Friday, July 23, 2010

Zatanna #3

Zatanna #3: Writer: Paul Dini. Artist: Stephane Roux.

Review: This issue gets started with Zatanna rushing backstage to get ready for her show, but instead finding creepy effigies of her crew trying to kill her. After defeating the effigies, she forces one to tell her who sent them(Brother Night)and where he was(Mt. Diablo). With that, Zatanna begins to head for Diablo. Upon arriving she finds her crew members tied up, while Brother Night and his goons wait for her. Zatanna makes very quick work of Night's goons, and buries Night under some rocks. With a temporary reprieve, Zatanna frees her crew and sends them back to the auditorium. By this point Night has freed himself, and he calls forth the spirit of Zatanna's father, the Great Zatara. After gloating about how Zatara was his slave, Night tells Zatara to kill his daughter, which the spirit tries to do. Zatanna shields herself from her spirit father's attack and pulls the nightmare demon she had defeated last issue out of her hat and tells it to enter the dreams of the spirit of her father and awaken him from Night's spell. Night tries to stop the nightmare demon, but it is too powerful for him, and the demon enters the mind of Zatara and breaks Night's hold over him. After a quick and happy reunion, Zatara explains that his spirit must move on, and he leaves a VERY angry Zatanna behind. Zatanna releases the nightmare demon and tells it to go away as thanks for assisting her, before turning her full attention to Night, who was looking to slip away. Zatanna defeats and binds Night before entering his mind and forcing him to renounce his dark powers, freeing the thirteen souls he had stolen to gain his evil powers. Now powerless and defeated, Zatanna turns Night over to the police, knowing that whatever punishment Night faces on the mortal coil would pale in comparison to the hell he'd be facing when he died, since he failed his dark masters. And on that pleasant note, this comic comes to an end.

What I Thought: Hey, I've been pretty lucky with the comics I've been reading lately! This was yet another good one! The story here was completely satisfying, with Zatanna freeing her father and defeating Night, although I do have one slight complaint... This storyline seemed like it ended WAY too soon! I was hoping for maybe three more issues of Zatanna versus Brother Night, but wham, just like that, Night is defeated, Zatanna's father is saved and this storyline is over... But that's a very minor little quibble. Everything else here was great, and I only have good things to say about this series.

Score: 8 1/2 out of 10.Yeah, pissing Zatanna off probably wasn't a very smart move...

9 comments:

  1. I haven't read this yet, BUT, from the looks of your score it's not a disappointment. I'll definitely get back with you on what I thought. :D

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  2. See, I wasn't too impressed with the first two issues. Also, she's back to her mind raping days...

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  3. Looking forward to hearing what you thought Falisha!

    You know, I was... surprised I guess by how readily Zatanna went into Brother Night's mind and forced him to renounce his powers, Nagash. I mean sure, he's pure evil and a demon and all, but I didn't expect to see her do that. Not that it bothered me though. Night definitely had it coming to him!

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  4. You could say the same for Doctor Light, or any other people she's done it to. I don't really see it being justified. But then the DCU is weird and doesn't seem to have the death penalty...

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  5. Hmm... Light IS an interesting case though... I mean personally I wouldn't mind if Zatanna went around altering EVERY villain's mind! My favorite character IS Nate Grey, and he did kind of make a habit of just going around abusing his telepathy. Not on the scale of Zatanna and Light, but still.

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  6. Okay, I finally got around to reading Zatanna and let me say before I forget, I COMPLETELY agree with you 100% about this story ending so fast. I feel like they really just ended this story quickly, and rushed through it in this third issue.

    I enjoyed the issue but ugh I can't get over the fact it ended so soon. I felt the fight with Brother Night was meh, okay. Since it ended short I wasn't too impressed with his powers NOR Zatanna's. It seemed like a really easy fight. I mean I'm not saying beat Zatanna to a pulp and some how she miraculously beats him up.

    And I wanted the encounter with her and her father to be way more emotional. I felt like, I was just shown a small fraction of what those two really could have done in their little brawl.

    Brother Night was becoming a favorite villain of mine, but the way he was easily defeated in this issue, just ugh, makes me sad. Lol. Also, I felt the other new villains were defeated FAR too quickly by Zatanna.

    I'm really, really disappointed in Dini on this story line. The rest of the issue was okay. Hope the next issue brings the action!!

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  7. Falisha, I can TOTALLY understand everything you had to say there. The quick end was REALLY frustrating/puzzling to me too. Why not have Z face Brother Night's minions come issue #3, search for Night during issue #4(maybe running into some more demons in the process), battle her father in issue #5, and then have a big old climatic battle with Night come issue #6? That's what I would have liked to see...

    And yeah, doing away with Night so quickly and easily kind of sucked, 'cause he had some real potential. I did like the storyline, but I also feel like there were some missed opportunities here. Instead of a good/real good story, I can't help but think this could have been a great story with some more time.

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  8. While I was reading it, I could just see the disappointment on my face, lol like an out of body experience.

    And that issue line up you created would have been PERFECT. I mean those would've been some fantastic issues.

    Ugh What is DC doing!?

    Got any Marvel recommendations?! I really may have to go over to that side. Lol.

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  9. All I can think(and hopefully I'm wrong!)is that Paul doesn't expect this series to last very long, so he decided not to do any long running storylines. I mean, nowadays, a three issue storyarc is pretty rare. Most arcs run 4-6 issues. So yeah, I don't get why this one only ran for 3 when it was practically begging to go 6...

    I'm still hopeful that things really do pick up next issue. I know Zatara is going to be there(which is a HUGE plus for me!), and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we get a nice, long, epic storyline.

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