Zatanna's visit to Los Angeles to observe the opening of a magic museum takes a strange turn when some magical heirlooms come alive.
The Good
I'll tip the old top hat to Beechen for making this something of a love letter to LA without ever letting it get saccharine. Wow... there really isn't a false note in it. It's clever, it's funny, it's a little weird and it's even ties everything together with a little character development. Plus, it's got the very amusing visual of a possessed turbin taking control of a whole suit of magical articles of clothing before it wrecks havoc on hapless pedestrians.
The Bad
It's hard to really find anything to complain about with this one (unless you go in expecting it to be something other than a light, modestly-scoped romp through magical streets of LA.)
The Verdict - 4.5/5
It's appropriate that this issue has some callbacks to the deaths that befell so many DC mystics during Alan Moore's seminal Swamp Thing run, as this very much has the same kind of witty, imaginative whimsy that Moore loved to lavish on much of his ABC work. You've got a fun central idea, a cute and plucky heroine and beginning-middle-end that gets tied up with a nice bow. What's not to like?
One of my favorite books every month. Love the tongue in cheek attitude she has. Not sure I would want to see her in a dark Vertigo style book at this point.
I keep reading Zatanna for the same reason I read Batgirl: they're both lighter (in the best way possible), enjoyable books with sharp writing, good art and characterisation, immensely likeable heroines and just plain fun stories. A delight month after month.
Zatanna's an excellent casual title that has an amazingly consistant near-perfect quality each issue. And Adam Beechen did a great job for someone interjecting Paul Dini's run. I would be totally onboard for him to do more one shot issues between some of Dini's 3-issue arcs.
@Eyz: It would make a big difference because Vertigo is mostly all about the darker side of magic, just look at Swamp Thing and John Constantine comics!
@NightFang: As long as the story's good, I'm ok. It's not like they'll change the art or either the writing with just a sub-division publishing brand over the book.
@Eyz: I agree the art and story is good but I think Vertigo would give the writers a little more freedom and have crossovers with Swamp Thing and John Constantine or show what Zatanna can really do with her magic.
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