Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Zatannurday: Bombshells #3 for October

The DC Bombshells are coming!
The third issue will feature the one and only Zatanna!

From one of my favorite blogs, Supergirl Comic Box Commentary.   BTW this is a good blog to follow to keep up on the latest on the new Supergirl series.

From the site:

DC COMICS BOMBSHELLS #3
Written by MARGUERITE BENNETT
Art by MARGUERITE SAUVAGE and LAURA BRAGA
Cover by ANT LUCIA

A dark ritual is performed in a German cabaret, and a supernatural servant is brought forth to serve the Reich— has Zatanna been manipulated by The Joker’s Daughter? Plus, Batwoman leaves Gotham City, and Amanda Waller introduces her to an unearthly ally. And Wonder Woman gets into combat as she joins Mera on the European war front.



Is it me or does John look like Pikachu?

Looking forward to it!!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Zatannurday: Convergence

The newest comic event is happening now at DC. Again more multi-verse maddness this time though called "Convergence".
My take is that Brainiac has a bunch of leftovers from DC's old cosmology and Superman has to save them or something.  No idea really.  But it sounds cool.

The first Convergence comics were out on Wednesday and one is an all female Justice League featuring Zatanna!

Check it out here:
http://www.dccomics.com/comics/convergence-2015/convergence-justice-league-1






This could be a lot of fun.

http://comicbook.com/2015/04/03/exclusive-dc-comics-preview-convergence-justice-league-1/#Image7
http://www.newsarama.com/23902-all-female-pre-flashpoint-justice-league-unites-for-dc-s-convergence.html
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/115794126186/just-a-reminder-that-tomorrow-is

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Zatannurday: The Fate of Constantine

Zatanna's sometimes love interest John Constantine's fate is still up in the air.

As of this week (ending 2/7) we still have not heard if the NBC show "Constantine" has been renewed or not.

Next week is the 13th and last episode of the season.  So I didn't get my wish to see and John and Zatanna moment on the show.

Another show that came close was Smallville, though they did manage it in the pages of the Smallville comic, Harbinger.



Not only that it also has John and Zee's first meeting in the Smallville universe.

Not exactly the same as the Justice League Dark meeting.

The story is spread out over 4 issues and has a lot of what makes John and Zee so great together.

It even features the introduction of Rachel Roth, aka Raven to the Smallville universe.
She is the girl that John and Zee rescue from Brother Blood.
So Zatanna, Constantine and Raven?  All in one comic at the same time?  Sounds great to me!


Might be the closest we get.

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Zatannurday: Multiversity

Not sure if you have been paying attention to the world of comics but DC has been gearing up it's Multiversity arc.  From the mind of Grant Morrison (and others) this brings back the DC multiverse hinted in the 52 series.  There are 52 Earths and each one is different.

And I love Multiverses!

Read more here:
http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2015/01/multiversal-geography-checking-against.html
http://heropresstwo.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-peak-inside-grant-morrisons-head.html

Personally, if I were Green Ronin I would jumping all over this for the DC Adventures RPG.

Of course one of the first things I did was try to track down as many Zatannas as I could.  Here is what I know so far.

Earth 0
This is the Zatanna of the new 52.



Earth 1
This is the fishnet wearing Zatanna of the Pre-52.  I also call this the "Paul Dini" Zatanna.
This is just a guess on my part though.



Earth 3
The "evil" reversed Universe where all the bad guys are good and visa versa.
The most powerful sorceress is Annataz Arataz.


Earths 67 and 8
These have Marvel connections so not likely to have a Zatanna here.

Earth 11
This is the "gender switched" universe of Superwoman, Batwoman and Wonder Man.
Here is where you find Zatara.

Earth 12
This is the Earth of the Batman Beyond timeline.  Likely we would find John Zatara here.

Earth 13
Annataz Arataz is this world's Zatanna and member of the League of Shadows in the horror themed Earth 13.

Earth 16
There are some contradictions online.  Earth 16 is listed in the Multiversity book as "Earth-Me" other places link it to the Young Justice animated show.


Earth 19
No pictures yet, but this is the Earth of the Elseworlds Victorian stories.



Earth 21
This is the "Darwyn Cook" universe. I am sure it will look fantastic.


Earth 22
This is the world of Kingdom Come. So this is the home of Zatanna's and John Constantine's son John Zatara.


Earth 23
This is the world of Kal-L of Krypton. In his alter ego of Calvin Ellis he is President of the US.
Not much is known yet of this Zatanna save she prefers a neck tie to a bow tie.


