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Posts tagged Zatanna
Welcome to the Wild West
Jul 23rd
With the waning of super-hero popularity in the 50s with the end of the war, western themed heroes had found their way into America’s hearts. Comics were then as they are now a reflection of the popular trends of the time
So, from left to right in this Justice League story is Bat Lash, Cinnamon, Jonah Hex, and Scalphunter facing our modern day gunslingers, Flash, Zatanna, Green Lantern, and the Elongated Man.
Most of the Wild West characters have the same set of sensibilities. A matter-of-factness about them that modern sensibilities consider blunt or even rude. Most know how to use a gun, survive in the harsh climate of the West, ride horses, etc.
From there the skills get a little more diverse. Some are excellent trackers, while others are more educated and can do something we take for granted, read. Some are gamblers and others have had extremely hard lives and are not trusting of anyone near them making allies a very difficult prospect.
Bat Lash is a colorful character cut from the Mississippi riverboat card sharks. Always an eye for a profit or a pretty gal, Bat Lash is more a rogue than the typical white hats of the Wild West, but his heart is in the right place.
Cinnamon, the first female law in the Wild West, her father gunned down when she was a girl she swore to bring the bad men to justice. In addition to be a fine shot, Cinnamon uses a sheriff’s badge shuriken. She’s well aware she is attractive but she does not tend to play on that too much, preferring to be thought of as “one of the men” in a male dominated field.
Scalphunter is known as Kee-Woh-Noh-Tay or originally Brian Savage if you please. Brian who was kidnapped as a child by Kiowa indians was raised by them and learned their ways. An excellent tracker and woodsman Scalphunter is the mix of both worlds, the white man who is an Indian.
Jonah Hex, the most famous of the DC Wild West heroes. Jonah has led a cursed life. Born to an abusive father and abandoned by his mother who could no longer take the father’s abuses, Jonah’s dad eventually sold him to members of the Apache nation. Jonah learned the way of the Apache and excelled at tracking and hunting. Jonah won his “freedom” from the Apache tribe but had spent so much of his formative years with them he decided to stay.
His second family betrayed him when sent on a raiding party a fellow brave and romantic rival to the affections of the chief’s daughter knocked Jonah unconscious. Jonah awoke in the midst of another raiding party of white men and Jonah was shot. Saved by a trapper, Jonah joined a third family for a while until he finally enlisted in the confederate army.
As time moved on, Jonah realized that he could not stay true to the Confederate army as he too had been enslaved when he grew up. Leaving the Confederate army and turning himself in to Union forces, the Union soldiers held Jonah and used him to raid the rest of his regiment. Shortly thereafter, Hex was the instigator of the Fort Charlotte Massacre. The Union soldiers had planned to kill all the Confederates but they needed the Rebels to stage a breakout, which they forced by withholding food. All the Confederates were killed except for Jonah who managed to survive to kill the Union commander of the post.
Jonah eventually found his way back to the Apache settlement, only to discover the rival brave had since married the chief’s daughter. The chief, not knowing why Jonah was alive, since his son-in-law had told him Jonah had died, demanded the two fight in a duel. The dishonest brave again sabotaged Jonah and instead of using Native American weapons, Jonah had to use a knife, which killed the brave.
The chief was disgusted with Jonah and had the other braves hold Jonah down where he was branded with “the mark of the demon” giving Jonah his distinctive scarring.
Jonah then headed to the closest place he could with a bar, to drink himself into oblivion, he discovered a man outside assaulting a woman. Jonah flash-backed to his dad’s rage at Jonah’s mother, and instantly shot the man dead. The sheriff then brought Jonah some gold and told him he could make a lot of money chasing down bad men. And the most famous bounty hunter of the DCU was born.
Next up: We’ll finish up the Wild West heroes… Nighthawk! Johnny Thunder! Pow-Wow Smith, Madame .44, and El Diablo!
