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scans_dailyUnfortunately, due to my not being able to get my hands on a copy of Zatanna's first appearance (Hawkman 4), I've decided to split it between her dad (who has an interesting history in his own right) and Zee herself.
John (or Giovanni) Zatara is actually a superhero of surprising pedigree, his having debut in Action Comics 1 alongside Superman back in 1938. Inspired by the numerous examples of stage magicians who fought crime on the side, most notably Mandrake the Magician, Zatara in hiis first appearance lacks the moustache most later versions of the character possesses, in addition to having a huge non-specifically Asian assistant in the form of Tong (Hmmm, I wonder if the creators of Stephen Strange ever read these stories...).
There, John and Tong are investigating a series of railway robberies by the villain Tigress, which I guess makes her DC's oldest supervillain. Huh, weird.
Unfortunately, during a scuffle Tigress (whose name appears to come from her wearing a stripey jumper) manages to overpower Zatara and fling him off the roof of the moving train. Surviving due to landing on a convenient bush, Zatara and Tong regroup and after meeting up with the police, use the old backwards-talking magic to find out where the villainess' gang is hiding.
This being a superhero story though, John naturally goes alone and Tigress promptly hands him his ass again.
Neat to see him using some escapology there rather than just straight up magic the entire time. Anyways, Zatara and Tong head off again after the next train the Tigress is robbing, and they have their... exceptionally goofy showdown.
Surprisingly, Tigress manages to escape, with Zatara, Tong and the cops all vowing to capture her next time...
Zatara would have many adventures over the years, a lot of them involving turning himself or other people into stuff with magic, which would lead to comparisons with the Spectre (who, admittedly was a lot more actively murderous).
Along the way, the creators added that he learnt magic (and the backwards talk) from the diaries of his ancestor Leonardo da Vinci (which seems... unlikely, if you some something about the historical Leonardo), which has lead to a lot of the most recent protrayals having being be an Italian immigrant (such as in the Justice League TV show or the Madame Xanadu comic) and even joined the group the All-Star Squadron (a kind of combined superhero team made up of JSA members, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, etc.).
Skipping forward to 1964's Hawkman 4, when we were finally introduced to John's more famous daughter: Zatanna! Here she was shown to be searching for her dad, his having disappeared shortly after her 18th birthday for seemingly no reason.
Eventually she found out that an interdimensional being called Allura had cursed her father, so that if he ever made contact with her again (either directly or indirectly), she'd die. To pretend himself from accidentally killing Zee, John left the Earth dimension for several years, only returning when the Justice League and Zatanna defeated Allura, after the young magician accidentally released her from the sword in which she had been imprisoned.
Interestingly, Zatanna entered comics in pretty much same manner that she's in most of her modern appearances. Basically, she's a stage magician who fights crime, like her dad. Later on though, John began to fade into the background somewhat as Zee moved into the spotlight, might like his contemporaries Ted Knight (Starman) or Wesley Dodds (Sandman). As such be seem to evolve more into something of a mentor role for younger heroes, even added to the backstories of characters such as Batman as being the guy who taught him escapology (such as in Batman: the Animated Series).
The next big shift in how both characters were protrayed occurred in Swamp Thing 49 and 50, where John Constantine is introduced into the mix. Here he is retconned into being Zatanna's ex-boyfriend, and has been collecting a group of DC's magicians to conduct a seance to observe some magical event which threatens to end the world.
Zatara (I'll call him Giovanni to avoid confusion), doesn't like John much, what with his being a very post-1960s approach to magic which conflicts with his older style. JOhn having engauged in tantric sex rituals with his daughter certainly doesn't help matters.
The following issue the seance begins, only for the psychic straight to cause the magicians to spontaneously combust.
As the ritual progresses, Giovanni allows himself to explode in order to save Zatanna's life. This ends up remaining an important part of Zee's backstory, even if John himself is gently pushed out of the DCU for the most part until just prior to the reboot.
Curiously, due to Zee and Constantine being very much linked by that Seance in Swamp Thing, Zee ended up being one of the few DCU characters to make somewhat regular appearances in the Vertigo side of things, even if John didn't really do the opposite. From the very much DCU-intermeshed Books of Magic, where John takes future sorcerer Tim Hunter to see her on his trip of modern magicians...
