The Youth of Zatanna

[bluefall]

In case anyone was still under the impression that Adam Beechen bothers to understand the basic properties of the characters he chooses to write, here is another example that may help to disabuse you of that notion.


For context, Zee has just been fitted with braces... because for some reason Zatara would rather spend a significant chunk of money and commit his daughter to years of pain than magic her teeth straight... and the pain and unfamiliarity of them is making her speech all drooly and unintelligible. She's waiting for her father to come pick her up when she encounters a thief.



She crashes into an electronics or toy store or something and discovers a Speak'n'Spell.





... okay. To Beechen's credit, at least he did get that it's sdrow sdrawkcab, secnetnes drawrof, which not everyone does. However, the magic is not in the words themselves and hasn't been since before the first Crisis. The mere backwards speaking of a phrase does not cause magic to happen, and Zee doesn't need to speak at all to cast a spell. The magic comes directly from her, and the words are like turning up the volume control on a stereo. What Beechen has done here is basically put a volume control knob on a blender and put it next to the stereo. That will not make the music louder, Beechen. Zee does not work that way and neither does DC logomancy.

Comments

[icon_uk]

Zatanna's dependence on speaking aloud has varied widely over her career, and she DID require it when she was younger (during her JLA tenure for example when she was wearing her lobster-hat phase), it took her longer IIRC, to control magic without having to speak.

I don't actually have much of a problem with her using another object speaking aloud as a sort of a temporary crutch, as long as she is there to actually channel the magic itself.

[jarodrussell]

I lay the blame/praise¹ for the wild variations at Dini's doorstep. I think he's the driving force behind her needing to speak to cast spells, given that the whole writing in blood thing was created by him and Zatanna's been gagged around three times to keep her from spell casting since her series started...four if you count this.

---

1. I can't really be angry at any writer who re-introduces a perfectly valid reason for Zatanna to be bound and gagged, can I?

[bluefall]

I wouldn't have an issue, or at least as much of one, if the spell had fired as soon as she finished typing. Because then it would still be coming from her. But the noise created by the speak'n'spell isn't in any way connected to her.

Ever since the idea of words-as-focus was introduced, it's been the creation of the words that provides the focus, not the words themselves. Just hearing them or seeing them doesn't do her any good, they're not part of the process of magic production that way. They're not connected to her. Zee giving somebody (or in this case something) else a set of words to say isn't going to facilitate her own casting any more than a kid with ADD giving someone else a couple Ritalin is going to make it any easier for him himself to focus.

[keeva]

As icon_uk points out, this has hardly been consistent over her career, and I seem to recall Zatanna writing her spell out in blood in a JLA issue recently too.

It's magic, just go with it, if it makes a neat story (and it kinda does here). I don't think that's any reason to make broad proclamations about how awful the writer is.

[kamino_neko]

It was a Detective Comics issue. Joker had replaced a magician, she and Batman were tracking him. Joker injured her throat, and left her to drown, so she couldn't speak.

[bluefall]

I seem to recall Zatanna writing her spell out in blood in a JLA issue recently too.

Yes, exactly. She doesn't need to speak to cast. Therefore her direct contrast of "voice" versus "martial arts," and the fact that she uses the speak'n'spell to create audible words rather than writing herself, is in contrast with the established function of her powers.

It's magic, just go with it

Is that you, Quesada?

"Magic" is not a blanket excuse for whateverthehelliwanttowrite. Every story must be internally consistent to be comprehensible to an audience. Even an absurdist play follows its own set of rules. DCU magic does so as well. You can't just throw out those rules because "magic." That's like saying "we can have Clark be married to a goldfish instead of Lois next issue with no explanation and act like it's always been that way, and no one can complain because that's no stranger than superhuman powers, right?"

[darkknightjrk]

I have to wonder why Zatara just couldn't magically straighten her teeth as well--but this doesn't look like a bad story, and I like how it shows Zee being creative and outside the box with her powers, even at a young age. This might be the most solid thing I've ever seen Beechen write, actually.

[icon_uk]

I doubt he would, since it's not an injury or a wound he'd be healing, it'd be messing with her natural development with magic, and IIRC that's generally considered to be extraordinarily dangerous.

[proteus_lives]

"because for some reason Zatara would rather spend a significant chunk of money and commit his daughter to years of pain than magic her teeth straight... "

The old "don't depend totally on your powers" training starts early.

[bluefall]

Not a lesson she learned very well, judging from her adult behavior. The woman doesn't even dress herself in the morning without a bit of wand-waving. Clearly Zatara's braces initiative backfired badly.

[goblinthebamf]

as someone who had braces for 3 years, I think that last page looks fricking painful.

[okkult3000]

I remember when my brother got braces. I could end a fight real quick just by hitting him in the mouth. Good times.

[nemryn]

Well, based solely on these pages, it seems possible that at this point, she didn't know the magic was coming from herself and not the words. And if she thinks she needs the words, then she really does need them, because that's how magic works.

[bluefall]

There's nothing in Zatara's character to suggest he'd train her that illogically or inaccurately, though. Keep secrets from her, sure, but perpetrating a deliberate misperception of the fundamental function and method of her magic would be tantamount to teaching a rookie cop to fire a gun and explaining that the bullets are magical wish-cases created by fairies that live in the barrel instead of showing her how to load a clip.

