Zatanna #16 – Review

By: Adam Beechen (writer), Victor Ibáñez (artist), Ego (colorist)

The Story: What’s a girl got to do to get some freakin’ sleep around here?

The Review: I notice there’s been a recent uptick in the number of reviews where I discuss common story formulas and plot devices, which seem to be on the swell in DC lately.  It makes a fair bit of sense.  With most of the creative energies flowing into the upcoming relaunch (ten days and counting!), and the majority of titles spending their remaining issues on fill-in one-shots, you can’t exactly expect boat-rocking narratives or ideas.

Here we have another old plot structure: a character wants something, and things get in her way.  In Zatanna’s case, all she wants is something most of us working/studying stiffs can identify with: some good ol’ shut-eye—whatever that is.  In a way, the premise highlights a fairly significant logistical question in the world of comics: when do heroes sleep?  They work all day in their secret identities, and most of them operate as vigilantes at night.  That’s no way to live.

But Zee, like many of us, makes a determined attempted to have it all, even in spite of the antics from a certain teal-skinned lad from Limbo Town.  Of course I mean Uriah, smooth-talking peer to the more famous Limbonite, Klarion the Witch Boy.  Aside the absence of a feline familiar, Uriah serves as a pretty close analogue to Klarion: both are young, unnaturally eloquent lads of bratty disposition, who use their formidable magic to get what they want any way they can.

Uriah’s powers also prevents Zee from putting how down too easily as he worms his way into Shadowcrest under false pretenses, then proceeds to punk “one of the seven or eight most important magical items in any universe” from her tremendous library.  Thus ensues a chase across weird worlds, strange lands, and parallel dimensions, offering us a mere glimpse of the extraordinary life Zatanna must live on a daily basis.

Zatanna #9 – Review

By: Paul Dini (writer), Cliff Chiang (artist), John Kalisz (colorist), Adam Beechen (feature writer), Jamal Igle (feature penciller), Robin Riggs (feature inker)

The Story: What better way to treat the puppet that’s going to kill you than invite him to your home?  Also, Zatanna, junior sorceress, learns braces can really get you down.

The Review: Magic is an enormously potent sowing ground for stories.  Because it can do and be pretty much anything, it’s limited only by writer’s ingenuity—and by the writer’s skill.  Too often, especially in superhero comics, it gets used as story fodder for the characters, or a deus ex machina to explain away anything the writer can’t figure out more tangibly.  Because of magic’s elastic nature, writers have to create some physics for how it works in their stories.  When they don’t, magical stories easily become unconvincing, confusing, or just plain random.

Paul Dini may be starting to apply some rules to magic in Zatanna’s world—a good thing, especially for this particular character.  No two writers have ever portrayed her powers the same way, with the possible exception of her backwards-talk, and even that doesn’t get consistent treatment.  Despite all her many appearances throughout the years, you still don’t really have a handle on her abilities, and that’s partially because in the DCU, magic is so elastically defined by all the writers who have tried to use it that there’s no sense of order to it at all.

You can see this disorder every time Zatanna uses her powers in this issue, which always leaves you with a bunch of nagging questions.  For example, with her infamous “pots” spell, does she freeze time around the person?  Are they paralyzed?  If they’re paralyzed, how come the puppet can still talk?  Is it because he’s magicked already?  Can people think in this “deppots” state?  How long do they stay that way?  What are the spell’s limitations?  Sure, you can just accept it for what it is, but you’re sure to be bothered when it pops up again and works a different way.