Zatanna Broke Batman Worse Than Bane Ever Could

Zatanna Broke Batman Worse Than Bane Ever Could

Zatanna and Batman may be lifelong friends, but her greatest betrayal ultimately changed Bruce Wayne and nearly doomed the Justice League.

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Zatanna Broke Batman Worse Than Bane Ever Could

Zatanna is a valued member of the Justice League and one of Batman’s closest friends in the hero community, but when she betrayed the Dark Knight’s trust, she nearly broke him to the point where he didn’t know how to trust anymore. Having first met Batman when he tried to learn magic from her father as a part of his training, the duo knew each other for years well before either one of them joined the Justice League. But it was because of the League itself that their friendship was nearly torn apart.

After the supervillain called Doctor Light assaults Sue Dibny, as revealed in Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales, a select group of Justice League members, including Zatanna, agree to use her powers to wipe Light’s mind and alter his personality so that he never tries anything like that again. When Batman walks in on the magical manipulations, the Dark Knight furiously tries to stop his fellow Leaguers. Realizing that the Justice League won’t last so long as Bruce knows what they have done, the team unanimously decides to wipe Bruce’s memories of the encounter. While Zatanna keeps the League’s secret safe, she does so at the cost of Bruce’s trust.

While Batman isn’t consciously aware of the fact that his mind has been altered, that event plants a seed of distrust in Bruce’s mind. He grows more paranoid, even developing emergency contingency plans to take down the Justice League. Ra’s al Ghul steals these plans and weaponizes them against the Justice League in the iconic “Tower of Babel” storyline by Mark Waid and Howard Porter, but Bruce’s paranoia doesn’t end there. Eventually, Batman builds Brother Eye, a highly powered satellite designed to monitor superhumans across the globe. Though Batman creates it with noble intentions, it’s corrupted by none other than Maxwell Lord in Countdown to Infinite Crisis #1 by Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, and others. Max uses it to create an army of superpowered OMACs that cost an untold number of lives, all because Batman can’t trust his allies. Not only does Zee mindwipe Batman, which she confesses to him in JLA #16 by Geoff Johns, Allan Heinberg, and Chris Batista, but it is also confirmed in JLA#119 that she altered Catwoman’s mind, leaving Batman wondering whether his relationship with Selina is genuine.

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When she alters Bruce’s mind, Zatanna is one of the younger members of the Justice League. She has less experience as a crimefighter than her older counterparts and is more impressionable. While that’s not an excuse for her actions, it does explain why she goes along with questionable orders orders from teammates like Green Arrow. Zatanna has also made it clear that she regrets her actions, referring to it as, “the worst mistake of my life” when discussing the situation with Bruce in Detective Comics #833 by Paul Dini and Don Kramer.

Even though she regrets it, it can’t be denied that the mindwipe set off a chain of events that decimated DC’s superhero community. Not only did Batman’s lingering subconscious distrust motivate him to create his plans against the Justice League, but his Brother Eye satellite terrorized the world. Bruce believed that the only person he could trust was himself, and he pushed everyone else like Alfred, Nightwing, and especially Catwoman, away. Zatanna inadvertently took away Batman’s family along with his friends.

The two heroes have repaired their relationship in the years since, even hinting at a potential romance now and then, but the damage that was done took a long time to heal and cost more than a few lives. These days, Zatanna is with the Justice League Dark while Batman is still with the main League team. But if the two are ever officially on the same team again, it’ll interesting to see just how far Bruce’s trust extends.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/zatanna-batman-mindwipe-justice-league-tower-babel/

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