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ooooo mr campbell you will do a wonder wonder woman/zatanna teamup on the final issue of zatanna ‘25 oooooo

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Crossing my fingers that Lady White gets more of a backstory elaboration in #6. Allura's taking a lot of the focus, but White was the original threat, and the one that arguably needs the most introduction. At least Allura had some comics before this. What's known so far is: - She was famous Hollywood actress. - She's a vampire. - She died (?) and cheated death to where her soul was resting in peace. Presumably not in Hell. Buuuut, that leaves out a lot of factors such as how she became a vampire, what that cheated peace entailed, who she is, really, (her name cannot seriously be Lady White unless there's some big coincidence going on) and how she got to Hollywood. I want a corruption arc flashback. Or maybe a 'Gee my agents are pigs, if they don't want me to age, I won't age forever' flashback. White's kind of a wild card, could go either way.

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Oh my God, I get it now. Allura separated Zatara from Zee because that's what Sindella did to her and Good Allura.

Jamal Campbell, the writer you are--

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What do you think of Allura being a Sylph?

Hah, you've correctly assumed I read @aboutzatanna's post earlier. I like it! Reading between the lines, it's a pretty easy conclusion to make, and it definitely gives a lot of potential as to how her powers might work (and how she might work, as an Elemental) that isn't very apparent if you're reading it from a modern lens.

I will say, though, I don't think this characterization as a Sylph will be used in Campbell's run. Campbell is setting her up as the 'Sorceress of Shadows,' so I think his intent there is theming her off of his revised backstory, which involves her being a 'living' shadow made from Good Allura. In that case, her element is exactly what she is (or started out as): shadow.

While I like air theming much more than darkness darkness evil magic contrast, this is Campbell, so I trust in his ability to deliver something 'showsman' and compelling. Allura's already made a splash with that final page.

About the only piece of the puzzle that's missing, from Allura as a Sylph or as a shadow, is just what she's the 'guardian' of, or what her actual motivation is. I got boomeranged with my one-off comment about Lady White and Brother Night last time, so I'm sticking with what I said a while back and headcanoning that Allura's hatred probably stems back to Sindella.

Sindella made Allura. Allura might've become her guardian, something might've gone wrong, she might've been too pushy or was still evil even though she cared about Sindella-- the end result was the same. Sindella vanished, and Allura took vengeance on the Zataras ('sparing' Zatanna by only cursing her to not see her father, a fitting fate if Allura reads her as 'half' Sindella's kid to spare her).

My problem with my own headcanon, though, is just that-- it feels off. Like something's missing from the solution. Because Allura doing everything for Sindella doesn't exactly translate to hating all Zataras this intensely, with no discrimination. It's both too visceral and too impersonal to work with her actual behavior.

No matter how much showsman Allura puts on, if you blame someone for the death of a person you've been protecting, I think the emotional outcome would be much more hard hit than how Allura's usually like. Maybe it's a deliberate contrast, maybe she can't feel like that (because she's not human and also 'evil'), but I dunno. It doesn't completely click.

So. Hopefully Campbell sorts out what's up with Allura in the final issue. With the new emphasis on Sindella, I think there's some real character-defining work that is just within reach to make.

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No matter what happens in issue 6, I'm going to celebrate the Lady White independence plot.

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I can’t believe my ‘Lady White hits Brother Night with a brick’ jokes came true.

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Random Zatanna villain plots + headcanons + remakes (some cracky, some serious).

I recommend @aboutzatanna's list before reading because I'm about to go into a bunch of ramblings about characters not used since 1960-1970.

||Adam Mk. II Hemoglobin Boogaloo||

-> Caligro (the Great!) and Allura realize they both really hate the Zataras and decide that their respective problems of not having magic and not being able to manifest in the physical realm could get solved with a little Faustian handshake (re: Allura lending Caligro some of her magic in exchange for her being able to hijack him as a vessel).

-> Allura attacked the ol' Hidden City of the Homo Magi because she hated them for hurting Sindella. She hates the Zataras, not Sindella. She's actually grateful to Sindella for separating her 'good' and 'bad' halves and allowing her to exist (per the 2025 run, possibly)-- so she punished Zatara (who lured Sindella away from her pampered Homo Magi life and failed to stop her kidnapping) by cursing him to never see Zatanna, and cursed the Homo Magi once Sindella died.

