[Here’s the original post, with comments, where you can get a nice discussion of faerie under the hill, which I would have incorporated into this post except I’m trying to keep them as close to the original as possible — much like my Comics You Should Own posts, I don’t really want to do a lot of rewriting to fit in new data. That’s why we have comments! Enjoy!]
[I’m not sure why I switched to large images between paragraphs to smaller images inserted into paragraphs. I did these over the course of a few months earlier this year, so maybe I took a bit of time between the last one and this one and forgot I was doing large images and reverted to smaller images. Sorry about that — but you can still click on the images to see them bigger!]
Oh, Zatanna — that little vixen! Yes, itâs time for the first issue of the next mini-series, as Morrison sticks his tongue out at Alan Moore and says, âAnything you can do I can do better!â Letâs gear up for the weirdness!
Oh, by the way: SPOILERS!!!!! One of our fine commenters pointed out that Iâm not too specific with the warning — if itâs relevant, I will talk about future issues in the mega-epic, so I might SPOIL those too! I had forgotten that DCâs policy of releasing trade paperbacks is glacially slow, so I hadnât considered that these wouldnât be all collected yet. How many are out? Is Seven Soldiers #1 going into a collection any time soon? I will try to be careful, but youâve been warned! As usual with Morrison books, some things that take place in an early issue only make sense when you read the later ones. Blame him, not me!
It doesnât start out weird, of course. Page one of âTalking Backwards Sdrawkcab Gniklatâ is Zatanna sitting in a metal folding chair and saying, âYou want guilt? My nameâs Zatanna Zatara. Iâm a spellaholic.â Ryan Sookâs gorgeous art shows us a young woman who looks weary, even though there are no lines on her alabaster face. Her hair is just ragged enough, her posture is just slumped enough, and her eyes are just vacant enough that we understand the strain sheâs under, even though sheâs still beautiful. She clutches keys in her hand, and we can visualize her stroking them nervously if absent-mindedly the whole time sheâs talking. 
In one beautiful splash page, Sook shows us that this is a woman on the edge, and sheâs barely said anything. This is why comics are awesome, by the way. Words and pictures, people, can show wonderful things.
We jump right into a two-page flashback with Zatanna and her father, which is relevant only for a few things: Giovanni mentions that his whole act is falling apart, which is one of those portentous things Morrison likes to throw into their writing, and then Giovanni follows it up by saying, âItâs not easy being a single dad, fighting crime one minute, performing the next, making ends meet.â This goes back to Morrisonâs more grounded script in The Manhattan Guardian, as Jake worries about making ends meet too. It also returns to the idea of heroism — is Giovanni being an irresponsible father for going around fighting crime instead of getting a real job? Morrison, and every other comic book writer, would say no, because you have to chase your dreams, man! Zatanna herself wanders around fighting crime and performing, and look at her — sheâs in therapy because sheâs a spellaholic. So despite the protestations of comic book writers, who are artists, man! Giovanniâs statement is more weighted than we might initially think.
We return to the present, and Zatanna says that Giovanni never used magic (without the âk,â mind you, because itâs not the kind that needs a âkâ) irresponsibly. She is interrupted by our old friend Jackie Pemberton, aka Gimmix, whoâs not dead! Yay! Okay, this issue takes place before Seven Soldiers #0, so Jackie is, sadly, still dead, but at least we get to see her in all her bitchiness one more time. Sheâs complaning about the fact that Zatanna, whoâs a member of the Justice League, should just shut up and let people with real problems have the floor. 
She mentions that she has real problems — without JLA privileges or a best-selling book, she was âsexually abused by shape-shifting monsters,â which some have read (according to the annotations, to which Iâll link at the bottom) as her transformation at the hands of the Seven Unknown Men of Slaughter Swamp. Hmmm. Itâs certainly something to consider. Sally Sonic, from Bulleteer, is also in the support group, whining about being 75 years old and not being able to get served in a bar. Misty is there, but according to what she says later, no one can see her except Zatanna. The fat woman is, according to Morrison, Etta Candy — the original. I miss the Pérez version. Thatâs all Iâm saying. Before Jackie can take over the group, Zatanna mentions that her father died âfighting the forces of evil,â an event which took place in Swamp Thing #50, written by the Great Crazy Bearded One of Northampton. Zatanna mentions that she also has fought the forces of evil, with mixed results (at least her father died saving the world).
