The Black Canary and Zatanna: Bloodspell graphic novel was a story that was first rumored about repeatedly even since before DC's New 52 reboot/relaunch occurred. So I was anticipating it for quite some time and I consider it an early birthday present from DC this year, especially because Zatanna is my favorite comic book super-heroine. It helps that Paul Dini was announced as the writer too! Dini wrote my favorite run of Batman comic stories I've read so far, with his issues of Detective Comics that I found reminiscent of Batman: The Animated Series (my amazing introduction to the world of Batman & his vast supporting cast). That run also included some appearances of DC's "mistress of magic" in a way that restored her more whimsical, capricious, and independent nature, after some drudgery DC put her through beforehand... And his issues written in the solo Zatanna series were a natural extension of that for her.
It's plain to see she's in good hands with him & he knows his way around the world of the Bat, and Black Canary falls into the fringes of that realm, but I hadn't seen her portrayed by Dini yet, so that was a little more of a surprise. And Joe Quinones as the artist is matched up perfectly with Dini for the entertaining, sometimes amusing, visual feel & tone of this book.
Both Black Canary and Zatanna are long-standing DC Comics super-heroines who share most of their intersecting history within the original Justice League of America, and are actually the second & third female characters to ever join the League, with Wonder Woman being one of its founders, and are most known in DC as sporting fishnet stockings. Yet I can't think of a time where these 2 had a team-up story all their own, despite all the decades of DC history, so this was overdue I think.
To start off, Dini has a previously unseen early chance meeting of the young ladies that still worked effortlessly with the pre-New 52 continuity--Zee as a mildly timid adolescent performing a mystical rite of passage in the Himalayas, and Dinah seemed to be an adventurous, thrill-seeking, "latch-key kid" teenager. That bond, once established, served to fully keep my interest throughout the rest of the book..
"Bloodspell" also revisits this friendship through a few more flashbacks of moments we only wish we had seen before in Justice League stories, but that still fit right in perfectly as untold tales. You even see both characters' evolution through their costumes at the different stages of their shared past. Dini & and Quinones even show show us Zatanna in her very first outfit, with Canary making a reference to Zee's first meeting with Hawkman & Hawkgirl, which coincided with her debut in DC. These flashbacks not only show a fun side to the the heroines' past, but provide any long-time Justice League reader with fond moments of nostalgia. And these moments are fluidly incorporated into the story where they work best.
With the main, present-day story, Dinah is shown with Ollie as her apparent husband, as they were married pre-Flashpoint, even with a bedroom scene (I'll show a snippet of here) presented in a playful fashion, that's refreshing.
But, Spettro's fate was also something planned for when she had Dinah (in disguise) and four other women unknowingly seal their fates together with a bloodspell, a deal which Spettro comes back to claim in revenge from beyond the grave. That leads to Canary seeking assistance from a friendly source in the supernatural, who happens to be putting on an after-show encore for some children with as much suspense as she can muster with monkeys! From there, it's a girls' day out at the mall to catch up & come up with a plan to take down the spectral Spettro & her serial-killing spell.
Later on, when the ladies discover and confront the former lover and earthly host Tina Spettro is operating through, the fight gets down & dirty, with the ghostly villain pitting the friends against each other. It's a manipulative fight that ends with a transference that hopefully brings peace to the restless spirit.
And the hard-fought victory almost ends with the girls celebrating over margaritas, but instead are called by Ollie to Metropolis to help thwart another threat the League needs help with. One thing's for sure, Paul Dini & Joe Quinones bring the magic with this well-crafted story! Five stars from me! And for those of you who want to see more DC Comics stories set outside of the current New 52 continuity, vote with your wallet and buy this!