Earth 32
This is the home of the mashed up world of the Justice Titans.  Here the most powerful sorceress is Ravanna, a mash up of Zatanna and Raven.


Earth 37
Appears to be the Thrillkiller world.  I'd imaging the Zatanna of this world looks something like this.



Earth 42
Home of the Li'l Leaguers.


Earth 50
Home of the Justice Lords from the Justice League Animated series.
No idea if Z is on their side or not but I found this fan pic online.  Bruce Timm style and reminiscent of Earth 3's Annataz Arataz.
A multiverse of Zatanas.

Now I want to run a Multiversity game!

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Crisis on Infinite Earths

This month is the 30th anniversary of the the biggest event in comics history.  Well. At least from my point of view.  In truth if it had not been for 1985's Crisis on Infinite Earths we would not have seen a lot of the big events in comic we have seen over the last 30 years.  That can be good or bad.


Sure Marvel's Secret Wars predates it by almost 6 months, but Crisis was a much bigger deal to me.
At the time I was reading a lot of sci-fi and I loved the idea of alternate Earths, parallel dimensions and all that good stuff.  One of my favorite books from the time was Fredrick Pohl's "The Coming of the Quantum Cats" (1986) and Robert A. Heinlein's "Job, A Comedy of Justice" (1984).

I have always wanted to do my own Crisis-like arc.  Back in the day it wasn't too difficult of a prospect.  Back then we all played in Oerth. Greyhawk was the campaign setting of choice.  The idea was to do a huge Crisis like event and in the end have all of our worlds merged into one.

Later I thought about doing it with different systems; where each Earth was represented by a different game system.

Needless to say it has left a deep imprint in my psyche.

Now in DC we are coming up the new Multiversity.
The optimistic would say it has been all part of a larger super-arc.  The pessimist would say that DC is out of ideas and cashing in on their last good one 30 years ago.

One day I will do a Crisis-like campaign in one of my games.  Maybe something like CoIE where it is a large in scope but limited in duration sort of mini-campaign.

In any case I am sure it would be fun.

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

DC Cancels Batwoman

DC is pulling the plug on the Batwoman comic with issue #40 being the last.

It is sad but not really a surprise.  Sales, and frankly the creativity, of the series has been lagging since J.H. Williams III and Haden Blackman left title in an editorial scuffle over Kate and Maggie's relationship.

Batwoman was one of the best looking comics around, great art and style from J. H. Williams III who had a very clear vision of who and what Kate Kane/Batwoman was.


As I have mentioned in the past, Batwoman was more than a distaff Batman.  She had her own mission, her own goals and especially her own demons to deal with.

I, like many, stopped buying the comic after Williams and Blackman left.  It is disappointing, but not a surprise.  Though I guess Greg Rucka is coming back to DC, so there is some hope for her future.

Well. I guess that is what RPGs are for really. To continue telling the stories of the characters we like.

More information:
http://chicasderojo.blogspot.com/2014/12/bad-news.html
http://dcwomenkickingass.tumblr.com/post/105303808536/bye-bye-batwoman-dc-comics-pulls-the-plug

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Whatever Happened to the Teenage Witch?

I don't talk much about Sabrina the Teen-age Witch much here.

I never read the comic, I never watched the Melissa Joan Hart TV show or movies.  I do remember seeing a cartoon of it back in the 80s.

A while back I did do a post about her as a potential Queen of Witches.  But that was it.

Well, not just content with zombies, Sabrina has a new adventure in the Afterlife with Archie comic.


Check out these links for more information.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/07/23/the-rather-surprising-fate-of-sabrina-the-teenage-witch/
http://lovecraftzine.com/2014/07/24/afterlife-with-archie-issue-6-is-a-comic-every-lovecraft-fan-will-enjoy/

Sabrina Spellman, Queen of Carcosa.

I have to admit. I never saw that coming.




Saturday, July 5, 2014

Zatannurday: Bloodspell

I finally got around to reading the new Zatanna/Black Canary graphic novel Bloodspell.  In short. No one writes Zatanna as well as Paul Dini.


Bloodspell was not what I expected it to be and that is a good thing.  I knew the idea behind bringing these two together was an off the cuff remark by Dini years ago about doing a Zatanna/Black Canary story that he was jokingly referred to as "Trouble in Fishnets".  But this was so much more than that.



The eponymous "Bloodspell" is only a plot device (though it is a good one, more later) to tell the real story.  The story about two very different kinds of women and their long friendship.

