ending that just sort of happens; and yet, the gay assistants and the high camp are really, really enjoyable. It's a fun book and it has only made me love the character more.
Read on for more thoughts about this first arc!
Here's the thing: Zatanna has been, at best, a second-stringer for years and years and everyone knows it. That was at least some of the point of Seven Soldiers, in fact: to bring out and dust off a bunch of characters who had never had the chance to shine, mix them with some new ones, let them do their thing in small doses and move on. When it was over I had my fingers crossed for a Zatanna on-going, or maybe one for the incredibly bizarre Bulleteer, but I didn't think anything long-term would manifest from it. It was great to see Zatanna show up in JLA and in Blackest Night, but she's always been more of a guest star than a core cast member. I was very happily surprised to see her show up in her own book but I felt it was unlikely that it would last.
So what do I think of this book? It isn't Grant Morrison's take on the character at all, and that's okay. Morrison's point was to show us someone forced to confront her own culpability for previous actions and the pain she has caused others to feel, including all the usual "if only I could rewind time" processing one experiences after something like that. Confronted with an ongoing problem that is her fault and which she cannot solve on her own, she has to do a lot of things it's valuable to see modeled for us sometimes: she has to ask for help; she has to accept that help; she has to accept responsibility for her actions; she has to work to prevent it from happening again. In Seven Soldiers we see Zatanna work through having lost her powers and the guilt associated with a summoning gone awry, regain her powers and then, because this is a comic book, when she finds herself wishing she could rewind time, she does. I love the comic and it's - yet again - a great example of Morrison's understanding of so many different systems of mysticism that help layer its messages and stories. Zatanna serves as a role model for anyone who needs to take responsibility for their own mistakes; at the same time, she's also demonstrating the dangers and rewards of seeking to realize one's intention. Thelemites and other Crowleyans probably saw plenty to admire in the way she resolved her problem by consistently working towards her True Will. Morrison's Zatanna storyline lets the mundane and mystical morals mirror one another equally well, fulfilling one of the greatest potentials of any mystic-themed character.
This book isn't that book. This on-going Zatanna is about the adventures of a crimefighting magician with a show to run. Morrison's is - as always - heavily philosophical and involves more talking than fighting, a style I find very satisfying. Dini's Zatanna is an adventurer and though it's a lot less challenging it remains a lot of fun. This book is about Zatanna and her crew - including her coupled fabulous gay assistants - having to balance her show business career against her moral drive to right wrongs and fight crime. It's a lot less weighty and arguably a lot less meaty but it's very, very entertaining. This is the book I read when I get done with an issue of American Vampire and I want bubblegum to help me mellow out. This isn't a book that will rework the foundation for comics but it will absolutely get the job done on providing paced, exciting, entertaining stories just outside the norm.
One of the things I love to see is a comic that blends genres and conventions to try to come up with something new. With Zatanna, Dini shoots for the alchemy of crime fighting + police procedural + family drama + campy soap. It comes out a mixed mess, never quite turning to gold, but it's an effort I so admire that I'm happy to take what I can get. The whole marrying-a-random-Las-Vegas-playboy storyline screams Silver Age; the souls-of-murder-victims-as-mystical-fuel thing is very, very Bronze Age with a little '80s Satanic Panic thrown in for good measure. The storyline about Zach being jealous of Zatanna is about as complicated as a Hostess Fruit Pie advertisement, but the location switch and the random appearance of a Vegas-themed iteration of the Royal Flush Gang were tremendously campy and signaled clearly the level this on which this book is operating: honest and uncomplicated fun.
That is in no way a criticism! We don't get nearly enough fun in our comics, most weeks. Endless psychobabble and Very Special Issues Of... can make for powerful storytelling, yes, but if there's anything that the whole Blackest Night story's nonstop avalanche of overwrought anguish re-taught me, it's that we didn't get into this hobby only to experience great works of genuine art; we got into it because it can be fun, too. Sometimes we're very lucky and it's both. Not always, and not in this case, but that doesn't mean I don't look forward to it every month. I find something very compelling about the story of Zatanna working on her own with nothing to keep her going but a few friends and a determination to do good, and I hope I always do. There's a lot to admire there, a great character concept, some very snappy writing and a lot of fun still to be had.
Klarion
Posted to Comics, Superheroes on 6 December 2010
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Other stuff like this: Zatanna
The one thing that keeps bothering me about this book is the way the character of Zatanna is so defined by daddy issues. However, the more I think about it the more I realize that the story is not that she's obsessed with resurrecting her father or otherwise slavishly devoted to his continuation. Rather, she keeps trying to live her life and having the end of his crop up in it, unbidden and unwanted. If she spends a lot of time dealing with her father's spirit, it's at least in service to the goal of putting him to rest. That's actually pretty radical by the standards of most female superhero storylines.