Zatanna's Coven - Page 1 
Zatanna

This is a small page as I'm a bit short on Zatanna pics.  The daughter of 
Zatara the magician (perhaps the only Golden Age DC character who didn't 
reside on Earth 2), Zatanna followed in her father's footsteps in performing
both real and stage magic.  She didn't have an official costume, or rather 
her stage outfit combining top hat, fishnet hose and heels served.  She tended 
to fight mystical threats but she dealt with more mundane crime when she 
confronted it.


The first two pictures are from a story than ran as a serial in Adventure 
Comics, specifically the installment found in issue 414 (Jan. 1972).  Like
all characters who use magic words Zatanna had a tendency to wind up gagged
when the bad guys got the upper hand.  In this case her father had been
possessed and exiled both her and her manager/boyfriend to another dimension
where they had run into some unfriendly locals.









 
Fortunately the King decided to dispose of Zatanna without getting his own 
hands dirty and forced the pair into the Tower of the Dead.  Zatanna managed
to fight her way past the gorgon guarding a hole in space/time and open a 
portal back to Earth.  After a few complications she freed her father from 
demonic control and bottled the evil spirit responsible.

Zatanna remained a fan favourite though a seldom seen character for years 
until a poll made her the Justice League's newest member.  Sadly someone  
decided two female members with fishnets could be confusing and since the 
Black Canary had been around longer Zatanna would get the makeover.

So when the Justice League voted to make her a member in Justice League of
America 161 she showed up wearing a new costume.  Two issues later in 
number 163 her father explained the new costume had appeared magically but 
we'll come back to that.





Anyway due to a plot by the Warlock of Ys she initially refused membership
not wanting to tip him off she was onto him and snuck into his realm to free
Green Lantern.  As you might notice things didn't go as well as they could
have, luckily she had a few aces up her metaphorical sleeves.





The excitment over she realized she didn't remember why she had changed her
costume and discovered her father had been fiddling with her memories.  It 
turned out the costume was a duplicate of the outfit that Sindella had been
wearing when Zatara first met her.  It also turned out her mother wasn't dead 
and the people who had abducted her were after Zatanna and her father was
trying to protect her.  It seems Zatanna's mother came from a hidden race of 
sorcerers who were born able to use magic but cursed to fall in (mutual) love 
with the first outsider they saw.  Aided by the Justice League Zatanna and her
father broke into the sorcerers' sanctuary.  Where they received an unpleasant
surprise.





To simplify Sindella was unique, every generation one of her people was born 
with a medulla jewel.  A source of great power and the main power source of 
the hidden city.  Zatanna was the next carrier and as Sindella was near  
burning out the sorcerers wanted Zatanna as a replacement.  As you might 
imagine Zatanna wasn't happy to hear this.  When the dust settled Zatara 
was a widower and a grieving Zatanna had learned she had the potential to 
become incredibly powerful but at a very high price.

Getting back to Zatanna's new look the costume was pretty dull and revamped 
about two years later in JLA 187.  That issue also hinted at a possible   
romance with Barry Allen aka The Flash (who had come to terms with being a 
widower and was dating again) but it never followed up on.  Anyway the new
costume was an improvement and Zatanna was wearing it when the JLA took on 
the mind controlled Teen Titans in New Teen Titans 5 and she fought
Gar Logan aka The Changeling.





During the Books of Magic mini series Zatanna put on her old costume for 
Halloween but in a recent appearance in The Spectre she had switched from 
performing to production and mentioned having given all her old stage costumes 
to an up and coming magician she was managing. 


It was nice to see that when she appeared on the animated Batman they based
her costume on the original design but it seems that's the only place you'll
see it these days.









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