When we first see the characters in the book Zatanna is a 12 year old sorceress in training.  Nice cameos here by her father AND mother.  She meets 16 year old Dinah on the top of Mt. Everest.  Zatanna floated up, Dinah climbed. Both to prove they could do it.



We fast forward a number of years to Dinah/Black Canary foiling a heist while undercover. She defeats the baddie, but soon all the members of the heist start dropping dead. Canary takes her concerns to Zee and they discover that Canary is under a Blood curse.    I'll leave it at that since I don't want to spoil the reading.

Like I said though the Bloodspell takes a backseat to the real story. The friendship between Zee and Dinah.  We are treated to a number of "insider" jokes (Green Arrow not having a car anymore because Batman made fun of it) and cameos of Superman, Plasticman, Green Lantern, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman and of course Green Arrow and Zatara. Plus there are some great scenes too. Zee animating the Black Canary and Green Arrow action figures (all profits of the sales of official JL merchandise go to help the children hurt by super-villains), to Canary mentioning that "the Hawks speak very highly" of Zee (a nod to Zatanna's first appearance in the pages of Hawkman. To what is a good reason for Ollie not to bring expensive glass vases of flowers to Dinah's apartment.



We also get to see via flashbacks important milestones in the friendship of Zee and Dinah.  Zee's first trip to the Watchtower thanks to Dinah (featuring their older costumes) and Zee and Dinah (with Wonder Woman and Plastic Man) battling Granny Goodness and her Female Furies. Also with costumes appropriate to the publishing time.




No one gets Zatanna quite like Paul Dini. This in not the new 52 DC, this is classic DCU and Paul Dini has Zatanna's voice down so well he can make us really feel for her at these different points in her life. He can do powerful Zatanna, stage magician Zatanna and even starry eyed fan girl Zatanna on her first trip to the Watchtower.   Equally he shows us a great evolution of Black Canary from "Loud Mouthed Girl" to founding member of the Justice League.

But just like this is not just Zee's story, it is also not just Paul Dini's.  The illustrations from Joe Quinones bring this to life.  Teenage Zee and Dinah are adorable and quickly sets the stage for how different they are.  The short hair-perm of Zee on the Watchtower easily makes you think that this is still a very young hero.
Quinones has been showing off his work on his blog for a number of months, but one of the real treats with the book are all the sketches in back (with Dini's original script) that show how this project evolved under the creative talents of both men.



For those that are curious does Bloodspell pass the Bechdel Test? This is fair to ask since the book does feature two female leads.  Briefly the test of the media is:
1) Two named female characters
2) who talk to each other
3) about something other than a man.

Bloodspell is passed this test in the first few pages and then went on to pass it over and over again.  Zee and Black Canary are fully realized characters with names. Who spend pages talking to each other on every sort of topic to who gets the money from licensed products, to Zee's tiger, to whether or not stores should give them a bulk-discount on fishnets, to basically recalling years of friendship and kicking evil's ass.  The two main men in their lives are either dead (Zatara) or sidelined (Ollie Queen).  Important to them, but not to this story so much.
It also passes the Mako Mori Test, as both characters have arcs. Well Canaray's arc is more relevant to the story at hand.

Honestly there is nothing I didn't like about Bloodspell.  Black Canary was one of my first super-girl crushes and I have always loved Zatanna.  Paul Dini is a master at his craft and no one can do Zee better.  Quinones is also a master, but in a more subtle way that makes you check every panel to make sure you didn't miss something important.

The story has been described as feeling like it was taken out of the Justice League Unlimited series.  I can totally see that. It actually shares a number of similarities with the Batman the Animated Series episode "Zatanna".

I hope against hope that this is not the only chapter in the adventures of this Dynamic Duo. But it nearly took us 8 years for this one, I hope more won't be as long.

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Zatannurday: DC Bombshells

The art of Ant Lucia is not only the focus of some of the new covers for this summer's DC books, but also today's Zatannurday post!

Originator of the DC Bombshells yo can see all his art and the statues of such DC Heroines and Zatanna, Black Canary, Wonder Woman and Batgirl.



The pinup covers are available in June.



But I thin my favorite one is for Batwoman.


I love that it looks like a baseball card.  Her number as 52 is just too perfect.

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Zatannurday: Bloodspell

The Zatanna/Black Canary team up graphic novel Bloodspell is on the way!
DC is gearing up for it too which is great.

http://www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/black-canary-and-zatanna-bloodspell

Joe Quinones has been posting sketches on his blog for a while.
http://joequinones.blogspot.com/search/label/Bloodspell

According to Amazon it looks like it is going to be hardcover too!  So I am quite excited about this.