-> Her grudge against Zatanna is partly her Zatara heritage and partly because she also 'failed' to save Sindella.

-> Poor Zatanna's guilt complex.

-> This means Allura hates Zachary too. Go figure. At least he never failed Sindella, but hurting him is really effective at hurting Zatanna (because he's the only family she has left), so he's actually first on the firing line.

-> Sometime while this is all going on Caligro is using his Allura powers to go throw beer bottles into a beer flood to grow a Dionysus grape garden or something, he's much more of a showsman once empowered than 'evil magic evil magic I hate you Zataras' Allura.

-> Caligro is absolutely starstruck by Allura in general and probably isn't seeing the obvious red flag of her deliberately scouting him out.

-> Caligro's real name is Dmitri Volkov. This is a Zatanna: Jewel of Gravesend reference. Yes, I read around 60% of that.

-> The endgame for the team-up plot is something of a homage to Adam's plot of injecting Homo Magi blood to develop magic power-- Allura and Caligro intend to capture Zachary (who has weaker Homo Magi blood, so Caligro probably won't ascend to insanity like Adam) to do the same repeated injections so that Caligro is 'permanently' magic. After that, he can bring Allura into the regular plane.

-> What entails is a showdown between Zatanna and a partly-manifested Allura + a blood-boiling-- literally-- (turns out Homo Magi blood donations have quite violent rejections) Caligro.

-> Caligro is surprisingly okay with literally dying because at least he got to be 'The Great' in death-- a lil' bit like Zachary wanting magic to indulge himself, eh?

-> Zatanna is disturbed by this, but can't really dwell on it too much, because Caligro's blood rejection kills him completely and Allura steps in (fully manifested!) to go on her motive rant about Sindella.

-> Cue fight, Zatanna win, Zachary recovery, Allura swears eternal vengeance, looming wonder about what she means-- oh hey look Caligro's not so dead after all--

||Merba the Magnificent-ly Bad at Being A Villain||

-> Merba is funny. However, because he's funny, he can't have the stakes raised too hard, because he loses the 'charm' of him being kind of pathetic if he just becomes yet another Zatanna evil dark magic serial killer.

-> Zatanna has so many of these. Lighthearted villains must be like a vacation day.

-> Hence: Merba is a nuisance. Not a terrible, evil, all-powerful rival (that would be Ravensong or Abra Kadabra) but just kind of a jerk that Zatanna has to spend some time blasting with a backwards sentence.

-> Merba's deeply insecure. Borrows from Merlin's more questionable moments in Arthurian mythology. In fact, he tries to 'play' at being a Merlin-lite by emphasizing a British accent (he's not British), and attacking Zatanna through sword in stone/Round Table/knight/Holy Grail/anything Arthurian themed.

-> Deep down, he's latching onto his one defining 'him' trait (being a Merlin descendant) to justify why he should get praise and attention, at contrast to Zatanna, who wants nothing more than to fulfill her father's legacy, not co-opt it.

-> Merba is not really redeemable because of this. His problem isn't the weight of his legacy-- it's him. He's a greedy, selfish, spiteful person, and he wants to be superior, because he thinks his heritage makes him not just a man with Merlin's blood, but a man of magnificence. It's a symptom of his greater ego problems.

-> Zatanna showing him up all the time doesn't break him long-term. He cries, screams, suffers, and then lets back up, because he just can't accept the reality of Zatanna being better because she's skilled and interested and is motivated by a good cause to improve-- he just chalks it up to Zatara nepotism and comes back for more.

-> On the lighter side, this also means that Zatanna's familiarity with him is pretty bad. She barely acknowledges him unless her other priorities (namely, other, more destructive villains) are all clear, and the one time he did try to infiltrate her performance, her stage crew thought he was a senile lost audience member.

-> That left him fuming, but he didn't have enough time to think of an Arthurian-legend themed revenge plot.

-> Oh, also because of Merba's theming, he tries a few times to team up with Nimue Ravensong. This usually ends with Nimue exploiting his limited magical abilities so she can advance one part of her next plan to strangle Zatanna-- then she turns him into whatever animal of the day she feels like.

||Nimue: Lady of the Hate||

-> If Caligro and Allura are the ones evilly cackling about killing Zataras, and Merba is the one begging Zatanna to notice he exists, Nimue is the one throwing rocks through Zatanna's windows.

