Don’t Do That Magic Thing — Reviewing ‘Zatanna: Bring Down The House’ #2

Pull a rabbit out of a hat daily, and suddenly there’s magical strangers and demons burning down your casino workplace. What a very rude situation really, even if the reasons might stem from childhood accidents with magic and overbearing fathers.

Things aren’t getting any easier for the top hat wearing non-magical magician Zatanna as Zatanna: Bring Down The House #2 ups the ante in her DC Black Label adventure. At the top of their game, as always, are Mariko Tamaki, Javier Rodríguez, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

Last issue, I wrote about how I was bouncing with anticipation for this series and how the first issue met all of that and more. Happily, I can report in this one that the joy and excitement just keeps growing.

Tamaki takes a character that is known and beloved and gives her the big story treatment (reinvention) she deserves. Stripped of all the other DC Universe trappings (especially Batman and the Justice League), this is the Zatanna show, and it is so much better for that.

Magic is one of those nebulous areas in the big two superhero comic book realms. Undefined rules that are always shifting, wrapped up in super heroics, with some really hitting and others just sort of slipping away. Taking magic and setting it in this perspective, away from everything else, using Zatanna as our slow intro to things is a brilliant move. We expect her to be the whole big powerful magician doing all the heroic things but instead she’s mostly a regular person.

Just with magical related family tragedy and trauma.

Showcasing this blending of reality and supernatural is the magnificent artwork of Rodríguez who always taps into a magical well of power himself. Really allowing everything to have this light airy yet heavy feeling at the same time. Letting panels slip and slide around the page, befitting the power a moment needs more than any sort of hard placed logical flow. Trippy is a great word to use when talking about anything this man draws. Whimsical, outlandish, toned-down color wise, but still so bizarre and real feeling that it boggles the mind.

Together, Rodríguez and Tamaki are tapping into a specific energy. Big bold dire fun dripping with mystery and deep anticipation. A magic show, comedy, and borderline horror piece wrapped up into one delicious life-giving meal.

Adding Otsmane-Elhaou into the mix just takes it up even more notches. A wizard with letters, he always manages to find the best way to make them flow with the rest of the artwork while standing uniquely. Vivid, colorful, blended in, bizarre, logical, and everything in-between. Fonts are just as unique as every other visual element, shifting and morphing to match the moment in time. Becoming colorful or wavy or changed in size as the story calls for it.

While this story is only five issues long, the world they are building is one that I could spend many more issues or years exploring. When a book makes you feel that way only two issues in, you know that means the team is delivering.

Hell, they’re not just delivering, they own the whole restaurant.

Zatanna: Bring Down The House #2 is now available from DC Comics.