Only a few more weeks.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Tarot Witch of the Black Rose for Superbabes

I have posted about Tarot before.  Unlike the characters of Superbabes and Femforce, Tarot is often considered to be part of the "Bad Girl Art" type.  Not that she is the opposite of the Good Girl Art, but rather the situations she gets herself in never would have happen to Nightveil or Miss Victory.

I am not going to lie. I like Tarot. Its a guilty pleasure to be sure, but my enjoyment of it is honest.  Plus +HOlly Golightly and creator Jim Balent are both really cool.

Tarot in Superbabes is actually a good fit.  She has some magic, some skills and combat ability and certainly the chance to earn Bimbo Points.  If you read the comic then yeah. She does some really cool comic things, but then ends up loosing her clothes while sledding due to some faeries (ok to be fair the whole vacationing lot, Jon, Mother and Raven, did too).

Character: Tarot, Witch of the Black Rose
Secret ID / AKA: Rowan
Age: she isn't saying   Apparent Age: mid 20s
Origin: Supernatural Pupil (50cp)
50 CPs

Primary Stats
Muscles: 14  Max Press: 700
Health: 17 ("Buxom" seems right)  Regen, Combat: - Regen, At rest: 1pp/3rds  HTK/Day: 2d10
Moves: 19 ("Fast")  Bonus to hit: +3 Movement: 8" Hittability: 8 Initiative Bonus: 1
Brains: 16  Mental Attack Bonus: +1 Mental Hittability: 5
Will: 19  Regen Rate: 1pp/2rds HTK Regen/Day: 1d6+3
Personality: 18 ("Sparkling")
Looks: 51 ("So gorgeous she is hard to look at")
308 CPs

Secondary Stats
PP: 154
HTK: 50
Fame: 5/15 (normal/supernatural world)
Bimbo Points: 1 (there will be more)
XP: 15,002 ("Big Leaguer")
Level: 9 ("Junior Heroine")
CPs: 4 more to spend

Powers
Magic Spells (Tarot admits she is still a student here)
- Blast 4d6 (48cp)
- Flight 10 (80cp)
- Force Field 10 (60cp)
- Go Places (teleport) (200cp)
Healing II 100cp
Visions of Elsewhere 40cp
Visions of the Past 30cp
588 CPs

Gizmos
Armor (Invulnerability 4)
Sword of the Goddess (free gizmo)
20 CPs

Skills
Occultist 50 cp (gained for free at 1st level)
First Aid 20cp
Melee Weapon (Sword) 10cp
Persuasion 20cp
Blind Fighting 25cp
Contacts (Supernatural) 20cp
Survival 20cp
Weaponsmith 25cp
140 CPs

Character Description
Height: 5'4"
Weight: 140 lbs
Hair: Red
Eyes: Green
Skin: Caucasian
Unique Characteristics: She has a black rose tattoo/birthmark on her left shoulder.

All in all not a bad fit.  I like her at 9th level which lines up nicely with her other builds.
She has a winged cat familiar named Pooka as well as a two lovers, Skeleton Man (Jon Webb) and Boo Cat (a werecat).  Given how often they are endangered or get Tarot into trouble they should be worth a couple of Bimbo incident-free Bimbo Points.

Links to other Tarot stats
And Tarot's home on the Internet http://www.jimbalent.com 

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Zatannurday: Super-Team Family

I have featured Zatanna covers from the great Super Team Family blog in the past.  But recently they hit their 1000th post and it featured two of my favorites.  Zatanna and Harry Potter.



Love the cards.

Other Zatanna covers are just as great.

This one of Zee and Doctor Strange would make for a great story, or adventure!


I personally think she could take him.

And one of my favorites,


Zee always seem to have the upper hand in these.  As it should be!

Great job.  Looking forward to more.

Saturday, August 31, 2013

Zatannurday: The Fishnets Brigade

It looks like the oft-rumored Zatanna-Black Canary team-up is going to happen.
The news comes from Paul Dini himself.


Here is the link,
http://comicsalliance.com/black-canary-zatanna-graphic-novel-preview-paul-dini-joe-quinones-announcement/

And here is the awesome Joe Quinones cover.  Yup. These are the pre-52 continuity.


Black Canary is another fave of mine so I am really looking forward to this one.   Visit the link above to see more great art.  I am looking forward to the background story of when Zee and Canary were younger.  Plus seeing a pre-dead John Zatarra (and not brought back to life) is also fun.

Dini will do a great job. He is the only guy that loves Zatanna more than me.

Sucks I have to wait till May 2014.

Saturday, July 13, 2013