-> Caligro and Allura hate Zatanna impersonally. Sure, they don't like her because 'oh hey you got your mom killed' and 'oh hey, you took my career' but if you went up to them and asked them to name a personality trait from Zatanna besides 'showsman' and 'self-sacrificial,' they probably couldn't name much about her ticks or small annoyances.

-> Boy can Nimue Ravensong do that.

-> If Nimue is occupying a particular Rogues Gallery niche, it's the lower-level, hate filled villain. The one that makes knowing exactly enough about the protagonist's personal life to ruin it their main personality trait.

-> The way she develops is in escalation: she's no match for Zatanna at first, but give it a few training sessions, some knowledge on what Zatanna's weak to (besides the obvious, which really isn't so obvious because Zatanna can do sign language) and some aid from a certain Zatara-hating elemental whose name starts with A and she's suddenly taken it up a notch, enough to become a regular threat.

-> I enjoy the idea that Allura provided the sword in Zatanna (2025), so if that pans out-- maybe Allura can serve as Nimue's mentor. She gives her the sword, making her the Lady of the Lake holding a sword, and somewhere out there Merba the Magnificent is crying.

||Why is Abra Kadabra Here?||

-> Abra Kadabra semi-regularly attacks Zatanna's shows, but at this point it's more of an excuse to have a giant magic fight than it is to show her up. He's still an applause fiend, but his need to indulge himself in pure spectacle comes first.

-> The first time they fought, it was about applause: Kadabra and Zee threw around real magic and 'magic' spells, and Zee sent them both into a pocket dimension to keep him from hurting anyone else.

-> During the pocket dimension fight she exploited his lack of imagination (blame the clockwork authoritarian upbringing) to overwhelm him with spectacle fight magic. She essentially hit him hard in the face about how he had no real technical skill with magic because all his future tech made up for it.

-> He wants magic for fame, but that fame hounding was partly backlash from his own time's stress of conformity. He sees it as a pretty tool, she sees it as a living thing that must be introduced gently. Magic is beautiful to them both, but in very different ways.

-> Zee did briefly show him how to do a coin trick to display how 'real' magic wasn't just literal magic or future tech-- but despite seemingly being moved, he quickly started swearing vengeance and saying he'd be back, so off to the crocodile pit until his arrest for now.

-> Now Kadabra's gotten into a habit of interrupting shows just to 'show' up Zatanna by getting into increasingly elaborate and excessively long duels/performances against her. Everyone's pretty sure he's doing it just to show that he's been improving his creative efforts over time.

-> Arnie even has an emergency plan developed 'in case of sudden Kadabra' specifically because he pops up a lot.

-> Zatanna would rather fight Backslash eleven times a day than admit that it's a little bit fun to get wrapped up into Kadabra's antics. At least before he crashes a whale through the building.

||Stringleshanks Rewrite||

-> Backslash and Ben Raymond should not get touched with a ten foot pole, and Fuseli is the best, so the only other Dini rogue to really address is Oscar Hampel.

-> I don't dislike Hampel as much as Night or Raymond, but I find him to be-- anticlimatic? Design is good, plot quality meh.

-> I'd like to lean him more into a contrasting performer, someone who used magic for his own ends in the entertainment industry ala Zatara-- but exploitatively, with skill and finesse, but fundamentally someone who would've tainted magic use for many if his actions were known.

-> That's what Zatanna is fighting against: the corruption of the idea of magic by bad faith actors and criminals.

-> Back to Hampel: instead of him getting turned into a puppet, I prefer the concept that he's a puppeteer: a man who always had problems, but his discovery of magic exacerbated those problems, gave him a tempting out that he took and ran with.

-> Someone who doesn't overlook Zatanna or Zatara-- because they're equals, they're like him, they're going through cutthroat times-- but just people who are 'normal.' The staff of the industry. The people who would be afraid of magic.

-> To Hampel again: he's a children's puppet performer. Same as usual. However, it's a struggling industry: he's not the greatest creator, fell out with his mentors (still a delinquent, albeit he didn't target them yet), and is having a tough time breaking into TV.

