Giovanni “John” Zatara

We change series, but we stick to magic, as the next character in Smallville is the greatest mage ever existed. By the end of Season 8, in episode Hex, we meet the young sorceress Zatanna, who just recovered her father’s magic book, the Book of Zatara, with the intention of using it to resurrect her father, Giovanni (or anglicized John) Zatara, who died protecting her. In the episode, Zatara can be seen only as a shadow during the resurrection spell, but some promotional material provided material for a deleted scene featuring the mage in flesh and bones. In the comics, Zatara is particularly relevant, since he debuted in the same Action Comics issue as Superman, and thus shares with him the title of world’s first superhero. Let’s see together.

Giovanni Zatara was born from a family of Italian stage magicians, and it was his grandfather, Luigi Zatara, who passed on the passion for prestige and incantation to him with a birthday present, a magic kit. Since the age of fifteen, Zatara practiced every day, but his shows didn’t meet the expected success… until he found the diary of his most renowned ancestor, Leonardo Da Vinci. For some reason, the words in the diary were written backwards, and while he was reading it, the young man unwillingly made a mannequin in his room move. The mannequin stopped only when Zatara ordered him to do so, but pronouncing the command backwards: this way, he discovered to be a descendant of the Homo Magi, a race of sorcerers with a natural affinity to true magic. From there on, he started studying his ancestor’s notes, and he even received the visits of the Phantom Stranger, a being interested in his potential, who guided him through his learning. He even met another magic practitioner, who went by the name Madame Xanadu, and started an intense relationship with her: when he asked her to marry him, though, Xanadu refused, as she had seen his future, and she didn’t want to be part of it. When he became accomplished enough with the sdrawkcab hceeps (backwards speech) that gave his incantations power, Zatara was finally ready to put up his own stage show, and with a bit of refined showmanship, became extremely successful. What the audience believed to be a trick was actually true magic, but Zatara, obviously, never corrected anyone about it. One night, during the show, a fire broke out, and Zatara used his magic to put it out before it hurt someone. The audience was overjoyed, still believing that it was all part of the act, but Zatara finally realized that, with his powers, he could do a lot to help people: from that day, he resolved to use magic also to fight crime, becoming one of the first superheroes of the modern age. As World War II erupted, his successes in fighting threats such the Moon Men and the Gorilla King, as well as many evil magicians, led him to be noticed by other crime fighters, who invited him to join the All-Star Squadron.

The war was fought and won, and besides his fellow superheroes, Zatara met another good friend during the war, Doctor Thomas Wayne. The two remained in contact, with the promise of meeting again in the United States. The magician was true to his word, and for a while he moved to Gotham City, happy to be with his friend… until Thomas and his wife Martha were killed by a common thug. Blaming himself for not being able to protect his friend, Zatara left the States, coming back to Europe. Here, he moved to Turkey, driven by an ongoing battle with King Inferno. By the end of the fight, the enemy was won, but Zatara was buried under a rockslide: he was saved by a woman, Sindella, who nursed him back to health. During the time together, the two fell in love, and eventually got married. Sindella gave birth to a baby daughter, Zatanna… and apparently died on childbirth. This new loss was the last straw for Zatara, who became depressed and started drinking heavily, barely taking care of his daughter at all. Zatara was out of scenes for years, until an occasion for redemption came knocking to his door: Thomas’ son, Bruce, had found him, and needed his help. The young man was traveling the world to learn as many skills as he could for a solitary crusade he felt compelled to fight, and needed from Zatara all his knowledge about escapism and illusionism. Happy to help a friend by mentoring his son, Zatara trained Bruce for months, teaching him everything he knew apart from real magic, and when the young man finally left his house, the old magician was back to his feet, ready to come back to the world. In this time, he finally established a good relationship with his daughter as well, but unfortunately it didn’t last: Zatara came back not only on stage, but most of all on the battlefield, resuming his heroic career where he had left it. While battling the evil Allura, an extra-dimensional magic being, Zatara managed to trap her into the Sword of Paracelsus, but the evil sorceress managed to curse him before disappearing: due to Allura’s spell, any contact, direct or indirect, between Giovanni Zatara and his kin, would have ended in death. Zatanna was only eighteen, but Zatara needed to protect her, so he left Earth altogether, choosing exile in the land of Kharma, looking for a way to break the curse. Since he couldn’t warn his daughter in any way, his disappearance prompted Zatanna to start a years-long quest to find him…

Giovanni Zatara is a man of mystery, an adventurer who lives on the thin border between worlds and realities, and who struggles to maintain his balance. He is a very powerful mage, who can make literally anything happen as long as he’s able to spell his commands backwards; he can also detach his soul from his body to explore the surroundings unseen, and possesses a natural telepathy; he is, as well, an extremely proficient stage magician and illusionist, who masters a number of tricks and prestidigitation techniques that he adds to his real spells, and he’s also a proficient fighter. One of the greatest mages of his generation, a brave and selfless crime fighter who’d do anything to protect the innocents, and his daughter in particular, Giovanni Zatara has fought many battles, conquered many enemies, and lost many loved ones: with all his might, in a life or another, the one thing he seems to be unable to achieve is peace.