Three Key Figures
Mar 30th
Ahh, it’s good to be back home. I had a great time on vacation and now it’s time to dig into some plot points regarding our heroes in the Justice League of America.
When you regard continuity in a comic book universe, there are several ways to stage a story that does not fall chronologically into the greater continuity. The first is the “flashback” often referred to as the “untold” story or tale. Then there is the “What if?” genre, where you can tell stories about these characters, but that these particular stories are separate from the regular continuity of the characters…such as Clark Kent landing in Russia vs. the U.S.A., interesting concept, but it’s not the way the origin plays out for the “real” version of the character.
When juggling the myriad characters in a team book, it is important to keep in mind that your “A” tier characters are going to bring in the money, but really the main changes to those characters should take place in their own books and let those changes later be reflected in the team book. For the “B” characters, changes can occur in the team book as there is no regular place that they appear outside of a scheduled mini-series, so there is not a lot of juggling to do when it comes to the “B” tier.
Well, for a period of time for JLA the writer at the time had to juggle a few things.
- In Green Lantern’s book, Hal Jordan had been exiled into outer space and so could not appear in JLA stories after #200 until that plot point was resolved around JLA #220 or so.
- The Atom had a new mini-series coming up called The Sword of the Atom which would rock the character and change his status-quo for a while to come.
- The Flash was undergoing a murder trial, so could he really be involved in the JLA while that was going on?
- The Batman quits the League to go to another team book title.
So Mr. Conway did what many would do knowing the limitations. He wanted to tell a story with Green Lantern and Flash in it and he did so by using that “untold tale” tactic. 
Notice we get a little Phantom Stranger action in this one as well. Sweet! This story is set prior to Zatanna joining the JLA, explaining her and Firestorm’s absence from such a big story. It turns out our heroes are forced by aliens to gather certain objects for aliens, but it turns out the aliens only want this one man who apparently has all the dna code of the world locked inside of him. Needless to say our heroes win all is saved. This carried our heroes through issue #210-212, leaving us time to go have some fun with the Atom in the microcosmos.
The Leaguers are attempting to find the Atom, which is like finding a needle in a haystack at the best of times. Batman, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Black Canary, and Red Tornado go after the wayward physicist and meet some crazy sword and sorcery societies which looked like a “pilot” episode for a new comic that did not materialize.
Unfortunately, the Flash is soon voted out of the Justice League.. notice that this takes place in Flash’s comic, not in JLA itself. Due to the fact that Flash is soon to be put on trial for killing a super villain named Professor Zoom, the JLA discover that he is a liability and since he has asked the JLA not to interfere, they have no choice but to expel him until his name is cleared.
Meanwhile, the tale of Atom in the Microverse may not have gone over very well, but Atom in a sword and sorcery sort of existence DID sell. Sword of the Atom is one of this Atom’s most popular incarnations. Take a Physics professor and add some native beings about 3″-6″ tall, and well, he becomes their default protector. Atom seems to not be as JLA involved after this direction pushes his character more towards Conan and less towards shiny sci-fi.
Next Time: Batman does it for himself!
Demons Three and Felix Faust
Mar 25th
Back in the world of the Justice League they are wrapping up a meeting at the JLA Watchtower when they five of their members are set against their old foes The Demons Three.
The three higher ranked demons of what passes for Hell in the DCU are called Abnegazar, Rath, and Ghast. They were originally summoned up in an old JLA tale by a more recurring foe, a Felix Faust.
Felix, you see, is a man who above all else craves power and dominion, not over petty things such as money, but knowledge, for all knowledge is power. Felix gathered the three mystical items required to summon the demons up from the earth in exchange for knowledge and the power that mystic knowledge would give. The Green Bell of Uthool, The Red Jar of Calthyos, and the Silver Wheel of Nyorlath.
