![]() Zatanna keeps her membership, though not associated with the Justice League a secret so no one will ever suspect she is using magic publicly. Zatanna would eventually be recruited into the Justice League due to her powers, her expertise in advising members on real magical threats, and been a trusted ally of Batman, Hawkman, Nightwing, Raven, Superman, and Doctor Fate. She has performed at Paris, Hollywood, Metropolis, Gotham, and Bludhaven and helped various heroes in the DC world as her tours brought her to them. She was so sensational to audiences that she was easily able to be considered as an entertainer unto herself. After her father's death, Zatanna continued his work and his tour. Zatanna not only practiced spells back-stage but, escape artistry, sleight-of-hand, and theatrics, allowing her to hide any real magic she wished to show behind illusions until no one would be able to call her on public displays of arcana. Her father performed for years as a stage magician and showman but in truth knew more than a little about actual magic Zatanna, possessing her mother's gift for magic and her father's keen mind for applying it followed and performed with her father across the U.S. Despite being Charlton’s only female character, Alan Moore says she is not the model for Silk Spectre.Zatanna was born the daughter of the renowned magician Giovanni Zatara, and his wife Sindella, a member of the magically gifted Homo Magi, race. Nightshade made her first appearance alongside Captain Atom in issue #82, and they received her own back-up feature a few issues later. Post Crisis and Post Watchmen, Black Canary ultimately becomes officially two characters, mother (original) and daughter (modern), as outlined in Secret Origins #50, left and Who’s Who in the DCU, right. Key Black Canary appearances include her first solo story in the Golden Age, along with her reintroduction in the Silver Age, culminating in her moving from Earth-2 to Earth-1 to join the Justice League. The illustration for the DC Who’s Who entry below right is by the legendary Dave Stevens (Rocketeer). Phantom Lady’s original costume, above, which was modified only slightly when she first appeared in the DCU, below. ![]() Phantom Lady made the wrong kind of headlines when Matt Baker’s cover appeared in the sensationalistic and dunderheaded Seduction of the Innocent. Silk Spectre 1 and 2 from the 2009 Watchmen film, plus SS 1 from the Before Watchman series. Despite some fine early art by Jim Aparo, those stories have never been reprinted - other than public domain press. She was briefly introduced as a partner for Captain Atom and received a short-lived back-up feature in his title just prior to its cancellation. In this post-crisis version, she is retconned as Starman’s cousin, helping him fight crime in the “Golden Age.” In fact, this great action page by Mike Mayhew is from the classic James Robinson Starman series.Īs for Charlton’s Nightshade? She can’t catch a break. She first appeared in the DC universe as part of the Freedom Fighters, a group of superheroes fighting Nazi domination of an alternate Earth (“X”), in Justice League #107 (October 1973.) The rest of the Freedom Fighters are also superheroes from Quality Comics - DC obtained Quality’s characters in 1956, but with the exception of Plastic Man, had kept the characters in limbo.īetween her multiple iterations and publishers in the Golden Age, and her (at least) four incarnations at DC, there are likely more versions of Phantom Lady than any other secondary character in comics history. She is perhaps best known for the cover of Fox Features issue #17 (by Matt Baker), prominently featured in Frederic Wertham’s infamous anti- comics tome Seduction of the Innocent as an example of titillation (costume) and sadism (bondage.) Phantom Lady had quite a few incarnations in the Golden Age, moving from publisher to publisher, ultimately becoming yet another casualty of the Golden Age. (Moore says Nightshade was “boring.” I’m not sure what, if anything, he’s said about Black Canary.) What does Alan Moore say? He said at one time that she’s based on the Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight), created by the Eisner Iger studio in 1940, and first published by Quality Comics in 1940. Or, if not, perhaps she is an altered version of DC’s Black Canary, who, thanks to retconning, became a mother/daughter Golden Age/Silver Age legacy character? Isn’t the Silk Spectre actually Nightshade, the only female superhero in the Charlton superhero line-up? After all, all the other main characters are derived from silver-age Charlton heroes. Continuing our series on the roots of the Watchmen characters.
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