Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1 // Review
Insomnia has cast the entire Earth and everything on it into a state of nightmare dream sleep. Everything that CAN sleep is sleeping. Of course…there’s quite a bit on Earth that doesn’t sleep, but the A.I.-driven life forms are being wiped out by some mysterious force. The last hope for the waking world rests in some of the most clever hands on the planet in Knight Terrors: Zatanna #1. Writer Dennis Culver delivers a fun one-shot featuring one of the more appealing characters in the periphery of the DC Universe. Artist David Baldeón conjures the action into the visual with the aid of colorist Rain Beredo.
Zatanna quickly spoke an incantation that allowed her to avoid the force that had put everyone else to sleep. She hadn’t really had much of a chance to appreciate the kind of deft reflexes it would have taken to outmaneuver something that even managed to knock out the Flash. She’s up against some pretty powerful forces. And she’s completely alone. So, she summons a champion…but all of the other A.I.s are wiped out…so she ends up with someone who just might be better: Robotman of the Doom Patrol.
Culver frames a really fun team-up with Zatanna and Robotman. There haven’t been many authors over the years who understand the specific power of Zatanna and her unique appeal as a stylishly sensual stage magician who is also a very powerful wielder of magic. It’s a tricky thing to bring to the page in a way that doesn’t feel like a cheap copy of Dr. Strange or Doctor Fate. Culver has Zatanna’s distinct personality down in a way that is deeply appealing. Contrasting her against Robotman feels like something approaching genius as the two stand united against an overwhelming power.
Baldeón weaves a sharply heroic kind of darkness on the page. The classy beauty of Zatanna pairs well with the gleaming bulk of Robotman as the two face shadowy magical forces. Action glides across the page with impressive momentum. There’s a somewhat dazzling sense of scope and perspective as massive forces move their way around the two heroes: it’s a grand sense of power resonating from the page, and Zatanna strikes the positively heroic image of someone who is in WAY over her head…yet totally confident. So often, superheroes are given so many weird mutations and convolutions. Sometimes a really cool fusion or deviation can be clever, but it’s always nice to see something classic like what Baldeón is bringing to the page with Zatanna.
The Knight Terrors one-shots have been a pleasant surprise thus far. Not all of them have been brilliant, but there have been quite a few sparkling moments here and there. It’s not often that Zatanna is given her own title. Zatanna-centric stories have been rather hit-or-miss in the past. It’s nice to see it done so well. Not everyone gets the character right, but Culver has a clever handle on what makes her appealing. A Culver-written Zatanna series would be great fun.