Another flashback takes us to Baron Winterâs house, where Giovanni met his fate. Zatanna mentions that it was the SEVENTH day of ARACHNE, the secret 13th month of the sorcerersâ calendar. Seven, of course, is self-explanatory. Arachne, for those of you who donât know your Greek myths, was turned into a spider by Athena, and I think weâve seen that spiders are significant in the Sheeda world (although theyâre machines, not real, which is probably important). Zatanna tells the baron that everyone is gathered because theyâve been having bad dreams — not unlike the police officer in Shining Knight #1! The dreams are obviously of the Sheeda, but theyâre worth looking at. Zatanna mentions dreams of three things: âlittle people from under the hill, locust armies with tiny riders, a queen on an eight-legged horse.â 
The last one is obviously a reference to Gloriana Tenebrae, although why the dreams show her riding a horse rather than a spider is interesting. Could it be a reference to one of the Horses of the Apocalypse? Given Morrisonâs fascination with that sort of stuff, it wouldnât surprise me. I honestly canât remember the Queen riding any sort of steed during the series — I suppose weâll see as we go along. [UPDATE: The first commenter here points out that Odin rode an eight-legged horse. I saw that while I was checking things out, but wasnât sure if it was relevant. He (I guess itâs a âhe,â but it could be a girl) provided a link. Go check it out if youâre interested!] The locust army is also easy to decipher – locusts, after all, were the eighth plague to strike Egypt in the Book of Exodus. What does Zatanna mean by the little people from under the hill?
Iâm not sure, and theories are welcome. It echoes the motif of âthe king under the mountain,â the sleeping hero who will awaken during a time of stress and redeem mankind. Significantly, one of these heroes is King Arthur (and this idea was used in the 1980s mini-series Camelot 3000, by Mike W. Barr and Brian Bolland — read my critique here!). Morrison certainly is cognizant of this legend, and probably wouldnât have any problems fitting it into the story, but is that really what they’re doing here? The reference to âlittle peopleâ from below the ground probably means the people from Limbo Town, where Klarion lives, but those people arenât any smaller than normal humans. Are they? They donât look smaller than normal humans when they show up, nor do they live specifically under a hill. And why are all the magicians dreaming specifically about the lost Puritans?
Anyway, Zatanna and the others sit at the table, Zatanna at the very spot where he father died (we see the shadows of his burned arms on the table — one would think Baron Winter could have found some good furniture polish in the intervening years!). The others introduce themselves: Timothy Ravenwind, Ibis the Invincible and his wife Taia (who have traveled seven times around the world), and Terry Thirteen. Does Baron Winter count as the sixth member, and is that why things go horribly wrong? They are looking for the Liber Zatarae, the four books of secret magic that were lost when Giovanni died. She wants to go looking for them in the Imaginal World, which means they get to go on a wacky psychic journey. 
Yes, even Dr. Thirteen, who has to be one of the more annoying characters in DC history. How much freakinâ evidence do you need, Terry????
Anyway, they enter the astral plane and the interreality of Ra, where they meet King Ra-Man, who apparently died during Crisis on Infinite Earths. But you canât keep a good Ra-Man down! Ra-Man is sitting on a diamond-shaped object, which is not a six-sided sun like Zatanna described, but what the hell (six-sided like the cube of the infant universe of Qwewq, and the die that both Misty and Klarion have). Ra-Man mentions that âthe eternal enemies of my realm have joined forces to attack the monasteries of the exalted ones.â He is going to change to his wrathful battle aspect, and suggests they leave because they might not survive the experience. I have no idea what the hell heâs talking about, but then again, Iâm not as brilliant as Morrison. So he helps them along to the next stage, which Iâm sure has some connection to Buddhism or Jewish mysticism, but is it really that important? Let me know, people!
So our explorers head into the weirdness that is Grant Morrisonâs response to Alan Mooreâs Promethea. Luckily for everyone, this doesnât last long. Sook does a marvelous job following Morrisonâs script and making the pages flow, as Zatanna and her bunch climb through cubes in space and see themselves in the future and the past and worry about the fact that theyâre not walking on anything. Itâs a fun little four-page trip, and there are some things of interest. I refuse to even consider Terryâs comment about âbrane universes,â because theoretical physics make my head hurt. Hereâs what a Google search turned up — go nuts if you want to learn more! Ravenwind disappears, briefly, when he realizes that âspace has an edge.â When he comes back, he says the place is hungry, like the ghosts on the Daathian frontier. Taia says the realm is called âNever-Be-Foundâ and that they should probably leave. Zatanna agrees, and they move across the gulfs of Ys. There they see the âred god of Ys,â (who might be Satan), and Ravenwind mentions that he looks how heâs described in the âomninomiconâ — the Book of Everything, presumably. Ibis tells Zatanna itâs good that her father trapped the beast, but Zatanna points out that heâs just frozen and will swallow the universe in the end, and she just hopes they find a bigger place to stay before that happens. The âredâ links the beast to Mars, where Melmoth has his mining operation, but also could be a metaphor for a red sun, which is old and dying and would, indeed, âswallowâ at least the earth and the solar system. 