Zatanna would also end up appearing in the exceptionally insular Garth Ennis Hellblazer run (along with Swamp Thing and the Phantom Stranger), where she appears at John's 40th birthday party.
Following the death of her dad, the next big event in the character arc of Zatanna comes in that almighty mess of a storyline: Identity Crisis. Wherein, she is used as the means to brainwash supercriminals (and Batman) as a means to keep the superhero community's secret identities safe (or in the case Catwoman: provide a less morally ambiguous woman for Batman to have sex with... yeah, I'm still bitter about that!).
Now, I'm not a fan at all of the storyline for multiple reasons, but one of the reasons is how disproportionally Zatanna is blamed for the whole mess, which when you kind of take into the context of the character at the time it does sort of explain WHY she did what she did.
Essentially, at this time Zatanna was relatively new to the JLA, being been sponsored for the role by the more established Hawkman. The people telling her to do the mindwipes are all established members of the League, and considering she has history with some of them, defering to them in certain situations makes sense, right? Plus, her costume indicates that this may have been around the time of her dad's death, so the idea of protecting their families and friends might have been a sore spot for her at the time...
...Still makes the mindwipes both lazy and inept from a writing and character perspective, but that's just my opinion.
Bringing us up to the present, with the editorial team being more focused on Constantine being the DCU go-to guy for magical stuff these days, Zatanna has more or less faded into the background, despite them both appearing in Justice League Dark together. Plus there's this whole thing which there which kind of vaguely puts John in a mentor role to her, rather than them being peers, which I'm not really a fan of. Giovanni, meanwhile, is still dead (not even appearing as a helpful ghost like in Paul Dini's underappreciated series), and the US government stole most of his books and gear after he died to put into storage, something Zee is a touch sore about.
And to cap off, here's the Flashpoint versions of Zee and her dad. Which is the worst.
John (or Giovanni) Zatara is actually a superhero of surprising pedigree, his having debut in Action Comics 1 alongside Superman back in 1938. Inspired by the numerous examples of stage magicians who fought crime on the side, most notably Mandrake the Magician, Zatara in hiis first appearance lacks the moustache most later versions of the character possesses, in addition to having a huge non-specifically Asian assistant in the form of Tong (Hmmm, I wonder if the creators of Stephen Strange ever read these stories...).
There, John and Tong are investigating a series of railway robberies by the villain Tigress, which I guess makes her DC's oldest supervillain. Huh, weird.
Unfortunately, during a scuffle Tigress (whose name appears to come from her wearing a stripey jumper) manages to overpower Zatara and fling him off the roof of the moving train. Surviving due to landing on a convenient bush, Zatara and Tong regroup and after meeting up with the police, use the old backwards-talking magic to find out where the villainess' gang is hiding.
This being a superhero story though, John naturally goes alone and Tigress promptly hands him his ass again.
Neat to see him using some escapology there rather than just straight up magic the entire time. Anyways, Zatara and Tong head off again after the next train the Tigress is robbing, and they have their... exceptionally goofy showdown.
Surprisingly, Tigress manages to escape, with Zatara, Tong and the cops all vowing to capture her next time...
Zatara would have many adventures over the years, a lot of them involving turning himself or other people into stuff with magic, which would lead to comparisons with the Spectre (who, admittedly was a lot more actively murderous).
Along the way, the creators added that he learnt magic (and the backwards talk) from the diaries of his ancestor Leonardo da Vinci (which seems... unlikely, if you some something about the historical Leonardo), which has lead to a lot of the most recent protrayals having being be an Italian immigrant (such as in the Justice League TV show or the Madame Xanadu comic) and even joined the group the All-Star Squadron (a kind of combined superhero team made up of JSA members, the Seven Soldiers of Victory, etc.).
Skipping forward to 1964's Hawkman 4, when we were finally introduced to John's more famous daughter: Zatanna! Here she was shown to be searching for her dad, his having disappeared shortly after her 18th birthday for seemingly no reason.
Eventually she found out that an interdimensional being called Allura had cursed her father, so that if he ever made contact with her again (either directly or indirectly), she'd die. To pretend himself from accidentally killing Zee, John left the Earth dimension for several years, only returning when the Justice League and Zatanna defeated Allura, after the young magician accidentally released her from the sword in which she had been imprisoned.
