A New Bag Of Tricks — Reviewing ‘Zatanna: Bring Down The House’ #1

Pick a card, any card. Then behold, as the great Zatanna mystifies with tricks that defy science and reality itself. Good thing she’s not also weighed down by some dark and mysterious magical past that could be rearing its head in the present day.

What’s that? She is? Well, that certainly can’t be a good sign.

A version of Zatanna divorced of the Justice League & other DC Prime history takes the stage in Zatanna: Bring Down The House #1, DC’s latest Black Label book. This intriguing and hauntingly beautiful tale comes from Mariko Tamaki, Javier Rodríguez, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

I’ve been bouncing with anticipation since this title was announced, and thankfully I can report it did not disappoint in any fashion. Honestly, how could it?

Brought to vivid otherworldly life under the care of Rodríguez, an artist of the highest order, alongside one of the best writers around in Tamaki and a top-tier letterer in Otsmane-Elhaou who knows all the strings to pull. Each of these creators are ones that I adore their work alone, so putting them together was just like some special gift-wrapped present delivered to my door. Okay, sure they didn’t actually make this for me, but when a creative endeavor feels that way you know it’s special.

Magic and the supernatural allow for such fun visuals. Taking things that are seemingly normal and expanding them, even getting trippy. That’s a realm where Rodríguez thrives, with series like Defenders or Doctor Strange And The Sorcerers Supreme among many others as perfect examples. A truly beguiling mix of very solid detailed realistic facets swirled alongside a very whimsical type of energy. Allowing there to be this sense of wonder and fun, even when the moments become darker or scarier.

There is just something about seeing this big bold fun energy while wanting to run away from something monstrous that just does it. Horror films have that sort of stuff down pat, able to do something silly or make you laugh at the same time that something horrifying is going down. This isn’t a big-time horror book so far, but the tinges we get here are electrifying.

I could go on for days about the panel choices, and the way that the spaces are just allowed to breathe and grow. Love me some negative space that comes into play, all that white that is in panels but also creates contrasting borders at the same time. Perfect with the mostly more toned-down color palette that is in play. Creating a base level of world visuals before allowing various other characters, backgrounds, or elements blast into far more vibrant and flashy levels as needed.

The visual language that is created here allows Otsmane-Elhaou to really stretch with the lettering, a feat he accomplishes time and time again. Much like the colors, a font and quality is chosen for dialogue to set the base level volume and tone. Thus, enabling shifts in either just by sizing up or sizing down the font, to reasonable or extreme levels. Colors come into play in various spaces either to highlight specific lettering choices or to match whatever Rodríguez is delivering in a given panel.

Such as a painful panel where one of Zatanna’s bunnies bites her, the panel and the font both delivered in a shocking pink. Really zeroing in on the surprise and pain that is happening.

A mixing of cases provides another way to really set vocal moments apart. Typical standard all caps is used for most of the normal voice levels throughout. For whispers, mutters, or just quieter moments sentence case (standard for most other writing) comes into play. Giving a quick visual cue that this should sound different when readers are recreating the voices in their mind.

There isn’t a single project that I’ve read from Tamaki where I haven’t walked away content. There is something about her writing that just really gets the characters and the worlds under her care. From her time on Detective Comics to various other alternate history stories done for DC Comics over the years, much like this one.

There is something endearing about her version of Zatanna, that I haven’t fully felt with the Prime version of the character. Chiefly because — more often than not — Zatanna has been a supporting, pops-up-time-to-time character throughout the past few decades of DC Comics. Only in the more recent eras has she become once more a bit of a recurring character through various magical teams that have become the norm (such as Justice League Dark and similar).

We’re thrown right into her trippy past, and secrets, before much of this issue is spent on establishing this version of the character. She’s quirky, content with her life, seems to get on well with others, and has no real ambitions to go beyond her free show at the Golden Dice casino. There is a really nice pacing to the first issue, setting things up, and really ratcheting up the danger and suspense in a noticeable but still slightly subtle sort of way.

Just like the various tricks Zatanna displays, the story itself comes with baked in misdirection. What we expect at the very end for the cliffhanger, is twisted with a reveal of something else. Proving that the moments we saw from her youth were more incomplete than expected. Leaving some very interesting clues to follow for the next issue.

Zatanna: Bring Down The House #1 is now available from DC Comics.