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Ugh, I feel stpuidier having just seen that last scene with the braces.

Are the editors requiring gross out scenes by their writers now?

[sadoeuphemist]

Is that a gross out scene? It's really mild.

[okkult3000]

The problem with magic in superhero comics is that it is really selective omnipotence. Zatanna can do pretty much anything as long as she says it backwards... unless the writer says she can't. Dr. Strange is the most powerful sorcerer in the Marvel Universe... but in the Avengers, he can't stop a plane from crashing, nor can he fly/teleport himself and his teammates to safety. Editors need to set down rules for how magic works, like a RPG. The problem with that is that eventually someone will ignore them for the sake of a story (just ask the guys who write the Official Handbooks). The point is, I'm starting to see superhero magic the same way I see time travel: not worth the effort.

[nemryn]

I'd say the real problem is that one you have rules,it's not really magic anymore.

[arbre_rieur]

The show DOCTOR WHO has the phrase "wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey" for every time its rules of time travel are inconsistent. It's basically code for, "It's more fun this way, so just go with it." Same deal here, just with magic in place of time travel. The speak 'n' spell actually speaking does a better job punctuating the moment than the sentence appearing on its screen would, so there you go.

[bluefall]

Ordinarily I don't have an issue with rule of cool, but it has to be cool enough to make up for the breach of concept. In this case, it just isn't, at least not for me -- Zee's standard treatment, and the general refusal of writers to take the time to properly understand her powerset, is just too sore a subject. She can't afford to have writers flagrantly misrepresent her this way, because there just isn't enough accurate representation to outweigh it and the odds are too high that subsequent writers will take this as accurate canon and run with it.

And this interpretation of canon is one that diminishes Zee's power, facility and control, so I'd really rather not see it propagate.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Just what is she trying to say in that panel where she tackles the guy? I've been over it and over it, and I can't make it out.

[bluefall]

I sort of want to guess "stop, thief." The second word at least could conceivably be an elongated distortion of "thief," and I suppose that could be considered an embarrassing thing to say. But really your guess is as good as mine.

[thanekos]

well, it worked for Ibac once.

in an alternate timeline, but still.

[midnightvoyager]

Has... the writer ever had braces?

ever?

[darklorelei]

Or the artist, for that matter.

[badficwriter]

For a wondrous second, I thought the text said "martial arts glasses."

Seriously though, I've reached the point where if the text says this is the only the superpowers work, I'll accept it. Otherwise it gets too stupidgeek.

[schmevil]

Now I want martial arts glasses. But wait--do they let you see the world as a martial arts movie, or do they instantly give you ~marvelous martial arts prowess? (Would be fine with either).

[maijson]

I will never understand this weird obsession with continuity that people have, where just because it came in the past that means it needs to be closely adhered to. Yeah it was established in the past that Zatanna doesn't need to speak to cast spells, but let's face it, that's idiotic. Zatanna NEEDS some kind of crutch to keep her from being all powerful, or the only thing that's going to happen is that she's going to be knocked unconscious at the start of every big Justice League fight scene because her power is just too skewed in her favor. You can write a story about any character and have it be interesting, but when a character is all powerful with no real weakness to the point that the opposition is just rolled over then the story loses tension.

I'm glad Dini and Beechen chose to ignore it.

[icon_uk]

They did lessen her powers in her JLA lobster-hat period for that very reason. In story she basically exhausted her magical reserves of restructuring reality fighting the Key, and was left with powers over the elements, but couldn't create things the way she had done previously.

Obviously, her reserves eventually built themselves back up.

[espanolbot]

Hey, it's Pitsy! :D

The mugger is a mafia thug from the first Punisher Max storyline. He's somehow travelled between universes, gone back in time and progressed from being a guy who can taken Frank Castle in a fistfight (and castrates people on a regular basis) to being a pursesnatcher.

[sadoeuphemist]

Really? I'm not seeing it.

[thelazyreader]

The problem with Zatanna's spellcasting is whatever rules govern them are poorly explained and often inconsistent from writer to writer. I doubt any general mandate on this exists in DC editorial policy, so many writers simply write her as making anything she speaks backwards happen.

[gamerguy]

Perhaps if you'd go back and look at the way the character is usually written instead of cherry-picking one or two obscure instances over the years, you'd see he's done a perfectly good and reasonable story. You should take to task the writer who said she doesn't have to speak, because that is the part that isn't canon.

Also, on the braces thing? It's been a general theme in most comics, both at DC and Marvel, that Magic cannot provide a long-term solution to most 'human level problems'. Spells can be undone in a second, or changed, or modified, or simply wear off. The years spent in braces won't be.

[schmevil]

Not canon, really?

[schmevil]

I like the braces-cage.

[jlbarnett]

Look at that picture. She's running full tilt, but stops intantly apparently, and she decides it's a good idea to have the guy who's also running full speed crash into the metal hooked into her teeth.

Seriously why not have him fall asleep or tie his shoelaces together.

[icon_uk]

The spell includes the word "cage", those tend to be immovable. I think the laws of kinetics are trumped by those of magic.