The demons raised Felix found himself with power enough to cause the early Justice League some significant challenges…
The JLA of course take care of the demons and all returns right with the world, which of course we as readers know because the story is being told in flashback by a dad to a son who is visiting The Flash Museum. Apparently the dad and son are descendants of one of the Justice Leaguers in the story.
Meanwhile in the wings.. Felix plots and plans for his next grab at power…
Next up: We handle a flashback and the microverse, but more importantly three big Justice Leaguers leave the team.
Crisis on Earth-Prime
Mar 8th
Okay, we’ve eased into the idea of alternate earths correct?
Previously there was Earth-One, the earth where all our characters exist and…
Earth-Prime, the earth where all of us gentle readers live in a non-super powered world.
Well HANG ON FOLKS! We’re about to blow that idea up to the ceiling.
Just take a look at this cover.
Here are the keys I would like to point out:
- The 20th Annual team-up of the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America.
- Guest starring the All-Star Squadron
- And who are those quasi familiar villains coming out of that cube?
All good questions… now, just park it for a second.
The Justice Society is the precursor of the Justice League. Originally published back in the 1940s primarily for kids and to be shipped overseas for the boys far from home. The Justice Society fought all sorts of Nazi saboteurs and their own super-criminals.
In the 40s most heroes veered on the “pulp” style of masked mystery men. The only main DC characters published at the time who did not appear in the JSA were those with their own adventures like Superman and Batman as those characters were “too busy” in their own books.
After the world had vanquished the Axis threat, superheroes waned in popularity due partly to not needing heroes so much any more during the idyllic late 40s and 50s. Additionally we can thank Dr. Frederick Wertham who wrote a snappy little dissertation called “The Seduction of the Innocent” in which comics (and a number of other things) are blamed for juvenile delinquency.
So, in the interim, the JSA declined and basically went away while the genres of the Wild West comic and Space Adventure (sounds very Toy Story, doesn’t it?) soared in popularity. The only characters to continue throughout this drought were Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman with Aquaman and Green Arrow appearing in backup features.
Eventually, Editor par excellance Julius Schwartz decided it was time to bring back the Super-Heroes. Instead of resurrecting the older heroes, he took their names and with various creators around DC Comics twisted them into origins that were less mystical and more scientific to relate to the new Atomic Age.
This is basically the break down of the Golden Age of Comics and the Silver Age of Comics.
The Golden Age heroes exist on an Earth called Earth-Two. They were active during World War II.
The Silver Age heroes exist on an Earth called Earth-One. They are active in the present day, for this story that is 1982.
Additionally on Earth-Two the Justice Society heroes got older, added some more modern characters, and exist in the present in 1982.
The JLA and JSA have met each other for 20 years at this point starting with this iconic comic.
NOW.. do you notice anything about this cover that looks.. odd?
Yeah, that’s Black Canary up there with the JSA, not the JLA.. WTF is going on here???
Well, okay guys, just calm down. There is a lot of things going on here and we’ll touch on all of it eventually. Here’s what you need to know.
DC COSMOLOGY:
Earth-One: The home of the Silver Age characters. These are the characters we read in “modern” comics and their official starting point at this point is the 1950s in the Atomic Age.
Earth-Two: The home of the Golden Age characters. These characters started in and around WWII but continue into the present day as well.
So, that’s all well and good. let’s go back to the next point…Who is the All-Star Squadron?
The All-Star Squadron is a World War II group that was formed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on Earth-Two as a draft action to enlist every mystery man or woman into the service to combat the Axis threat. Formed and then disbanded after WWII concluded the All-Star Squadron includes every Golden Age hero that DC Comics owns, but their stories tend to focus on the five heroes shown above: Liberty Belle, Johnny Quick, Robotman, Firebrand, and Commander Steel.
Now, we also have to address those pesky villains coming out of the Transmatter Cube.
Ultra-Man, Superwoman, Owl Man, Johnny Quick, and Power Ring, together they are The Crime Syndicate from Earth-THREE!
