Zatanna Zatara

Zatanna

Zatanna Zatara

## Biography

### Early Life

Zatanna Zatara was born to famous magicians Sindella and Giovanni Zatara, at a time where Gio was fading into the background for the power-couple and Sindella was taking center stage. As such, Zatanna was mostly raised by her father, as her mother was often on the road for shows, and so she wasn’t as affected by her death in a car accident when she was four years old.

After her death, Zee and Gio sequestered themselves within a backroom of the Oblivion Bar for a few months. During these months, Zee had her first true experience with the mystic arts, with her father teaching her simple magic tricks to start. When they eventually returned from their hiatus, Zee began performing with her father, although they were much less successful than Sindella was.

After a few years of performances, got a small residency in Las Vegas and temporarily bid goodbye to Gotham City to perform out there. They signed with the talent agent Funky Flashman, who booked them an international tour. When Zatanna was sixteen, they embarked on this tour which included a stop in good-ole' London.

While in London, Zee had a brief yet passionate love affair with a Brit bad boy named John Constantine. Unbeknownst to her or her father, the affair had left her pregnant when they returned to Gotham City. Shortly before her seventeenth birthday, Adrian Veidt’s attacks ravaged the world and caused massive damage to the magical community. Gio left to consult with the Sentinels of Magic about the aftereffects, and shortly after this a portal opened in Zee’s bedroom, and her mother stood on the other side.

### Zatanna

Zatanna traveled into this dimension, where time moved differently. Neither Zatanna nor her mother aged here, and her pregnancy never progressed. In her time in this dimension, Zee studied with her mother and bonded with her. Sindella revealed that she was of Atlantean descent and had studied sorcery from a young age. With the other women of the Hidden City, they all believed they were preparing for an impending battle with the Lords of Chaos - where all the forces of magic would be thrown into turmoil. Sindella believed Zatanna would be at the center of it all, and so she trained her vigorously to prepare.

After what felt like mere days to her, Kent Nelson and Gio arrived in the plane asking Zatanna to go home. Sindella was against this, but they reached the deal that Kent would take her place, and so Sindella agreed. When Zatanna returned to the “real world”, she found that nineteen years had passed on Earth. She went to speak to her father, but he honored his deal with Nabu and became the new Doctor Fate, leaving her alone. Shortly after returning to the mortal plain, she gave birth to her son, Zachary. Unsure of how to care for him, she left him in the care of John Sargent and Gregorio de la Vega, who also had taken her in.

Zee struggled to readjust to life on this plain of existence. The only thing she could think to do was continue spellcasting, but now in the digital era. She took to social media, where she was stunningly proficient and attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers. One such was John Constantine, who walked back into her life very puzzled on how she hadn’t aged in the two decades since they encountered one another. Their romance started up again, before Zee came to her senses and kicked him to the curb.

She continued practicing her magic and preparing for the supposed battle that was to come. She thought it came once when Doctor Destiny launched an attack that put the entire Justice League out of commission. She worked with her father and adoptive parents and even John to defeat Doctor Destiny, although when the dust settled, only her father was granted a place in the Justice League. However, Gio was always looking after Zee, and introduced her to the Titans, where she became a member in 2008.

During her time on the Titans, she grew close with their “den mother”, Captain Marvel, and helped him explore the powers of the Living Lightning. She also had a very brief fling with Dick Grayson that ended with them departing as friends. She was also raising her son and trying her best to be a good mother to him. It was a lot for her to balance, and her knack for teaching caused her to constantly try to help out younger Titans with mastering the mystic arts the way she had. On the Titans, she also became best friends with one of her students, Mary Bromfield.

She was also exploring ways to get her father out of his deal with Nabu, and she made a deal of her own with the Lord of Order; letting Gio out once every year on her birthday so she could spend at least a little time with him. However, every year, she saw the toll it was taking on his body and spirit, as he grew more weary each time. Nonetheless, she persisted, and was nominated by Batman to join the Justice League in the Class of 2012.

When the League shut down, Zatanna became a full-time mystic mentor, opening a training camp at Shadowcrest nicknamed Mystik U. There, she took on many apprentices and further trained other heroes on how to properly use their powers. In 2015, she was forced to defend the Shadowcrest’s grounds from Eclipso during his war on all magic. The tide of battle seemed to be turning to the Prince of Darkness’ favor, but that was when her father arrived and gave his life to defeat Eclipso.

Zee was grief stricken from this revelation. She squared away the Helmet of Fate within the Shadowcrest and forbade any from touching it, even when the Sentinels of Magic insisted on its necessity. She began dabbling in the dark arts, trying to find a way to bring her father back to life. But a heart-to-heart from her surrogate father, John Sargent, swayed her in the other direction.

She’s been keeping Mystik U up-and-running ever since then, taking on proteges including Khalid Nassour, Loma Shade, and even taking custody of “the new Merlin”, Timothy Hunter, who has become best friends with her own son. She has also become a member of the Sentinels of Magic, and runs the Justice League’s mystic arts ops, codenamed “Justice League Dark”.

## Trivia

* She ties her hair back like her mother did.
* Zatanna doesn't bother with a secret identity, as she finds super-heroics no different from stage performing.

## Notes

* Her adult outfit is inspired by Justice League Dark (2018).
* Her teen outfit is inspired by the *Young Justice* TV Series. Training Mary Bromfield and Khalid Nassour is also a nod to the fourth season of the show.