Short Box: DC’s Zatannic Panic!
DC’s Zatannic Panic!
#1A
Lee Bermejo Regular
| Release: | Oct 01, 2025 |
| Cover: | Dec 2025 |
Creators
| Writer | Callie C. Miller, Artist Writer, Rowan MacColl, Roberto Recchioni, Alex Galer, Lyndon Radchenka, Andrew MacLean, Daniel Warren Johnson, Cavan Scott |
| Artist | John McCrea, Rowan MacColl, Don Aguillo, Luigi Cavenago, Daniel Bayliss, Andrew MacLean, Riley Rossmo |
| Cover Artist | Lee Bermejo |
| Colorist | Mike Spicer, Luigi Cavenago, Andrew MacLean, Don Aguillo, Inaki Azpiazu, Matt Herms |
| Letterer | Tom Napolitano, Micah Myers, Ariana Maher, Ferran Delgado, Steve Wands |
| Editor in Chief | Marie Javins |
DC’s holiday anthology specials are usually more miss than hit for me, but I still buy them anyway. Often in multiples, if they have variant covers I like.
Thus, I was probably going to pick this one up anyway, but as I stated on Bluesky, “Zatannic Panic!” is an objectively good title for a DC Halloween special.
As a bonus, it turns out that this one bucked the trend and was more hit than miss, though most of the stories suffered from being short stories and could have benefited from a couple more pages, or at least a bit more exposition to explain what was going on.
In particular, the Plastic Man body horror story from Daniel Warren Johnson and Riley Rossmo looked creepy as hell, but I’m not entirely sure what was going on in it.
I was even more confused by the Batman story from Roberto Recchioni that was beautifully illustrated by Gigi Cavenago which seemed to be shooting for having a clever structure rather than telling a coherent story.
The main story featuring cover and title star Zatanna, the Demon story – which I found to be especially clever – and the Warlord story, all stand out as being about the right length and for having a clear thesis.
The Raven story was a miss for me, but that’s mostly because I’m an old fogey who isn’t especially fond of more modern takes on the character, so mileage will vary on that one.
The Swamp Thing and Constantine story from Alex MacLean was at least interesting to look at, which is a point in favor of this anthology as a whole – everything looked good.
However, the breakout story – literally and figuratively – is the closer featuring everyone’s favorite teleporting fourth-wall-breaking bug, along with his sidekick the Toy Wonder.
A confusing encounter with his arch-nemesis (there’s a pun in there, if you know who I’m talking about) leads Ambush Bug to believe that a multiversal crisis is afoot- Because when isn’t one at least atoe in the DCU? – which leads us on a trip back through the pages of the special, providing us new views of the stories we’ve just read. There’s also a side-trip into an unfinished canceled Superman comic.
Like I said, this time around it was more hit than miss. It was a nice treat to not be tricked into buying a comic just based on the strength of its title.
Born and raised in the sparsely populated Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jon Maki developed an enduring love for comics at an early age.
