Zatanna: The Mistress of Magic [Paperback]

Introduced in 1964 by legendary comics writer Gardner Fox, sultry sorceress Zatanna Zatara has waited nearly fifty years for DC Comics to finally unleash her potent brand of backwards-speaking magic in an ongoing monthly series. With her best writer and arguably biggest fan, the acclaimed Paul Dini, at the helm, how could this new series possibly miss? Well, to be perfectly honest, this first collection has its select moments, but it is certainly not a home run by any means.

The first story arc introduces corpulent mobster Brother Night (the godfather of San Francisco's supernatural underworld) and city police detective Dale Colton as the new series' first recurring characters. A gruesome massacre (mobsters transformed into slaughtered animals) leads Colton to reluctantly consult the Justice League's resident magician, Zatanna, for answers. Dini too hastily has Zee confront her father's old nemesis, Brother Night, as the crime's mastermind who then retaliates by sending an impish little fiend to invade a seemingly defenseless Zee's mind in her dreams. All in all, Dini's initial storyline and Stephane Roux's accompanying artwork is surprisingly average (somewhere between a mid-B to C grade) and too easily concluded to kick off a new ongoing series.

The second installment guest stars Zatanna's impetuous cousin (and fellow magician), Zachary Zatana, in a Las Vegas romp, in which our mesmerized heroine may well end up as the victim of a supernatural shotgun wedding where her soul is to be sacrificed to prolong a demonic gambler's immortality. This arc (with a cameo by the Royal Flush Gang) is a reasonably improved effort (low A to mid-B) from both Dini and Roux, so my overall rating is based more upon this book's latter segment.

Still, I agree with another reviewer that Dini has inexplicably failed to bring his best efforts yet to this series, including making Zatanna appear too gullible for an experienced heroine. With so many ongoing commitments, Dini's uninspired storylines thus far suggest that he is sleepwalking through this series like it is an afterthought. I fully understand that a veteran writer like Dini has only so much time in a month for multiple projects, but even Zatanna needs help making her magical world come alive. Presently, the ongoing arc (featured in the yet-to-be released Volume 2) that explores Zatanna's past with a psychotic puppet, continues Dini's disappointing pattern of not giving dedicated readers the most bang for the buck. If I had my preference, giving the combo of "Birds of Prey" writer Gail Simone and artist Ed Benes an extended run of exploring Zatanna's life would be the much-needed adrenaline boost this series needs, if it has any realistic hope of hitting the triple-digit mark someday. At this point, unfortunately, I am not even sure that fifty issues is an achievable goal just yet.

As much as I am a Zatanna fan, the Mistress of Magic still needs storywriting sorcery and inspired artwork to make her long-awaited series a must-have for older fans and still draw in the new generation. Hence, I am giving this book the benefit of the doubt. "Zatanna: Mistress of Magic" displays glimpses of its seemingly unlimited potential (mostly in the second half) and is at least a solid investment for a reasonable price.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10 (appropriate for ages 10 and up).

P.S. As an indicator of the potential I've suggested, I would recommend checking out Zatanna's excellent guest appearances in the following "Detective Comics" collection starring Batman by Paul Dini: "Detective," "Death and the City," and "Private Casebook."

Paul Dini is a bit of a legend when it comes to Batman. If you grew up watching "Batman: The Animated Series," you know his work. He writes beautifully crafted pieces on the Dark Knight. Heck, if you watched "Masters of the Universe," you know how much he can do with such little space. In the last decade, he's put for solid, beautiful work in "Detective Comics," as well as turns on the less-than-gravitating "Gotham City Sirens" and "Streets of Gotham." This, though, is some of the weakest work put forth, which is especially troubling since Zatanna has been a character that he's written about in the past. The book comprises two, three-part stories, neither of which seem to get the character that he's typically written. If this is a reboot of the character in his mind, it does her so little justice. The first has her fighting a negligible Joker ripoff, who has the feeling of being her very own nemesis, but he's defeated two quickly, and there's never a moment where it feels like anything is at stake. The second has her going to Las Vegas, and it's such a been there, done that story that I swear I've already read it. Zatanna comes across hacky, trite and, I hate to see this, oddly stupid. She lacks the grace and power of her appearance in Detective Comics, that he wrote. I love you, Paul Dini, but don't you remember the stories that were in "Batman: Death and the City," "Batman: Detective," "Private Casebook" and "Batman: The Heart of Hush"? Please, reread these. I bought this comic because I loved that Zatanna. This comes across feeling like his work in the second volume of "Gotham City Sirens": rushed, poorly planned and terribly executed. Don't take this as some fanboy who likes to vent. I hate to vent. I love like things for what they are, but this not your best work, Paul Dini. I know you've got it in you. It's time to rally and bring your A-game back to comics.

Zatanna: The Mistress of Magic collects issues #1-6 of Zatanna, all originally published in 2010. The graphic novel features no extras save reproductions of variant covers.

Two separate stories are collected here, one involving a forgettable evil wizard named Brother Night, the other an equally forgettable evil casino owner named Mr. Raymond. Zatanna herself, unfortunately, is pretty forgettable here as well. Fans who (like myself) have grown to love her character for the emotional complexity and noble poise she's exhibited in such series as Books of Magic, Justice League, Identity Crisis, Batman, Catwoman, and Reign in Hell will be disappointed to see that writer Paul Dini has transformed her here into a big-breasted overly simple ding-bat. Stpehane Roux and Chad Hardin's art aggravates the problem by making Zatanna's cleavage the center of attention in most panels, but clearly the real offender here is Dini. Instead of giving Zatanna any kind of inner life he instead writes inane dialogue for her and situations that require sexed-up poses and various states of undress.

If you're a fan of this character, you'll want to skip this book.