-> Lo and behold: magic. Not from Allura this time, because everything can't be Allura's fault. Somehow, he gains the ability to curse people into puppets, probably from an old transformation spell or whatnot.

-> Hampbel is at first shocked, disturbed-- but these puppets are so lifelike. Their joints are so easily manipulated. They're perfectly painted, as is, they never waste away, never need repair, never require anything, and their movements are so light-- they're perfect.

-> This is his chance. He'll never get another breakthrough.

-> Hampel, like many, sacrifices morals for fame. He goes at his puppet-creation with a few 'undesirables' who won't get missed, but the network signs a deal: a whole television set. He can't just keep making excuses as to how a disheveled crew came about. That's not marketable.

-> Thus, he goes for something higher yet lower: failing actors who want their shot at stardom or who's career has fallen into the gutter. He thinks they're doing them a favor. They disappear and no one cares enough because it's the Hollywood machine.

-> Hampel has a successful career. Then he meets the Zataras.

-> Zatanna's magical abilities briefly connect her with one of Hampel's victims, but she blots out the memory, leading into her puppet-phobia. Zatara isn't able to pick up on Hampel in this version.

-> Years later Hampel's on a final retirement tour, debuting his last puppet-- and Zatanna gets contacted by a desperate trying-to-find-work actress about her friend going missing from a movie set. Police won't look for her. Zatanna's magic. She can do something, right?

-> This is how Zatanna proves magic has merit. She accepts. She finds Hampel. He explains to her what he's done-- he doesn't regret it. But he doesn't intend to hurt Zatanna.

-> Because she's already famous. She doesn't need it.

-> Hampel is everything Zatanna doesn't want out of magic. In the end, his victims are freed from their puppet traps, and Hampel's own spell is turned against him, turning him into the Stringleshanks puppet that Dini has him as.

- Zatanna is completely harrowed by the experience, but she's happy that at least it's over, the souls are free, and Hampel is gone from his place of power.

- As she walks away, behind her, hey... is Stringleshanks moving?....

||Miscellaneous||

-> Lady White hits Brother Night violently with a brick and takes over his organization. #GirlBoss

-> That's it. That's all.

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Stray Zatanna #4 (2025) Thoughts

Welp, that is definitely Allura.

Also, if Allura wasn't likely to hijack this plot, I would've been begging Lady White to hijack Brother Night's antagonist spot through divorce. Run, Lady. Run.

Run and make your stage play puns without the boring edgelord mobster man to drag you down (no offense to Night fans, he just doesn't do it for me. I prefer Tannarak.)

Also also-- Fuseli! Fuseli's back! While I loved him reappearing, I swear he didn't have this speech pattern in Dini's run, it threw me off a bit.

Oh well. I'm not going to complain about more Fuseli, short as his spot was. Think this one's my favorite issue so far-- if only the whole series were longer. I think it'd do the whole run good to flesh out the stage crew more which I definitely don't need because I'm going to try and write them in my fanfics before their lives and Zatanna's guilt constantly get brought onto the line.

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Getting wild with Zatanna's spells (and having her fight someone else who references magic tricks in his reality warping) gets surprisingly fun to plot.

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I was testing out the calligraphy pen tool in GIMP to see what it was for and in the process I made a Scar shitpost

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Plastic Man 2018 isn't that good, but I thank the person who brought it up to me, because it's all worth it for the randomest collection of villains I've ever seen going: 'Hm, dang, sucks to be him.' At Dr. Psycho actively getting attacked. As he deserves. Bonus:

And:

Strange: 'Hey Queen Bee, you alright?' Psycho presumably still dead on the floor:

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My silly idea for a (comparatively) lower stakes Zatanna story is Abra Kadabra in his dumb 90s redesign--

