{"id":29227,"date":"2024-01-08T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2024-01-08T09:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29227"},"modified":"2024-01-05T12:58:01","modified_gmt":"2024-01-05T12:58:01","slug":"justice-league-of-america-zatannas-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/01\/08\/justice-league-of-america-zatannas-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice League of America: Zatanna\u2019s Search"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Gardner F. Fox, <\/strong>Murphy Anderson<\/strong>, Bob Kane<\/strong>, Joe Giella<\/strong>, Gil Kane<\/strong>, Sid Greene<\/strong>, Carmine Infantino<\/strong>, Mike Sekowsky<\/strong> & various, with Gerry Conway<\/strong>, Romeo Tanghal<\/strong> & Vince Colletta<\/strong> (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1-4012-0188-3 (TPB)<\/p>\n

The Silver Age of Comic Books changed many things, but its longest lasting revolution was in how it introduced more women and to the pantheon of costumed characters. Here in one long-neglected package is the story of a character who has never looked back, and this year celebrates sixty years of magic\u2026<\/p>\n

With Julius Schwartz and John Broome, writer extraordinaire Gardner F. Fox laid the foundations of all comic book continuities. He was a lifelong creator and champion of strong female characters (like Dian Belmont<\/em>, Hawkgirl\/Hawkwoman<\/strong>, Inza Nelson<\/em>, Barbara<\/strong> –Batgirl\/Oracle<\/strong> – Gordon<\/strong> and Sue Dibny<\/em>), a canny innovator and one of the earliest proponents of extended storylines which have since become so familiar to us as \u201cbraided crossovers\u201d.<\/p>\n

A lawyer by trade, Fox began his comics career in the Golden Age toiling on major and minor features, working in every genre and for most companies. One of the second-string strips he scripted was Zatara<\/strong>; a magician-hero in the Mandrake<\/strong> mould who fought evil and astounded audiences in the pages of Action <\/strong>and World\u2019s Finest<\/strong> Comics<\/strong> for over a decade, beginning with the very first issue. To be completely accurate, the latter\u2019s premiere performance was in the one-shot World\u2019s Best Comics<\/strong> #1, but whatever the book\u2019s name, the top-hatted, suavely tailed and tailored trickster was there. Zatara fell from favour as the decade closed, fading from memory like so many other outlandish crime-crushers\u2026<\/p>\n

In 1956 Editor Schwartz reinvented the superhero genre, reintroducing costumed characters based on the company\u2019s defunct costumed cohort. Flash<\/strong>, Green Lantern<\/strong>, Hawkman<\/strong> and The Atom<\/strong> were refitted for a sleek, scientific atomic age, with their legendary predecessors latterly reincarnated and returned as denizens of an alternate Earth. As experiments became a trend and then inexorable publishing policy, surviving heroes like Superman<\/strong>, Batman<\/strong>, Green Arrow<\/strong>, Aquaman<\/strong> and Wonder Woman<\/strong> were retrofitted to match the new world order.<\/p>\n

The Superhero was resurgent and public appetite seemed inexhaustible. For their next trick Fox & Schwartz turned to the magician of yore and presumably found him wanting. Rather than condemn the mage to Earth-Two, they instead created the first \u201clegacy hero\u201d by having Zatara vanish from sight as precursor to debuting an unsuspected daughter, before setting her on a far-reaching quest to find him.<\/p>\n

Zatanna<\/strong> premiered in 1964 in Hawkman<\/strong> #4 (cover-dated October\/November), illustrated by the magnificent Murphy Anderson in a beguiling thriller entitled \u2018The Girl who Split in Two\u2019<\/em>. Following a mystical trail and wearing a variation of Zatara\u2019s stage garb, the plucky, impatient lass had mystically divided her body in two and travelled simultaneously to Ireland and China, but lapsed into paralysis until Hawkman and Hawkgirl answered her ethereal distress call.<\/p>\n

Although nobody knew it at the time, the \u201cwinsome witch\u201d appeared next as the villain in Detective<\/strong> Comics<\/strong> #336 (February 1965). \u2018Batman\u2019s Bewitched Nightmare\u2019<\/em> saw a broom-riding old crone attacking the Dynamic Duo at the command of mutant super-threat The Outsider<\/em> in a stirring yarn limned by Bob Kane & Joe Giella. Current opinion posits this wasn\u2019t originally intended as part of the quest epic, but when the search storyline was resolved at the height of TV-inspired \u201cBatmania\u201d in Justice League of America <\/strong>#51, some slick back-writing was necessary to bring the high-profile Caped Crusader into the resolution.<\/p>\n

Gil Kane & Sid Greene illustrated the next two chapters of the saga: firstly in \u2018World of the Magic Atom\u2019 <\/em>(Atom<\/strong> #19, June\/July 1965), wherein Mystic Maid and Tiny Titan battled Zatara\u2019s old nemesis The Druid<\/em> on microcosmic world Catamoore, and then with the Emerald Gladiator in an extra-dimensional realm on \u2018The Other Side of the World!\u2019<\/em> (Green Lantern<\/strong> #42, January 1966). Here the malevolently marauding, potentially Earth-dominating Warlock of Ys<\/em> is overcome after a mighty struggle and compelled to reveal further clues in the trail.<\/p>\n

The Elongated Man<\/strong> starred in a long-running back-up feature in Detective Comics<\/strong>, and in #355 (September 1966, pencilled & inked by Carmine Infantino) \u2018The Tantalizing Trouble of the Tripod Thieves!\u2019 <\/em>revealed how the search for a pilfered eldritch artefact brought the sorceress closer to her goal, before the search concluded in spectacular and fabulously satisfying fashion with aforementioned JLA<\/strong> tale \u2018Z – As in Zatanna – and Zero Hour!\u2019<\/em> (#51, February 1967).<\/p>\n

With art by incomparable team Mike Sekowsky & Sid Greene, all heroes who previously aided her were transported to another mystical plane to conduct a classic battle of good against evil, with plenty of cunning surprises and a happy ending for all concerned.<\/p>\n

Here is a triumphant early experiment in continuity that remains one of the best adventures of the Silver Age, featuring some of the era\u2019s greatest creators at the peak of their powers. This slim volume also carries an enticing encore: following the mandatory cover gallery is a rare 10-page tale. \u2018The Secret Spell!\u2019<\/em> – by Gerry Conway, Romeo Tanghal & Vince Colletta – was only originally seen in DC Blue Ribbon Digest<\/strong> #5 (November-December 1980): revealing \u2018Secret Origins of Super-Heroes\u2019<\/em> and exploring the hidden history of both father and daughter in a snappily informative manner. Although a little hard to find now – and a still a prime candidate for arcane transmogrification into digital formats – this is a superlative volume for fans of costumed heroes and would make a wonderful tome to bring newcomers to the genre.
\n\u00a9 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1980, 2004 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gardner F. Fox, Murphy Anderson, Bob Kane, Joe Giella, Gil Kane, Sid Greene, Carmine Infantino, Mike Sekowsky & various, with Gerry Conway, Romeo Tanghal & Vince Colletta (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1-4012-0188-3 (TPB) The Silver Age of Comic Books changed many things, but its longest lasting revolution was in how it introduced more women and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Justice League of America: Zatanna\u2019s Search”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[211,10,76,91,82,69,16,225,268],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-atom","category-batman","category-dc-superhero","category-flash","category-green-lantern","category-hawkman-hawkgirl","category-jla","category-mystery","category-zatanna"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7Bp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29227"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29234,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29227\/revisions\/29234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}