On Earth Three, everyone who is good on Earth-1 is EVIL on Earth-3 and everyone who is EVIL on Earth-1 is actually good. The one hero left on Earth-3? Lex Luthor. The villains correlate directly to Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, The Flash, and Green Lantern.
Wait! Darren, there can’t be two Johnny Quicks and two Green Lanterns? ARGH!!! Slurpee headache!!! Don’t worry, here.. breathe into this paper bag. Nice and slow.
Since, I have more than blown your mind with this nugget of DC history. So, rest your swollen noggins my peeps.
Next Time: The All-Star Squadron and The Spear of Destiny!!!
Justice League Reunited
Feb 13th
Well, the JLA is reunited and they break off into teams to go beat the bad alien conquerors into submission, so let’s get to it, shall we?
Team One: Batman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, Hawkman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Zatanna take off to fight the Crystal Creature, the Wood King, and the Mercury Monster in the woods of the Vermont forest.
The Appellaxians are already battling each other as Superman and Hawkman swoop in to break it up. The Wood King sticks his roots into it again and manages to grow an offshoot that catches Hawkman. Superman avoids the sneak attack and collides with the Wood King and smashes him into so many splinters. Unfortunately Superman failed to think ahead and the Wood King’s sap was full of Green Kryptonite.. (when will he learn?) Wonder Woman uses her golden lasso to pull Superman out of harms way of the other aliens while Green Arrow uses a saw arrow to trim the root still choking Hawkman.
While this drama is going on, Zatanna has encased the Mercury Monster in a bubble of super heated oil causing the monster to evaporate. Mercury boils at 357 degrees Celsius, so make a mental note, do not tick Zatanna off. Black Canary is running a decoy pattern on the Crystal Creature while Batman puts a batarang through the creature’s back side. Never turn you back on the bat.
Team Two: Aquaman, Elongated Man, The Flash, and Red Tornado
Off the Irish Coast a fisherman spotted the monsters going toe-to-toe and though the Fire Lord is much larger than the Glass Golem, they both seem fairly unharmed when the Leaguers show up. The Glass Golem blinds the Flash but fails to notice Aquaman who bursts out of the water behind him and drags him down into the depths. The Glass Golem’s last thoughts were of why the Fire Lord didn’t warn him, but one less contestant in their contest works for him, doesn’t it? Aquaman crushes the Glass Golem while Elongated Man decoys the Fire Lord using the class stretchy guy trope of taunting the villain. This gives Red Tornado the opportunity to create a vacuum around the Fire Lord to put him out. The victorious leaguers stand on the beach as the scene shifts to team three.
Team Three: Atom, Firestorm, Green Lantern, and the Martian Manhunter
As the Rock God and the Golden Roc are making a mess of NYC ala Godzilla and years before 9/11 entered our national vocabulary Firestorm makes the exclamation…
“Hey, this is New York! You’re wrecking My City!” As Firestorm uses his atomic restructuring powers to rebuild what the aliens have demolished, Green Lantern creates a jack hammer and takes out the Rock God with very little than a thought. Martian Manhunter had been holding off the Golden Roc but now needed assistance from the team. GL creates a cannon and Atom crawls into it and is fired towards the Golden Roc’s head. Atom impacts the creature and distracts it long enough for Martian Manhunter to seal the deal.
15 Leaguers vs. 7 Alien Conquerors.. victory to the JLA.
The Epilogue features Green Lantern and Red Tornado traveling to the dumping ground of every comic book story, the Sun. They toss any and all remnants of the Appellaxians into the sun to burn up, no longer keeping anything for a trophy. I hope there was not another subliminal suggestion that will send our heroes into the Sun digging for remnants of these creatures, heh.
Back on the satellite the Martian Manhunter and Snapper Carr say their goodbyes to their old comrades, with J’onn J’onzz contemplating coming back to the Justice League..someday.