--barging into the middle of her magic show (while flying atop a Joker playing card), and declaring himself the new head of the Royal Flush Gang (he hypnotized them and they're clapping for him behind him). For the real act of tonight, they're going to show the audience what a true, quintuple leading act will look like: Kadabra as the star, daring summoning acts with stakes as high as the sky, and his four 'stage crew' members who will obediently do any part of the act he asks. Zatanna's good as an amateur, but her audience numbers are disproportionate compared to *his* skills. *He* should get that applause. Cue shenanigan story where Zee on one side has to deal with Kadabra messing with the audience (and trying to out-mess her), while Mikey and Andre and maybe some new stage crew members huddle up behind-the-scenes, culminating in her (free-will-having) stage crew members joining up with Zee in an act so spectacular (and cooperative) even Kadabra has no choice but to take pause-- and as he throws a despairing tantrum about not admitting defeat, Zee busts his wand. The Royal Flush Gang are free now. This probably ends in Kadabra getting himself beaten up. The entire time of the conflict, Zatanna seems oddly relaxed (until her crew gets threatened), because with Kadabra being an attention whore tech villain and not a magic villain-- at least he's not: - Murdering his wives. - Sending 13 children's souls to hell. - Sending anyone to hell in general. - Doing weird stuff involving grabbing Zatanna's soul and eternally holding her prisoner. - Trying to inject liquid magic in him (from Zatanna). He just wants to make the audience into puppets and maybe vaporize them if anyone calls him a fraud again. Somehow, this is a million times better. Even if she's still got her residual fear of puppets. Zee's standards must be so low for villain encounters, I swear.

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I really wish Abra Kadabra was a Zatanna villain.

He's somehow perfectly set up for her despite fighting the Flash. A guy that wanted to be a recognized stage magician so bad he travelled back in time, who makes his audience applaud for him by force, and yet still tries to be dramatic, be flashy? That's prime material! He's not appropriating the magician image just to get famous, but he sure ties the fame very tightly into his self-worth and image (imagine the showsmanship battles, the conflicts over audience, the core friction of magic for itself vs. magic for fame!). He uses tech instead of actual magic while Zatanna hides actual magic in her show. Heck, he *was* a stage magician for a time, until he turned to thievery to get fame faster. Want a villain to interrupt her magic act? How about another villain that wants to do a different magic act! He can hate Wally West all he wants, but my god, I'd love to see him and Zatanna duke it out over the greatest magician title-- does he actually respect Zatanna's legitimate magical ability? He's a narcissist, so it seems unlikely, but at the same time it's possible he'd respect someone very close to himself-- another stage magician using real 'magic' that likes a long cape and bowtie. He is the utter anti-Zatanna and he was not made for her at all, it's a shame they seem to have only fought in Brave and the Bold (and it was fun! Very fun!).

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Looking back on stray fanfiction outlines is quite interesting, because on the one hand I had very typical, easy-to-digest DC/Marvel crossover ideas like: 'Steve Rogers crashes on Themiscyra and meets Wonder Woman. He takes Steve Trevor's place. When he and Wonder Woman leave Man's world, they end up fighting in WWI, and Steve brings a Golden Apple of Hesperides to Abraham Erskine. That's how the super soldier serum was made.' And on the other hand I had absolutely wild stuff like 'Hugo Strange and Karla Sofen were both Dr. Faustus' students, their final 'assignment' was to psychoanalyze each other and see who broke down first, and they mutually instead agreed that the final assignment was a waste of their time and Faustus was just seeing if they'd fall for that.' Which apparently would lead to something later on where Sofen blackmailed Strange about his Faustus affiliation? So she could get access to someone in Arkham Asylum? And she did so while unaware that Strange had moved to human experimentation by then. I still kind of love the idea, but it feels like something maybe five people in the world would be able to immediately understand.

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Someone please save Medeus.

I opened up the Paired with the Past without checking the characters, the instant Validar registered I knew this was not gonna be good for Medeus' sanity. On the bright side, more Zephiel content! And. I guess this means he's friendly with... Validar?

This isn't seeable from pictures, but they're basically trailing behind Medeus as he's trying to walk away. They're really harassing this old man.

I WAS JOKING ABOUT LOPTOUS SHOUTING AT HIM TO SHUT UP ABOUT NAGA

I kind of feel like Idunn should've been here? Maybe Jahn if he was actually in FEH? Validar's an odd choice even if he wants to resurrect Grima, he is a human.

