Zatanna #15 Review

Zatanna and the Spectre clash!  No, they don’t!  DC lied again!

Zatanna #15

DC continues what amounts to false advertising with their Zatanna title. Their own website lists Paul Dini as the writer on this issue, and he is, of course, not. It’s a fill in by a man called Derek Fridolfs, who I’ve never heard of. Also, the promised reckoning with the Spectre…. is nowhere to be seen. Now, I know the previews are likely written in advance of the release, but I also know the scripts are turned in ahead of time, and that it’s not that hard to change the wording of something. Just more sloppiness from DC.The story itself is an interesting idea. Zee gets back to her apartment, dismissing someone who presumably works for her I don’t think we’ve seen (couldn’t they have used an established character from the run of the book?), and settles in to rest on her couch after a busy tour. She gets shot by an arrow that slices across her throat, but doesn’t kill her. The entire issue she spends battling people in red robes, using her fighting skills, tactics, and knowledge of her theater she manages to lure them into. It’s a well done piece for that. Zee is in character, managing to get some of her fans out of the fight even with no powers. Her father apparently encouraged her to learn martial arts long before there was a Batman, let alone before she met him, which makes sense. Dad was a hero as well, after all, and knew you can’t always count on your powers.In the end, she manages to heal herself a bit with a somewhat magical ointment. I don’t know if this is research or happy accident, but Zee’s used these before- she helped Catwoman recover after the events of “Heart of Hush” in a similar fashion. We learn, in the villain boasting that’s almost required, that these people are part of a long line of hunters of the occult, who think all witches, vampires, etc, are evil and should be purged from the Earth. In a nice twist, the recovered Zee sends them to the Salem witch trials, although her narration reveals she’ll save them before they actually die. Historically inaccurate (the witches of Salem were hung, not burned at the stake) but a nice idea.

I do believe I’m going to keep an eye out for this writer in the future.

What I liked and what I didn’t:

I ended up enjoying the story in spite of DC’s deception. And that means it probably is really good, as I was annoyed when I first started it. As I said, I don’t know this writer, but he did a good job with it. Zee is shown as resourceful, capable, and caring about innocents, and not willing to let her foes die.

Aside from DC lying, which isn’t the story’s fault, I think about all I would have changed is it would have been nice to see another flashback of Zee training with some of the League for her fighting skills. But that’s a really small quibble overall.

Tags: Jamal Igle Paul Dini Spectre Zatanna