Interestingly, Zatanna entered comics in pretty much same manner that she's in most of her modern appearances. Basically, she's a stage magician who fights crime, like her dad. Later on though, John began to fade into the background somewhat as Zee moved into the spotlight, might like his contemporaries Ted Knight (Starman) or Wesley Dodds (Sandman). As such be seem to evolve more into something of a mentor role for younger heroes, even added to the backstories of characters such as Batman as being the guy who taught him escapology (such as in Batman: the Animated Series).
The next big shift in how both characters were protrayed occurred in Swamp Thing 49 and 50, where John Constantine is introduced into the mix. Here he is retconned into being Zatanna's ex-boyfriend, and has been collecting a group of DC's magicians to conduct a seance to observe some magical event which threatens to end the world.
Zatara (I'll call him Giovanni to avoid confusion), doesn't like John much, what with his being a very post-1960s approach to magic which conflicts with his older style. JOhn having engauged in tantric sex rituals with his daughter certainly doesn't help matters.
The following issue the seance begins, only for the psychic straight to cause the magicians to spontaneously combust.
As the ritual progresses, Giovanni allows himself to explode in order to save Zatanna's life. This ends up remaining an important part of Zee's backstory, even if John himself is gently pushed out of the DCU for the most part until just prior to the reboot.
Curiously, due to Zee and Constantine being very much linked by that Seance in Swamp Thing, Zee ended up being one of the few DCU characters to make somewhat regular appearances in the Vertigo side of things, even if John didn't really do the opposite. From the very much DCU-intermeshed Books of Magic, where John takes future sorcerer Tim Hunter to see her on his trip of modern magicians...
Zatanna would also end up appearing in the exceptionally insular Garth Ennis Hellblazer run (along with Swamp Thing and the Phantom Stranger), where she appears at John's 40th birthday party.
Following the death of her dad, the next big event in the character arc of Zatanna comes in that almighty mess of a storyline: Identity Crisis. Wherein, she is used as the means to brainwash supercriminals (and Batman) as a means to keep the superhero community's secret identities safe (or in the case Catwoman: provide a less morally ambiguous woman for Batman to have sex with... yeah, I'm still bitter about that!).
Now, I'm not a fan at all of the storyline for multiple reasons, but one of the reasons is how disproportionally Zatanna is blamed for the whole mess, which when you kind of take into the context of the character at the time it does sort of explain WHY she did what she did.
Essentially, at this time Zatanna was relatively new to the JLA, being been sponsored for the role by the more established Hawkman. The people telling her to do the mindwipes are all established members of the League, and considering she has history with some of them, defering to them in certain situations makes sense, right? Plus, her costume indicates that this may have been around the time of her dad's death, so the idea of protecting their families and friends might have been a sore spot for her at the time...
...Still makes the mindwipes both lazy and inept from a writing and character perspective, but that's just my opinion.
Bringing us up to the present, with the editorial team being more focused on Constantine being the DCU go-to guy for magical stuff these days, Zatanna has more or less faded into the background, despite them both appearing in Justice League Dark together. Plus there's this whole thing which there which kind of vaguely puts John in a mentor role to her, rather than them being peers, which I'm not really a fan of. Giovanni, meanwhile, is still dead (not even appearing as a helpful ghost like in Paul Dini's underappreciated series), and the US government stole most of his books and gear after he died to put into storage, something Zee is a touch sore about.
And to cap off, here's the Flashpoint versions of Zee and her dad. Which is the worst.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-09 06:45 pm (UTC)Sure, Zatara in this storyline has his flaws: he's stubbornly resistant to trying newer forms of magic; he's an almost sitcom-like overprotective "hands off my daughter" dad, and he fails to show Sargon any compassion as he orders him to shut up and die "like a sorcerer" (although he does go on to follow his own dictum, meaning he's no hypocrite). Even so... BAD. ASS.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-10 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-10 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-10 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-10 11:17 am (UTC)Pity other writers subsequently used him, snarling up that beautiful narrative conceit.
no subject
Date: 2016-12-10 04:40 pm (UTC)Sargon? Couldn't help but think of Star Trek! ;)
no subject
Date: 2017-06-21 06:52 pm (UTC)