Gotham Sirens #18 continues the character assassination of Zatanna The Magician this month, as written by Peter Calloway. I'm not a regular reader of the series, but it used to be written by Paul Dini, the writer of Zatanna's monthly series, and when I saw that she was guesting for a story arc I checked it out, only to find that this storyline introduced Mr. Calloway to the book.
Back when Zatanna was more of a C-Lister in the DC Universe Brad Metzler came up with a plot for Identity Crisis that involved a group of DC villains obtaining the knowledge of several Justice League members' secret identities, endangering not only those Leaguers but their loved ones as well. The League voted and had Zatanna use magic to erase the dangerous information from the villains' minds. (A similar, better, IMO, plot had been used previously at Marvel in the Squadron Supreme series.) Just to get the point across that mindwiping was wrong, Batman interrupted and was mindwiped by Zatanna in order that he forget what he witnessed. During the course of the miniseries the villains got their memories back, and Zatanna had to clean up the mess she'd made. Following Identity Crisis Zatanna went on a DC Universe-wide Apology Tour, and she and Batman eventually reconciled.
One of the villains Zee had apparently messed with had been Selina Kyle, the Catwoman. Ignoring the events of her own series, which showed how Selina had progressed from an amoral thief to a decent almost-heroine, altruistically protecting her part of Gotham City, The Powers That Be at DC decided that Selina's transformation had been due to Zatanna's manipulation. Gotham Sirens brings together those plot points, along with Bruce Wayne's voluntary unmasking in the 'Hush' storyline in the Batman series, in order to have Bruce's other long-time paramour, Talia Al Ghul, convince Zatanna that Batman's secret identity is too dangerous a secret for Catwoman to have, and that she therefore must erase that memory from Selina's mind. Because that worked so well before.
Aside from being bugged about the fact that DC had several characters who specialized in telepathy/mind control (including JLAers Martian Manhunter and Aquaman), but chose to tarnish Zatanna instead, the tossing away of Selina's character progress was one of the worst things about Identity Crisis and its related books. I am surprised that with Zatanna finally starring in her own series, and no longer a C-Lister available as a plot device this particular trashing of her character saw print. Zatanna swore up and down that she would never do the 'mindwipe' thing again, and she's convinced by Talia, of all people, hardly a trustworthy source, to erase a memory Bruce voluntarily shared with Selina? Not only unlikely, but implausible. What if Bruce found out? Does she really think he'd be happy that she acted to 'protect' him? This isn't Silver Age Batman (who, unfortunately, would jump at the chance).
Despite the efforts to show that Zatanna realized how she was being manipulated, the idea that she would willingly attempt such a thing in the first place is ludicrous. May this story arc never be alluded to again. (Oh, but it's continued next issue!)
