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Underground > Comic Books >

7 Soldiers: Zatanna

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17:54 / 25.05.05

Hm... Perhaps Misty's is the real one, and she exchanged it with the one the subway pirates found? Weird.

18:50 / 01.06.05

#2 out today! When is Klarion #2, I wonder...didn't Klarion come out before Zatanna?

19:06 / 01.06.05

Scratch that, the new books come out tomorrow (Thursday) because of the Memorial Day holiday. (in the US, of course)

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

15:47 / 02.06.05

Ah! Got this yesterday. Really enjoyed it. Definitely enjoying Klarion and Zatanna most of all.

-The opening page (shown in the previews) is quite beautiful, Gwydion shifting throughout the local environment, on the hunt.

-Misty needs more of a personality. She's so far "wisecracking sidekick," although she demonstrates a bit of an edge in battle. I'm a little confused by the "Did you notice that nobody at the workshop saw me or heard me?" - because Cass does know she's there, so it's not just Zatanna. Anyway, it just seemed like a bit of a red herring.

-Cassandra Craft; has she been around before?

-"Ibis and Taia were a popular couple." Well, at least people in-story acknowledge how horrible it was those two characters were killed off. Ugh.

-Possible "mysterious eternal gentlemen" who might be looking for Zee: Gwydion in disguise (this is after all a flashback), Zatara (from BEYOND THE GRAVE!), this Ali-Ka-Zoom fellow (seems the most obvious, although he's a bit bigger than he was over in Shining Knight if that was indeed Ali), or one of the seven unknown men. I momentarily thought it might have been the Shade from over in Opal City.

-Zee handles herself pretty well in combat without any actual magic powers of her own. I liked that a lot, because she gets to be capable even without them and that effectively undercuts the "spellaholic" thing. She's not a total basketcase. This action sequence could have been a bit clearer in some cases.

-Magic alphabet reminiscient of Boy Blue's hovering runes from SS0. As well, I like that it raises the question of Dyno-Mite's rings from SS0, and where he got them.

-And Gwydion? Has to be a sibling to Neb-oh-loh or something, anything, because other than the floating embalmed Sheeda in the jar at the beginning and the prophetic dreams from #1, I'm not quite seeing how this fits into the Sheeda plotline.

21:30 / 02.06.05

Cassandra Craft is the closest the Phantom Stranger has ever come to a girlfriend. She's been a member of his supporting cast since the early 1970's

21:32 / 02.06.05

It seems the Sheeda factor's in the various items and current events.

My first impression was that fellow who left the top hat is her father returned from the dead. Perhaps a shade of him that exists outside of time.

I like the reference to the Invinsibles being popular in the bay area.

top notch book so far. Probably #1 amongst the 7 soldiers... but that somewhat appropiate considering she's JLA class (and appearing just about everywhere in the DCU).

A fall of geckos

13:46 / 03.06.05

There's more celtic/Welsh mythology turning up in this one.

The page of text that the shapeless thing comes out of is from the Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees) a sixth-century Welsh poem from the book The Romance of Taliesin. It's about a battle between Arawn King of Annwm and two sons of Don - Gwydion and Amathaon.

The piece quoted is the first section of the poem which appears to cover a string of transformations. I'm not familar enough with the poem to know if it's referring to Gwydion, but it looks like that's the way Grant Morrison's interpreted it.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

14:11 / 03.06.05

Interesting, I like that he re-used a text and showed a little of his inspiration. It also gave him a window for the "seven" of this comic - the seventh letter of the alphabet, G. It seems the Sheeda have a thing for sevens, as much as their opposite number, the Seven Unknown Men, do. I wonder if that's why SEVEN Soldiers will succeed where six failed? Maybe they have some kind of abstract blind spot to the number 7?

23:32 / 03.06.05

The Sheeda are all on about 8, duder.

Spider's n'at. Pallbearers.

The schema goes a bit like the Pixies' 'Monkey's Gone to Heaven' prechorus.

I really liked the humdrum entrance of the Stranger. Tinkle tinkle. And he has sandwiches.

10:51 / 04.06.05

Anyone else find the Sheeda in the jar reminiscent of Promethea? Little jibe at Moore?

15:10 / 04.06.05

also the joke about the famous set-up of whenever the stranger shows up, someone has to say something with the word 'stranger' in it - partly pioneered by Alan Moore himself, I believe. (Or the Phantom Stranger would always introduce himself with some cool usage of the word in a sentence, always in a different context)...plus his girlfriend has an amulet and black turtleneck just like his!

16:41 / 04.06.05

Sheeda'n a jar? Don't get the connex.

However, Qaballah at the bottom of a pile of books, yes.

16:50 / 04.06.05

Better than that pink jumpsuit she wore in the 70's.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

18:14 / 04.06.05

No one has mentioned the "supreme architect of the universe whose name is yet hidden" bit and how it ties things even closer to all the foundation stone talk going on elsewheres.

And the Ali-Ka-Zoom background fleshing out Sir Justin's mysterious benefactor is awesome. Sorry, codine has robbed me of my eloquence.

01:45 / 05.06.05

Hmmm.

I think the "big man with the accent" that left his hat is one of the Seven Unknown Men. And that the Unknown Man in Seven Soldiers is this Ali Ka-Zoom fellow. I also think Misty is a Witch-Girl, in the ethnic sense —as opposed to the habitual.

02:17 / 05.06.05

That was my reading of the situation: the Seven Unknown Men were pictured parcelling up the various accoutrements of the Seven Soldiers, and Zatanna's hat was likely one of those.

