#pralaya

TBH almost every aspect of Zatanna’s power is underutilized. Consistently, all the time, always and forever. For starters every time Zatanna gets a significant power boost or realizes her true potential, it’s walked back, retconned, or just ignored a few months later without fail. Back when she left the Justice League in the detroit era after traversing the collective unconscious of all humanity and seeing “the godhead” it was revealed in the Spectre that it had been a trick by Wotan? Iirc he says it was an illusion he created with Zatara’s magic?

During JLA Black Baptism in the 90s? Early 2000s? She begins to lose her mind and transmutates the entire moon. The whole moon. Giving it wings, a giant eyeball, etc. a couple years later in the JLA run where she defeats Amazo the moon is headed for earth, Diana asks if she can stop it and she states she doesn’t have nearly that much power…. Despite the aforementioned ability to transmutate it. Even her defeat of Amazo she on panel states is red tornado’s victory despite her doing literally all the work.

In both JLD runs Zatanna is responsible for defeating the big bad’s of the series. Pralaya and the Upside Down Man respectively. (Technically Hecate too but) As soon as she defeated Pralaya and restored all of creation the damn continuity rebooted. Making it so it never happened. With the latest run, after she beat upside down man it’s revealed part of his power resides in her and potentially could lead to his return only for the death of the justice league event to completely scrap that plot line, restore the USDM and then nothing was ever done with that story again. (To date).

It literally happened this month where in Wonder Woman 9 Zatanna says she can’t help the super sons who’ve been turned into dogs by Circe because she states Circe is so powerful with magic going back to the gods despite literally having beaten and ubdone Circe’s magic in the past and also defeated gods in the aforementioned JLD runs.

The only really big one that hasn’t technically had a walk back is her 7 Soldier of Victory story and her defeat of Zor the reality warping time tailor, who she defeats by literally breaking the fourth wall and manipulating comic panels. However flashpoint happens right after that story. So for the New 52, it was like that story had never happened. It has since been referenced in the current rebirth continuity at least twice in the sideways comic and the knight terrors event of last year so we knownit is now canon. But it wasn’t for a couple years. And it’s a bitter sweet thing because while it hasn’t been retconned, it also is ignored and has not been expanded on. It’s never brought up how she can just casually reach past the fabric of her fictional universe and manipulate panels of the comics.

Reading all her stories you start to notice this frustrating pattern that is at this point almost a cycle. Zatanna starts off in a new story or continuity significantly weaker than previously shown, she gains a confidence boost and starts to come into her power, she then does a crazy mind bending powerful feat of magic. And then boom. Retcon, continuity shift, new event that erases the previous growth and lands her solidly back to square one.

like I mentioned in previous asks, Zatanna can do anything, not just because of her backwards magic, but she has the power to back it up. And she suffers not only from lack of creativity, and continuous attempts to nerf her so that she doesn’t outshine the more popular characters, but also from these continuous reboots and whatnot. And again power is not everything, her struggles to accept herself and grow into her confidence and deal with making mistakes is so fascinating and makes her victories all the more satisfying. But her power is literally disrespected at all levels. From scale, to the borderline fetishistic binding and gagging of her (despite doing magic without speaking multiple times in literally every continuity), and the constant resetting her back to square one.

it’s hard to pick one aspect of her powers that are underutilized because it’s all underutilized. And only in imaginative stories like 7 soldiers or JLD do we really get to see writers cut loose with her and their imagination, and they’re wonderful and so fun. I need DC to stop being afraid of letting her be an A-lister and treat her with the respect she deserves. Status quo be damned.

so yeah. Thanks for the ask!

Justice League Dark

Volume: 1 #40

The Amber of the Moment, Part Six: Ouroboros

Writers: J.M. DeMatteis

Pencils: Andres Guinaldo

Inks: Walden Wong

Covers: Guillem March, Tomeu Morey

Featuring: Andrew Bennett, Black Orchid, Deadman, Frankenstein, John Constantine, Madame Xanadu, Nightmare Nurse, Swamp Thing, Zatanna Zatara, Pralaya