Then Green Arrow begins to make his exit as Hawkman pleads with Green Arrow to stay with the League as they need him. Green Arrow rethinks his decision and rejoins the JLA ending some tension with Black Canary and the rest of the Justice Leaguers.
All in all, a very satisfying initial story, eh? Lots of heroes, conflict, wrapped up in a nice, neat bow at the end. Which brings me to Fanboyism #1
Fanboyism #1: Fans loving watching their heroes fight one another.
It’s just the way of things, which hero is better than who? It doesn’t matter what the answer to the question is, in this story all the original JLAers won, and the new JLAers lost, but that does not mean there isn’t a case to be made that any of the new JLAers wouldn’t have won against their older compatriots had the circumstances been different. So I would venture that no matter the two characters in conflict, any hero could beat another hero given the correct set of circumstances.
There will be naysayers to this theory however, who will say “Batman is prepared for everything.” or “Flash is so fast he can do anything.” Could be… but again, I could give a scenario that an equally savvy Wonder Woman or Atom could take either of those characters out, again it is about the circumstances of the fight.
One thing though.. did you notice who was a mainstay of the Super Friends cast who was not in this story…
Usually the back half of Batman and… So in this DCU, where exactly is Robin and what is he up to? We’ll take that up next time as we discuss the sidekicks.
Round Three: Wonder Woman vs. Zatanna
Feb 7th
VERSUS
The scene shifts to idyllic winds as Zatanna is gliding along via wind currents to alight onto Paradise Island where she is promptly greeted by Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons and Wonder Woman’s mother and other various Amazon warriors. Zatanna inquires if Wonder Woman has been there and Hippolyta confirms that Diana came to Paradise Island and made a bee line for the Temple of Athena.
Inside the temple we see Wonder Woman lifting a large slab while underneath it lies the Appellaxian meteor. Before Wonder Woman can put her hands on the meteor, Zatanna has cast a spell “off panel” to cause the meteor to fall further down into the Earth. Diana immediately questions her mother as to who this stranger is and Hippolyta confirms who she is that she is a friend, but Diana does not know her and she is not even sure she knows her own mother. Diana lifts the slab and throws it at both of the women.
As Zatanna shields herself and Hippolyta against Wonder Woman’s attack, Diana has unearthed the meteor and is making haste for her Invisible Jet. Zatanna tries one more time to stop the Amazon from escaping, casting a spell to draw water from the ocean to overwhelm Wonder Woman, but to no avail. Diana uses her Golden Lasso to spin so fast that it redirects the flood right at Zatanna and Hippolyta. Wonder Woman escapes and Zatanna lies there unconscious only to be revived shortly by the Healing Purple Ray of Amazonian science.
Hippolyta informs Zatanna that she tried to reach her daughter via mental radio but Diana was not answering. Zatanna reiterates what we already know, the Original JLAers are being controlled. But by who? Why? And what does it have to do with the meteors?
Just a few notes in this chapter:
Paradise Island as it is called at this time is forbidden to be trod upon by all men by the Gods. That being the case the League could send either Black Canary, a martial artist with a sonic cry or Zatanna, a sorceress of some power to fight Diana. While they chose Zatanna, I have to opine that neither of the ladies of the League stood a chance versus Diana.
The Amazons of the DC Universe are indeed that fabled race of woman warriors from the tales of Homer and while many of them are faceless throngs in crowd shots of fighting, we will talk about the important Amazons at another time. Again, no need to give you all that right now. The Amazons worship the Greek Gods and they are a major part of Wonder Woman’s supporting cast, hence her calling out “Great Hera!” or such when in battle.
Zatanna on the other hand is a witch, whether in the wiccan tradition or not, its obvious that her magical abilities are amped up beyond what a real practicing witch would have, so the symbols in the art piece above is not implied in any way to include satanism or demon worship. She is half human, half Homo Magi, so we have no idea what those symbols mean to her.
