Batman: The Animated Series - "Zatanna"

“Tonight, I can promise you a few surprises, a thrill or two along the way, and with luck, a happy ending.”

Stage magician Zatanna (Julie Brown) makes the Gotham Mint disappear, but when it reappears it’s $10 million light. Bruce Wayne, though, is sure she’s innocent, having trained with her father Zatara (Vincent Schiavelli) years ago. Zatanna, too, knows she’s been set up by skeptic/debunker Montague Kane (Michael York), so the two pair up to clear her name faster than you can say “abracadabra.”

Is it a coincidence that Paul Dini, who’s penned more Zatanna adventures than just about anyone, himself married a professional magician, Misty Lee? I’m going to plead the fifth on that one, but it’s intriguing that the first DC superhero guest star on Batman: The Animated Series is Zatanna, of all people. Over on Superman: The Animated Series, we see Aquaman, Green Lantern, and The Flash (warming up for the Justice League cartoon), but Batman played it a little more insular. Indeed, to my memory this might be the only such guest star until we get to The New Batman Adventures, when we see the likes of Supergirl and Etrigan the Demon pop up.

So, Dini’s fan-crush aside, why Zatanna? For one, she allows the show to remake “Night of the Ninja,” in that this episode links Bruce’s early training to his life as Batman, but it does so more effectively than “Ninja” because the flashback training comes in handy – Batman learned his escapistry from Zatara and uses it in this episode (and, as some have surmised, as directly as in “Be A Clown,” which prefigures his Houdini escape in Zatara’s training flashback). Zatanna also allows us to see Batman as human because there’s a playful flirtation here, posing her as a sort of Catwoman on the right side of the law. Zatanna allows us to imagine an end for Batman in which he lives happily ever after. It’s a shame that the show never circles back to her (and won’t until Justice League Unlimited), because there’s a real interesting chemistry between the two as Batman bristles against revealing his true identity to Zatanna.

In rewatching this episode, I was struck by the fact that Zatanna never performs any actual magic in this episode. That is, all of her magic is explained by sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors, or simple stagecraft. In the comics, Zatanna is a genuine practitioner of magic, but here she’s an illusionist who’s comfortable explaining her tricks to Batman (who, let’s be fair, had figured them out already). I’m sure this adjustment to her character was made to keep her fairly consistent with the BtAS universe, which largely steers away from the supernatural and unexplainable, but one wonders how much further Zatanna could have gone on this show had those artificial constraints not been placed. To wit, she’s a featured player in one of the best episodes of Justice League Unlimited, “This Little Piggy,” in which Batman needs her help after Wonder Woman is transformed into a pig. (Yes, that episode too was written by Paul Dini.) It’s a wildly entertaining romp through the unpredictable toybox that is the DC Universe, almost Batman by way of Bewitched, and it’s yet another reason why I wish we’d seen more of Zatanna.

Overall, though, the episode is expertly paced, drawing on a classic three-act structure. Michael York gets the rare opportunity to play two different villains; he’d been (Count) Vertigo a few episodes back, now he’s Montague Kane, a kind of Orson Welles circa F for Fake by way of Howard Hughes’s aviation obsession. He’s a pretty straightforward villain with an uncomplicated motive – profit – and that’s good, because it wouldn’t have made much sense to use a major villain like Two-Face, who would steal the spotlight from Zatanna. No, the episode is wise to keep the focus on Zatanna, her relationship to Batman, and the side of our hero’s quest she allows us to see. I always thought there was more to do with Zatanna and her father Zatara’s involvement in Bruce’s training – hat-tip to Vincent Schiavelli (a Batman Returns alumnus, no less), who gives a delightfully theatrical performance as the master magician. But then I’ve thought that about a lot of the show’s better episodes; like an expert showman, “Zatanna” leaves us wanting more, but we’ll have to wait until “This Little Piggy” for the encore – and boy is it a showstopper.

Original Air Date: February 2, 1993

Writer: Paul Dini

Directors: Dick Sebast and Dan Riba

Villain: Montague Kane (Michael York)

Next episode: “The Mechanic,” in which Batman Returns is reprised.

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