What could DC do to get Zatanna to Harley Quinn levels of popularity?

What could DC do to get Zatanna to Harley Quinn levels of popularity?

Women are attracted to romance.

Men care about characters doing awesome thing, so that they can self-insert and feel that they're just as awesome as the characters.
Women, though, care about characters that date men who do awesome things, so that they can self-insert and feel they're dating awesome men.

This is why Harley Quinn is so popular. Just go search for the character's fanfics, which are 90% written by women. They're all about Harley fucked up relationship with the Joker. That's what they're attracted to when it comes to the characters. That's why the SS movie was changed to make the Joker/Harley Quinn romance less ugly.

So if you want to make a female character popular with women you've to write her in a romance with a popular male character. So either focus Zatanna comic about her relationship with John Constantine or Batman. I don't know.

>Just go search for the character's fanfics, which are 90% written by women. They're all about Harley fucked up relationship with the Joker.

I was about to make fun of you and refute your point but then

>1 - 20 of 420 Works in Pamela Isley/Harleen Quinzel

> 1 - 20 of 731 Works in Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel

Damn

Yeah. Even the ones about Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn featured the Joker in big ways, since they're all about Ivy trying to save Harley from the Joker with great difficult and heart-break, with Joker and Harley relationship and sex life eating a good portion of the stories.

Not all Harley/Ivy fics contain Joker in big ways, I'd say a good 70% of them do, but yeah Joker is a require part of Harley's character

To be honest the ones that feature Joker the less are the good ones

It's not really surprising since Joker and Harley are more iconic, and because they're more 'canon' to the public than Ivy and Harley since their relationship was only hinted at in BtAS while Harley and Joker were really obviously fucking.

Plus most fanfic writers are straight women who don't care about lesbians, so they are more likely to write about fag ships or straight pairings because they're not into women.

Of course, not all of them are.

That's why if you want to make a female character popular with women the romance has to be important. The romance also has to be messy as shit. That's a big plus, i've found. Women love romance stories full of angst-y shit.

So John Constantine would be perfect for a Zatanna ongoing.

Yeah, I was shocked since I thought the differences between Harley/Ivy and Joker/Ivy in termn of fics written weren't so huge, but Joker/Harley doubles Harley/Ivy

Yeah, lesbian pairings usually aren't so popular with fanfiction writers (unless they're the main pairing in the fanbase, like Korrasami).

>So John Constantine would be perfect for a Zatanna ongoing.

Or a post-mindwipe Batman & Zatanna

I wouldn't want Zatanna to achieve that level of popularity because they would undoubtedly ruin her character to get her to that level of fame, just like they did to Harley.

Batman, despite constantly rejecting Zatanna's advances in an attempt to protect her from himself and his life style, is too... what's the word? Nice and caring?

John Constantine has more potential to be a bastard.

Harley isn't "ruined". She's just popular.

Who?

Almost certainly not. HQ is lighting in a bottle.

Harley is ruined, DC removed completely what made Harley Harley and instead put another character with her name. I know Harley was all about the jokes and the fun but that also was complimented with a lot of depth and troubles and questioning, now Harley is a shell of her former self, a hollow musk just for popularity

They ruined her when they tried to make her DC's version of Deadpool, and those comics are popular, so I would say she is popular and ruined.

please no.

I'm fine with Z living in relative obscurity, not suffering character assassination from six different writers writing her seven different ways.

They could start by selling Halloween costumes of her...

but "sexy magician" already exists

I just don't see Zatanna ever being an a-lister. Her powerset is just way too strong.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but her defining traits usually seem to be Daddy issues and just being spunky.

Great design though

She'd never get popular with the female demographic because she'd make them feel too insecure about their legs

make her crazy, lol random xD, grrrl power and sexy (not too much).

Of couse, she also needs a movie with ton of marketing.

>make her crazy, lol random xD, grrrl power and sexy (not too much).

It funno to me that you all think that when the obvious answer for Harley boom was the Arkham Games

makes her a lesbian trans gender black/hispanic sjw feminist liberal degenerate

Or just really quirky.

Not nearly enough

Porn parody.

>What could DC do to get Zatanna to Harley Quinn levels of popularity?
Get Amanda Conner to drop Harley and just transform Zatanna into the same sort of character. Conner's been elevated to the level of popularity where you can use her to manufacture a new movement.

Conner and Palimotti on Zatanna would be horrible imo

To add to this, relationships with bad boy characters also seem to spark interest. Maybe make her fall for a misunderstood bad guy.

Joker/Harley had a headstart. F/F fic is also the least popular out of M/M, M/F and F/F because most of those female writers aren't attracted to women.

>Maybe make her fall for a misunderstood bad guy.

John Constantine is the perfect guy.

>And correct me if I'm wrong, but her defining traits usually seem to be Daddy issues and just being spunky.
I associate her with bad personal decisions and being a spellaholic. Her father is just a footnote.

Used goods.

Zatanna can't get to Harley level popular because her character just isn't appealing to the masses.

Harley has the edge factor that Zatanna will never have unless you totally change her character

Harley is defined by sex and rebellion.
That's super popular, especially now

So?

And that search, from the look of it, is from Ao3, which is generally more SLANTED toward m/m f/f pairings than other fanfic websites.

Go do the same search on fanfic.net why don't ya?

...

... where she was all of those things?

Make her a sexy female version of this guy.

So make Harley do magic now?

>Riaper ttub xes
Problem solved.

Man, that comic would be tons of success. Zatanna in a love triangle between Batman and Constantine? That's pretty much a romance novel right there.