Wondered also about Misty being a Witch-Girl (presumably having concealed her blue skin or summat), or possibly Half-Witch. Knowing George's fondness for incestuous-if-they-knew-it siblings, she could turn out to be Klarion's half-sister. How long since his father left for Blue Rafters?

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

03:52 / 05.06.05

Not a bad guess re: Misty at all. I never thought of that.

And while the 7MM are of course behind things, my money is on Zatarra being the hat-deliverer this time 'round. (He has made appearences from beyond the grave before, after all.)

Of course given Ali-Ka-Zoom's hatliness over in Shining Knight... I wonder if perhaps there are direct ties between some of the supporting cast and the 7MM.

12:42 / 05.06.05

It would not surprise me if, at one point or another in their respective second issues, each Soldier meets up with or is somehow contacted by a bald stranger, and is therefore transformed by it.

Note that once Zee gets the hat, she can do a form of magic again.

16:10 / 05.06.05

Yeah, so the accent dude is prolly the ghost of Zatara.

But what if Zatara was one of the 7 Unknown Men? We see that Ali-Ka-Zoom (SK's motivator) and Conrad Stargard (TMG's motivator) are related through "the newsboy army case" some years back. What if they're the gestalt new architects of the universe?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

04:05 / 06.06.05

Misty being half-witch would be a cool twist...could even connect to the underground market's baby-stealers mentioned over in _Guardian_.

Kind of tempted by the idea of "Kid William Tell," and his magic crossbow.

Also really liked the Bonsai Gwydion at the end...

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

19:55 / 06.06.05

In a completely unrelated(?) note:

I make mention of Zatarra coming back to do stuff from beyond the veil before. It's interesting to note that the last time he did that was in Starman where he saved a former love's new fiance from an arrow through the heart fired by... Thomas Ludlow Dalt aka The Spider aka I, Spyder.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

00:45 / 07.06.05

That was actually LUCAS Ludlow-Dalt, I-Spyder's brother, who featured in STARMAN; Morrison references this when Thomas is divested of his tunic, "It was my dad's tunic...and my brother...I..."

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

04:06 / 07.06.05

Ahhhh, fucking Ludlows. There's too many of them to keep track of. That makes what... 3 or 4 Spiders (wasn't the first one the grandfather of the one who tried to kill Jack Knight?).

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

04:14 / 07.06.05

Possibly. The one that ran with the Seven Soldiers - and betrayed them - was, I thought, this one's father. But it could have been his grandfather, yeah. Lucas is a bit sketchy when he's got the Shade tied up in STARMAN, and he's spouting off about his family history; it's unclear if his father was the second Spider or what.

It's kind of cool that this element of STARMAN continuity got brought up along with the Seven Soldiers' renegade Spider.

Can't say I quite agree with the idea that it's Zatara who shows up looking for Zatanna; I think it's just one of the generic Unknown Men. Zatara has always manifested as less than physical, except for extending from a painting of himself to kiss Charity's hand in that issue of STARMAN. Showing up fully corporeal seems a bit much for him.

Imaginary Mongoose Solutions

10:25 / 07.06.05

Point on the "more corporial than usual" thing. But then again, Zatara is just as much the man of Zatanna's dreams as Gwydion.

I'm gonna have to go back and re-read the last few arcs of Starman again. Man, that was a good book.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

15:36 / 07.06.05

It was! I totally fell in love with the Snjebjerg art. The whole thing was so well-developed and detailed.

The only question about the Unknown Man / Zatara, was that he was after "the books" - presumably the Liber Zatarae - but I never got the sense that she got away with them in the first issue. I assumed that battle plan went up in smoke when Gwydion showed up.

23:37 / 07.06.05

in a huge leap backwards I'd just like to ask that "Spoo" is in fact the name of the escaped rabbit.

Check how Zatara disposes of it...

Really like this series (there's no way I'm getting all the seven soldiers, this, Klarion, and maybe Mister Miracle [the artist previous work looks good] and the book ends).

10:41 / 08.06.05

See, with the talking backwards bit, I wonder is Misty ('no.') actually switching her magic die on? Or the Gwydion homunculus?

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

17:24 / 08.06.05

I took that as a literal "No" - it was smaller than the rest of her spell, so it felt more like a side thought. I wasn't sure exactly why she was saying "No," but that's how I read it. It could be she was still having troubles say "Noidywg" and decided to skip directly to the spell.

And yeah, I hadn't noticed, but now that it's been pointed out, there is a certain parallel between Zee trying to capture Spoo and Zee trying to defeat Gwydion.

17:33 / 08.06.05

there is a certain parallel between Zee trying to capture Spoo and Zee trying to defeat Gwydion.

Then did the entire world turn into rabbits?

17:56 / 08.06.05

I read Misty's "no" as correcting herself. Her initial attempt to pronounce the spell backwards was mispronounced. She then said "no" and recast the spell with the proper backwards pronounciation.

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:18 / 08.06.05

Chad: I was more thinking of the "capturing the spirit/rabbit in the top hat." :P

18:22 / 08.06.05

(Ah know, ah'm just bein' stupid.)

Hallo, Paper Spaceboy

18:57 / 08.06.05

On the other hand, Spoo was clearly a vicious, homicidal rabbit.

23:47 / 08.06.05

Couple of things:

1) I think the Newsboy Army murder may have been committed by Jake Jordan, as seen in Grauniad #1. Possibly under some malign or inexorable influence like Ali-Ka-Zoom, or one of the S.U.M. (or both, if they are in fact one and the same.)

2) 'A book in the beginning'? That's one of the things Gwyders kindly reminds us he has been when he's being a page in Zee's book. It's also the story title, and I'm not so sure he himself isn't in fact the Books of Zatara, or some manifest byproduct thereof. G for Grimoire.

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