Again, these are fictional constructs which borrow bits and pieces from reality in order to forge a fun fictional world.
Next time: Green Lantern vs. The Atom
Justice League of America – The New Kids
Jan 31st
Of course, after the Justice League of America (JLA) began back in 1960 times have changed and new characters were added to the mix of the original seven.
Green Arrow – The Emerald Archer. Oliver Queen was a millionaire who was on a yacht when he was tossed overboard (on purpose or accidentally) . Ollie landed on a deserted island where he taught himself archery in order to survive. Upon returning to the main land and civilization, Ollie kept using his unsurpassed archery skills to fight against injustice.
The Atom – The Mighty Mite. Physics Professor Ray Palmer discovered a chunk of white dwarf star matter that could shrink items for a time, unfortunately everything he shrank turned unstable and exploded. Forced to use this technology to save a group of college students, Ray discovered that for some reason his body did not turn unstable. Donning a size changing belt and gloves to control his size and weight Ray became The Atom. The Atom is married to a lawyer named Jean Loring.
Hawkman – The Winged Wonder. Katar Hol is a police officer from the planet Thanagar. He and his partner/wife, Shayera, came to Earth in pursuit of a shape changing criminal. Once on Earth they decided to stay to assist Earth in its protection. Wearing a harness with wings, a uniform tinged with an antigravity metal called Nth Metal, and using ancient Earth weapons Katar took the earth name of Carter Hall and became a curator in a museum during the day and fought alien menaces at night.
Black Canary – The Blonde Bombshell or The Pretty Bird of Prey. Dinah Drake Lance is an extremely accomplished martial artist possessing a sonic scream called The Canary Cry. Dinah is in a relationship with Green Arrow. I am omitting a bit about her origin, trust me we will cover it later, but for right now, that’s all you need to know.
Elongated Man – The Ductile Detective or Stretchable Sleuth. Ralph Dibny was fascinated with the “Rubber Men” at circus sideshows and he discovered that each of them drank the extract from a plant called the Gingold. Ralph was able to concentrate the Gingold down to the point where he could stretch far beyond what normal rubber men could. Ralph is also an extremely accomplished detective, perhaps second only to the Batman. He is unique at this point in super hero story telling as Ralph has elected to not have a secret identity. He is married to a lovely socialite named Susan Dearborn Dibny.
Red Tornado – The Android Elemental. John Smith is an android construct of a Justice League villain, mad scientist T.O. Morrow. Unfortunately Reddy’s construction was such that John began to feel, form morals, and he rejected T.O. Morrow’s programming and eventually joined the Justice League. Red Tornado’s android body houses the Tornado Champion, an elemental that fuels his massive wind powers. Tornado is in love with a woman named Kathy Sutton and desires to be a father figure to a young girl he saved named Traya.
Zatanna – The Mistress of Magic. Zatanna Zatara is the daughter of a hero from World War II called Zatara and a woman named Sindella who is a member of a race of magicians called Homo Magi. While questing to find her missing father Zatanna came into contact with most of the JLA and eventually was offered membership. She speaks her spells backwards. Example: “Llaw fo htrae tfil pu hgih! Tcetorp su mrof eht taerht taht seilf!” translates to “Wall of earth lift up high! Protect us from the threat that flies!”
Firestorm – The Nuclear Man. Firestorm is actually two men caught in the midst of a nuclear experiment gone wrong. High School Student Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein were fused together into a being that possessed flight and control over the molecular structure of objects. Ronnie is the main physical entity while Dr. Stein hangs around Ronnie as an invisible head that only Ronnie can communicate with. This frequently makes other characters think that Firestorm is talking to himself, mostly for comical effect, but it also leads to the other heroes not taking him all that seriously.
What’s that Ralph? Does your nose smell a mystery? Well fear not gentle readers for we will be discussing the story in which the above event occurs in depth when next we meet.
JLA #200 – A League Divided