Batman: TAS, episode #54: Zatanna

This episode was an interesting comparison with the previous one. While we still ventured back into Bruce's past to witness his training in escape artistry with the magician, Zatara (Vincent Schiavelli) and his daughter, Zatanna (Julie Brown), we had a few more fireworks in the present based almost solely on Zatarra's use of "magic", confined solely to the idea of stage artistry. The original character is a long-time veteran of DC Comics and former member of the Justice League who first appeared in Hawkman #4 (1964.) In the comics, there was never any doubt as to who or what she was: an actual sorceress who not only communicated with the supernatural but used that power as a superhero; not just a stage magician as she's depicted here in the episode named for her: Zatanna. She was so much the sorceress that she even crossed the veil between DC Comics and the later imprint, Vertigo, when various mystical characters like The Phantom Stranger, John Constantine, and Dr. Fate gathered to deal with major threats from the magical end of the DC Universe. But that level of fantasy was considered to be too out-of-realm for this series by the production team, not least because they discarded the entity that was supposed to be the main villain of this story, The Gentleman Ghost (an arch-nemesis of Hawkman, incidentally.) No ghosts and goblins for the main dressed as a bat. Much of that disdain for the fantasy end of the comics is reflected in the dialogue, most often delivered by Zatanna ("I'm sure there's a perfectly logical explanation!" after her illusion ends up losing the money from the Gotham Mint; "This never happens to me in Vegas!" after she's arrested; "Why do you care about some leggy dame in nylons?" when The Batman rescues her from the vehicle taking her to jail; etc.)

But just like last time, the basis of the story is the past. Our hero and Zatanna rekindle their mutual affection developed while the former was training with her father (also an arch-sorcerer in the comics) and she takes a moment to ask what terrible event happened that caused him to put on the mask. The details of the story also might demonstrate why they were reluctant to engage the supernatural because the "bad guys" are, like last time, just the normal thugs of Montague Kane (Michael York) and The Batman shows just how those years of training with people like Zatara benefited him, by easily dispatching all of them who approach him until Kane has to do the "damsel in distress" sequence with Zatarra, which was kind of a jarring reversion to the past after listening to the very modern and self-assured woman for the first 15 minutes of the episode. Some of that bait-and-switch might have been because of the change in director. This episode is the only one of the entire series to credit two directors, as Dick Sebast was at the helm at the beginning but then left the project, so it was completed by Dan Riba.

But the way the entire story was constructed makes me think that it was delivered with intent and the switch in captain didn't really impact things overmuch. The final scene with the battle aboard the giant seaplane by which Kane is subtly exiting the city with all of its money (this after we're told that Kane reveals magicians' tricks because he's utterly familiar with their methods) is fairly mundane, even for just a 1930s-era noir. It reminded me of the final sequence in The Rocketeer, another film set in this time period which climaxes aboard a zeppelin and has similar moments of threat where it seems like our hero and the damsel are going to plummet from the skies. Despite my seeming criticism, I do understand why they would want to tone down the "magical" elements of the world that they've created for their version of The Batman. I was never entirely comfortable with those aspects in the regular books, either, since it steps away from his identity as a master detective/scientist/martial artist, but still a normal man and confronts him with things that no "normal man" would be able to deal with, which he then has to kind of brazen his way through, rather than actually "solve" them. In this case, it's an opportunity for him to exercise the skills that we've seen he developed over years and with the commitment and discipline to do so. It just smacks a little bit of the "you got your fantasy in my science fiction" kinda thing, an opinion that I generally reject, since the story is the story, no matter what genre is assigned to it. Also, I'm kind of a cross-genre person, anyway. There's one nice little tease right at the end, too, when Zatarra departs and leaves behind a note that she couldn't possibly have written beforehand. Is it (real) magic? Who can tell?

Next time we go back to the usual cast of characters and look at another kind of (mechanical) magic.