Suddenly âNever-Be-Foundâ attacks, trying to consume them and the very fabric of their reality (as Ravenwind points out, the panels of the comic start to erode). So Zatanna gets them out of there, to an idyllic scene where stands a tree with books for leaves — “all the books that were ever written in anyoneâs head.â Hey, whereâs Lucius Lucien? The tree certainly has meaning, either as the Tree of Life in the Bible, or perhaps the world-ash Yggdrasil. Taia suddenly becomes old, then young again, and says, cryptically, âHe goes in many shapes, many likenesses ⊠He is a thought we must not think âŠâ Oh dear, Taia. Didnât you see Ghostbusters? Thatâs not going to work. To quote Gozer: âThe choice is made!â Zatanna goes to the tree to find the four books of the Liber Zatarae, and sees a rather evil-looking face in the bark. We quickly jump back to the present, and Zatanna tells the group a pretty crucial piece of information: three nights before the ritual (the time Jesus spent in the tomb?), when she should have been purifying herself, Zatanna went home and said a spell wishing for the man of her dreams. She says she didnât expect the Herald of the Apocalypse. But thatâs what she gets, as a smiling burning man comes walking over the water, with the tree burning behind him. Zatanna says she always falls for losers, and she was hoping for a great wizard or a crime-fighter. Etta asks her what happened next, and Zatanna says she got her bad wish, just like always. Sheâs back at the table, and all the others have been burned to death, clean down to the bone. Baron Winter is amusingly ironic: âOh, not again, my dear.â This is, unsurprisingly, exactly what happened to two of the people (including Giovanni Zatara) at the table back in Swamp Thing #50. Good job, Zatanna!
We jump back to her therapy group, and Zatanna tells them that Ibis had identified the figure as âGwydionâ before he, you know, burned to a cinder. Gwydion is a name that is full of import, both as a magician and as the birth name of King Arthur, according to Marion Zimmer Bradley. 
Baron Winter told her that he senses the end of humankindâs reign on earth. Zatanna, understandably, is upset, and says that magic can bring them back, but she canât talk backwards anymore. She sums up: âMy ideal man is a monster I set free to destroy the world. Spellaholic. Itâs a problem, right?â Even Jackie is impressed and admits she has a problem. Etta, speaking the language of therapy, tells Zatanna not to blame herself. Well, why the hell not? She did just get four people killed, after all. (Speaking of which, Terry Thirteen isnât dead anymore, I guess. How the hell did that happen? Anyone?) As she leaves the group, Mind-Grabber Kid mentions it all fits in with his âtwo-dimensional plate holographic theory.â Of course it does. He drives away, and Jackie comes out and tells Zatanna that she might miss the next group because she âscored a major team gig out West.â Poor Jackie. She wonât be coming back from that team gig, will she? Misty finally shows up and gets Zatanna to sign an autograph on her (Zatannaâs) book. Misty wants to be Zatannaâs apprentice, but Zatanna says sheâs done with superheroics, and itâs moot anyway, because she lost her magic powers. Misty, luckily enough, can talk backwards, and calls for a taxi. When one appears, it seems like Zatanna has picked up a new student. The cab company is âGypsy,â which seems fitting somehow.
So far, this is the weirdest issue of the saga, as Morrison indulges their love of way-out science and people speaking in cryptic fashion. Considering that Zatanna often speaks in a cryptic fashion (not what she says, obviously, but the fact that she says it backward), itâs perhaps fitting that others speak cryptically. Despite all that, Morrison doesnât allow the strangeness to overwhelm what is, at its heart, a sad little story.
Consider: Zatanna is lonely. Her father, despite her love for him, was not a model of stability, and he died doing something grand and meaningful, which shadows her life as she searches for something grand and meaningful. She mentions guilt on the first page, and guilt is, after all, a crushing emotion throughout the series. 
