What if DC hinted it may kill Zatanna and no one noticed?

Is everyone's favorite fishnets-wearing magician Zatanna the latest DC character with a reservation to the great beyond?

Or perhaps she's just losing her superhuman abilities?

While these are usually curable afflictions in the DC Universe, either way publisher DC is underplaying whatever trick they have up their sleeve (get it?) for the character this fall.

Earlier in July, the publisher released their October 2020 solicitations, and with them this solicitation for Justice League Dark #27, written by Ram V with art by Amancay Nahuelpan and covers by Yanick Paquette and Kael Ngu.

Article continues below

"Welcome to the Other Place, where the Upside-Down Man rules without equal, and where all the odds are bleakly stacked in his favor," reads DC's description. "Wonder Woman will tap into the darkest recesses of power, but can she control it? What sleight of mind will Zatanna reveal to her greatest villain, and what sacrifice (or three!) must be made? This issue features a battle so costly that the team's roster will be forever changed."

While the grammar leaves it open-ended, the copy seems to suggest Zatanna must make a sacrifice and that the issue will also feature a battle that could take at least one member of the team off the board entirely.

Pretty standard comic book sales copy, right?

But this week's release of the publisher's own solicitations catalog DC Connect #3 kicks the pitch up a notch.

See if you can spot the difference (a DC preoccupation of ours of late).

See the key addition? Unlike the plain copy of the solicitation copy given to the comic book press, DC's house version includes some extra callouts, including "Zatanna makes the ultimate sacrifice!"

Again, when death and losing your powers are more often than not only temporary inconveniences for superheroes, there aren't a whole lot of sacrifices that would qualify as "ultimate" in comic book vernacular, but death would still be among them.

It'll probably be a month and the November solicitations before readers get a better idea how "ultimate" Zatanna's sacrifice is, but if it is indeed death, expect to hear about it a lot more before October.

I'm not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I'm also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I've been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it's crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.