How About That Thing?

Batman: The Animated Series was an absolute game changer of a show in just about every way possible. For starters, it changed the way a lot of us looked at Batman, and the city of Gotham as a whole. At least those of us who didn’t get to see the Tim Burton movies prior, but I digress.

Before BTAS, the only exposure to Batman I really had was reruns of that atrocity from 1967 that played on The Family Channel. Yeah, remember when that was a network that existed? Seriously, though, I love Adam West, and I hope he rests in peace. I know we’re not supposed to use GAY interchangeably with STUPID anymore… But every time I looked at the 1967 show, all I could think was that this was the single gayest thing I had ever seen. If you ever wondered about the origins of that SNL sketch, The Ambiguously Gay Duo, then there you go.

But then BTAS showed up, and man was it something to behold. It was dark, it was intense, and it left a fist-shaped print on my childhood that remains to this very day. Batman comes off as the intimidating force he needs to be. Even the campier villains in Batman’s rogues gallery aren’t without their charm. Looking at you, Baby Doll. Hell, this series took Mr. Freeze, a generic diamond thief with a freeze gun, and made him an anti-villain so compelling that I think it won an Emmy. It took The Mad Hatter: a laughably bad villain who was obsessed with hats, and turned him into the creepiest proto-incel I think I’ve ever seen in my life.

And, to a lesser extent, it introduced me to one of my other favorite characters in the DC universe.

This right here is Zatanna. According to BTAS lore, she’s a stage magician, and the daughter of The Great Zatarra. Bruce Wayne trained with her dad in the illusionary arts, and befriended her when they were kids.

Outside of this series, Zatanna is an actual sorceress, and her father, Zatarra, was a sorcerer as well.

The episode where she makes her one and only appearance, creatively titled Zatanna, is one of my personal favorites. Why? Honestly… I don’t know.

Spoiler: The villain in the episode in question is this guy.

Meet Montague Cane: a self-described “magic debunker”. AKA, one of those dicks who declares: “Magic is fake, and you’re a [BUNDLE OF STICKS] for liking it, you fucking loser!” Except he doesn’t censor the slur like I did. Either way, he is to the world of stage magic what those dicks I went to middle school were to professional wrestling. IE, absolutely incapable of leaving me alone and just letting me have the illusion. Fuck you for liking something fake, you fucking loser! Shut up and worship The Kansas City Royals like the rest of us normal kids! Except The Royals were just as big a group of losers as they were. They were losers back then, they’re losers now, and I’m still convinced to this very day that the 2015 world series was a fluke. Fuck The Royals, and fuck you!

Sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought there for a moment.

The plot of the Zatanna episode isn’t really anything to write home about. It’s good enough to be among my favorites, but compared to “Mad as a Hatter” and “Heart of Ice”, I don’t see it hitting any top 10 lists in the immediate future.

Montague Cane basically frames Zatanna, making her grand finale where she makes a giant stack of cash disappear look like a high profile robbery. Luckily for her, Bruce Wayne is in attendance, and having been a former student of her father’s, he figures out it’s all a setup. It’s up to Batman to clear Zatanna’s name, solve the mystery, and punch some faces in the interim.

If that sounds exciting to you, cool. If not, it’s okay. Either way, if I’m not in this for the plot, why am I even bothering?

Well, not going to lie, it’s Zatanna herself. At the time, I didn’t know she was a DC comics heroine. I thought she was just some character the show came up with. But as it turns out, I was wrong.

These are the covers of the trade paperbacks that compiled all sixteen issues of her short-lived comic series. My only regret at this point is my vision went as far south as it did, or else I’d have picked them up and read them ages ago. Be it one issue at a time, or eventually getting these trades.

The idea of a superhero magician was, at the time, a fairly new concept to me. Sure, I’d later find out about Dr. Strange over at Marvel, but for the most part, a lot of the magician characters I’d been exposed to were either pure evil, or at least portrayed as some sort of con artist. The idea of a heroic magician was one that I hadn’t seen a whole lot of back then. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough, maybe living in a small town in Kansas during the final gasps of The Satanic Panic had something to do with it… I don’t know. All I know is that the idea of a magician being a trickster, a flimflam artist, and a cheater was something I was a lot more familiar with back then, and seeing a good guy magician was, to my young mind, a new concept.

“Admit it, you like her because she’s wearing a leotard.”

Ah, I see someone remembered that little vague hint I left in the Terror Toad article. Well… Um… *sigh* Yeah.

Back then, I’d never seen a leotard before. I saw Zatanna for the first time, and found myself wondering why this girl wasn’t wearing pants. Her outfit, to my uninformed mind, looked like someone grafted the top half of a tuxedo to a pair of granny-panties, and it was definitely something that got my attention. The one or two crotch shots the animators threw in for the older audience that were TOTALLY necessary probably didn’t hurt. Or help.

As long as we’re being real, Batman: The Animated Series had some amazing character art. I forget who said it, but whoever they were, they’re the one who said it best: even their sixes were tens. Their version of Zatanna was a ten before I realized tens were even a thing.

And yeah, the leotard probably helped a little. I’m pretty sure that, or the 1996 gymnastics team was the first time I ever saw a woman in a leotard, and… I’ve already overshared as it is.

Although nowadays, they gave Zatanna pants instead. While I don’t want to sound like one of THOSE guys (you know who you are), I admit, that redesign was kind of a drag. Luckily, her appearances in Justice League Unlimited were just as good. Even if they retconned the stage magician thing, and made her a real sorceress out of the blue. Just keep telling yourself: it’s just a show, and I really should relax.

I guess what I’m trying to say is Zatanna is one of my earliest favorite superheroes. Even though I lived in a town that didn’t really have a comic shop, and the comics that were available were usually the more recent issues of Spiderman or The X-men, I still loved her in Batman: The Animated Series, and other places she appeared. Whether for her mastery of the mystical arts, or her delightful fashion sense, she definitely made an impression on me in many ways.

It’s a real shame that they canceled the movie they were making back in 2021. Knowing where we are in society, though, it might be for the better. I can already see them taking my favorite heroine, and turning her into yet another missandric girlboss living in a world where all straight white men are pigs who tell women they should smile more. Because lord knows that’s not getting old in a hurry, hashtag-sarcasm.

Or hell, maybe I’m jumping the gun, and the Zatanna movie would’ve been, like, good or something. I guess we’ll never know now. But hey, a guy can dream.