While one could probably chalk this up to 'power of friendship'-style writing-- I actually read this as referring back to Medeus' past with the Earth Dragon Tribe. They certainly weren't supporting each other upon Manakete creation and degneration... ...might even refer to how Medeus doesn't exactly feel supported amongst the Divine Dragons, either. He's probably viewed as more of an ally there, not an 'in' member.

Ah, yes, please show these two that you're not evil. Yet. :( Also, 'Naga' count now at two, let's see if this can get to four.

I'm surprised Zephiel knows of the backstory-- I would assume he got it from Validar, considering Ylisse's linkage to Archanea.

Validar, please look in a mirror (I'd say he's referring to Chrom's father but that seems too complex).

Huh. Validar's quite brazen about possibly causing a paradox.

I do feel one can extrapolate the 'problem' with Naga's will in this: Medeus himself isn't really believing in coexistence with humans, so much as he believes in Naga and hopes for it. So when the hopes are shattered...

:( I swear to God I'm going to photobash a version of these cutscenes where Tiki just grabs Naga and 'Uncle Med-Med' to go play with her new friends for an hour, because for 'hope' this is the most harrowing of the past matchups of the lot. Also, 'Naga' count at four. Medeus' mere presence draws more talk of Naga.

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I really like Naga and Medeus' relationship.

I've been nursing these thoughts for a while, and it's nice to see Heroes validated them, so I'll get right into it: I enjoy how Naga and Medeus, despite being the progenitors of their respective archetypes, don't actually follow the typical relationship pattern of the Naga vs. Medeus.

To begin with, it's not really a 'versus' for these two-- Medeus turned 'evil' well after Naga died. That's already a step to the side when compared to the typical Naga vs. Medeus archetype fight, where they're usually directly opposed to one another. If anything, Naga dying probably was the beginning of the end for Medeus' chain to humans: without the Divine Dragon King there to rally humans and dragons, plus remind humans of the dragon's power and what they sacrificed, it got a lot easier for humans to become more ungrateful. Boo-hoo though, sad backstory doesn't excuse enslavement. Nevertheless-- I just like the complexity there? Medeus might see Naga as a failed martyr, but there's a snowball's chance in hell that any other Medeus/Naga pair would go anywhere close to positive feelings for the other ('cept maybe the split Radiant situation and Duma/Mila, who are siblings, so that's mostly a given). Stick another Naga archetype character and their respective Medeus in a room and see how that turns out. Lumera and Sombron? Killing each other. Epimenides and Sothis? Killing each other. Duma and Mila? Tried to kill each other. Lone Medeus archetypes don't get it much better in terms of complexity, Formortiis is a big evil demon evil, and Grima, Idunn, and Anankos have tragic elements, but their foils, if present, are less powerful dragon/human characters. And rarely do those foils have direct personal history with them.

To go back to that 'stick them in a room' example-- what happens if one sticks about-to-die Naga and well-into-evil Medeus in the same room? I just don't see them immediately going for each other's throats, though I wouldn't be shocked if Naga did go against him not so long after meeting him.

If anything-- I think they'd both be quite shocked and sad? Naga probably would understand what turned Medeus that way, given her words in Forging Bonds, but I imagine on Medeus' end it'd open up a lot of old wounds about Naga being naive and wasting her time with humans.

I am hinging almost entirely on that singular Heroes line here, but 'wasting charity' sounds more like a lament than an insult, it doesn't seem like Medeus holds Naga in contempt for leading him down the idea that humans could be good, so much as he holds humans in contempt for letting down Naga. Blame shift, but one I think would fit Medeus' character.

Mind you, it's not like Heroes is completely canon, and some aspects of the Ancient Medeus portrayal seem questionable to me (Medeus doesn't seem like he was this close to Bantu/Tiki/Xane? I can't really see a situation where he'd have no dialogue with any of them if this setup in Heroes is the canon case, and obviously the whole Nagi thing would be wildly out of character -- 'I heard you perished the last time, this time, you stand no chance' -- he never fought Naga????) but I still love the relationship in general, it's heartwrenching setup, and this time it's center stage so I don't need to conspiracy about it.

In another life, maybe Naga didn't die, or maybe Adrah didn't steal the Binding Shield, but that's not the life that came about in Archanea-- as is, Naga and Medeus might be opposed (through proxies, in Naga's case), but it's an opposition that I see as still containing appreciation for each other as people.