Justin(a) will actually meet a big ugly Guilt monster. Jake feels guilt over killing an innocent boy. Other members of the non-team will feel guilt, which weâll get to. Zatanna feels guilt, but not only because she unleashed Gwydion into the world. She feels guilt because she has never lived up to the example set by her father, even though, if we look at it objectively, her father wasnât a terribly good parent and he failed at what he was trying to accomplish when he died. That doesnât matter to Zatanna, who has turned her father into a great hero that she canât hope to compete with. Again, the notion of heroism rears its head, and weâll get back to it. As this takes place in the DC Universe, Zatannaâs hidden guilt is also playing a part in the story — the guilt she feels over her actions during Identity Crisis, when she messed with Batmanâs mind to make him forget the initial messing with Dr. Lightâs mind. Everyone makes a big deal about poor Ollie and his guilt, but what about the person who did the actual messy work? Zatanna might feel guilt, but she obviously hasnât learned her lesson, as her actions in this story are possibly more reprehensible than what she did in IC. Meanwhile, the guilt she feels over not living up to her fatherâs example leads her, in her words, to âfall for losers.â No man is good enough to be Daddy, so she doesnât even try to find one. Howâs that for pop psychology?
The tragedy at Baron Winterâs place shows again that Morrison is dealing with this notion of heroism and how people can be heroes despite themselves. 
Zatanna is the most known superhero in the Seven Soldiers saga, and she has certainly done plenty of heroic things in the past. She is still not a member of the DC Pantheon, or even in the second tier of heroes, and although this probably doesnât weigh on her mind (why would it?), we, as readers, understand that this means she is not as confident in her heroism as someone like, say, Superman. Why isnât she as confident? Because of the guilt. Because of the nagging feeling that something like the disaster at Baron Winterâs house could happen at any moment. Because she allows her feelings of insecurity to take over sometimes, which leads to unleashing Gwydion. Insecurity is just another aspect of guilt — she doesnât trust herself to do the right thing, because she knows sheâs done the wrong thing in the past. This guilt and insecurity have finally manifested themselves in the loss of her powers. Zatanna is not yet a true hero because when faced with adversity — adversity that is, after all, her fault — she shuts down. Only when she owns up to her guilt in what has happened — which wonât happen in therapy, as two different people tell her itâs not her fault — can she move past it and become a hero. Being a hero isnât doing great things, itâs overcoming obstacles and doing the right thing. Zatanna screwed up, and she has to make it right. âLosingâ her magic powers is just another way of saying âItâs not my fault.â And thatâs not good enough for a hero.
I briefly mentioned Ryan Sookâs art, and it is truly stunning. The trippy sequences get all the love, but what makes the book are the therapy scenes, as Sook shows us a horribly vulnerable and emotionally shattered Zatanna, which makes Morrisonâs words hit home even more. When she tells them about setting Gwydion free, she looks directly at the reader, and her ragged hair and worry line between her eyebrows convey such failure that we can hear the weariness in the lines, even though theyâre written on the page. We can also contrast Zatanna with Jackie, who looks plastic throughout, even though she has her own problems. 
Jackie is obsessed with fame, as she climbs the ladder, and Zatanna is on the opposite end of the spectrum, understanding that what Jackie wants might not be exactly what sheâs going to get. Jackieâs presence, of course, lends a bit of poignancy to the story, as we know sheâs a goner, and Sook makes her a bit more golden and seemingly âwith itâ than the others, so that her fate feels a bit sadder now. Itâs a marvelous-looking book, and fits the story well (shocking, I know, as Morrison hand-picks their artists).
As we move through these introductory issues, we get a glimmer of what Morrison is doing, and with Zatanna, we get the fallen hero. Justin(a) was the defiant hero, to the point where (s)he was thrown through time. Jake was also fallen, but he is more the neophyte hero, who was down but does not know what his purpose is until he puts on the uniform. Zatanna was a hero, but now itâs over. She too must begin a long climb back, but itâs interesting that Jake has someone to fight for, while Zatanna has only an apprentice. Misty, of course, is more important in the grand scheme of things than Carla, but is she more important to Zatanna than Carla is to Jake? I doubt it.
As usual, you can check out the annotations for this issue here. They arenât bad. Jog chooses to focus on Morrisonâs âchallengeâ to Moore, and makes some good points that I ignored. And, of course, any links you know about will be appreciated.
Next: Klarion! The weirdness gets weirder!