Batman can be the calm, cold and aloof friend who's unusually caring and hides his real feelings for Zatanna's well sake.
John Constantine can be the dangerous and irresistible fling that deep down actually cares about Zatanna despite constantly manipulating and hurting her for his own ends.
Zatanna Zatara knows that she should be with Batman and stay clear away from Constantine, but there's this big wall between her and Batman while she can't resist Constantine's advances no matter how she tries.

You can do a lot of angst-y shit with this love triangle.

Of all the female character that DC has, both Zatanna and Ice are two missed opportunities.
No one wants to write about them, which is a shame, given that these two characters actually have a real personality, interesting backstory and cool powers

Basically, Constantine would be Zee's Joker while Batman'd be Zee's Poison Ivy.

>Go do the same search on fanfic.net why don't ya?

Alright, let's see

>Harley/Joker 384 found

>Harley/Ivy 138 found

Damn you fanfiction.net, beated again

Give her a movie and a simple and skimpy outfit for people to easily cosplay as (but keep the top hat)

I'm not sure I want a fad that gets girls wearing top hats, that's the first step towards making steampunk mainstream

Imagine if Zatanna started dating Mikey.

First, attach her to the hip of Batman and Joker, DC's biggest characters. Then turn her into a wacky girl who can do damn near anything and has a costume that's got iconic traits but you can still easily modify while being recognizable. Then put her in a bunch of the spinoff material, each time making her slightly more independent from Batman and Joker so she can build her own brand. Eventually, you've got a new Harley Quinn.

Zatanna is a forever B-Lister/C-Lister. She gets a little attention in spinoffs, but she's underdeveloped, not really all that interesting conceptually, and her design is very nice but doesn't really stand out on the shelf. She's a definitively 'okay' character that mostly got her popularity boosted by a couple writers having serious boners for her, and even they didn't end up doing much with it.

Who's Mikey?

Zatanna is already easy to cosplay. Put on a suit top and take off your pants. Bam. Zatanna cosplay.

Make her a goth magician who likes black metal and tantric sex and was childhood friends with Batman. She's fun, she's wild, she's powerful and she's love with Batman, but Batman keeps putting her off, despite deep down loving her, because he's afraid of her sexuality, power and... love.

BOOM!

Every girl out there would want to dress like her and self-insert as her. Who want to be the powerful and sexually charged chick that makes Batman's knees weaken and his heart beat faster?

Oh come on.

I don't want romance to be forced onto Zatanna more than it already has been just to make her popular.

If she's going to be pushed, they should put her at the forefront of DC's magical universe, going on crazy magical adventures and being friends with basically every good magical person on DC Earth. She needs that one good run that defines the character. Fuck Dini's run, it was actually pretty boring.

Push her in tv, in the movies, and in video games. Make her more of a major character.

Please, just do anything but make her an outlet for shitty romance.

They've done pretty much all of that and nobody cared at all. Hell, half her spinoff appearances are being shipped with Batman, and she's still just as solidly mediocre as always.

>I associate her with bad personal decisions
I like this a lot.

She should be with the big dogs, friends and comrades with the Big Seven of the Justice League, but not quite 'there' with them, due to having personal crisis, some depression, and being prone to making the odd bad decision there. But still rather spunky usually and capable of great inner strength.

On a meta level, I think something like that would make sense for the character, as she is the medium between the dark and disturbing magical world and the bright and colorful superhero world.

I mean, that's pretty much how she was in Seven Soldiers and that was the best story she's ever been in.

That would only please guys. Women don't care about female heroines being all awesome and shit. That's male fantasy. Guys that are into chaste warriors would could toss them and domm them like the pitiful boys they're.

Women are into romance and seeing themselves with a powerful and dangerous guy that will take her into the greatest and wildest adventure of her life. They want to relinquish control and give their body and soul to something grand and fulfilling. They want a roller-coaster of emotions.

That's why most shows catered to women are about drama and messy romances.

I mean, you're not entirely wrong. Not entirely correct either, but that would be one way to successfully push Zatanna imo.

IF they were to go that way at all, I'd rather they do it intelligently, rather than just making her John Constantine's lapdog or something.

If the romance played second-fiddle to a major magical storyline, only staying in the background and coming up when it were relevant, I'd be happy.

Because they're too tame with it. Zatanna looks like a magician assistant and she's too nice and understanding with Batman.

What i'm talking about is to make her look gothier and sexier, and have her as this crazy party girl full of edge who loves rock, sex and magic, and is confident and aggressive with Batman, basically putting Batman in a corner.

DC's magical universe is too chaotic and disconnected for anybody to really become a 'face' of it. No matter what type of character you pick, they won't fit for a good amount of stories they tell.

That wouldn't work simply because Constantine is only BARELY more famous than her in the first place. Harley's so popular because her boyfriend is the goddamn Joker, if she was introduced as the significant other of Dr. Fate no one would give a shit. Harley also stands out as innocent comic relief against a mostly dark series, while Constantine and Zatanna aren't really that different in tone, just one being more optimistic and one more pessimistic about the same fucked up magic dangers.

No.

Zatanna is easily the closest to being the 'face' of the magic universe. She already has that connection with most of the magical characters, while falling squarely in the mainstream DC universe. She's already popular and well-known among people who actually read comic books. She has that perfect design, where once you see her, you instantly know it's her and what she's about. She's just 'normal' enough to be marketable.

Well I wasn't implying that Constantine could be her love interest. I dislike that pairing a lot actually. I'm of the opinion that she really shouldn't have a love interest.

Also,
>Harley
>innocent
Kek

Those pants are stupid.

Uhn... have Zee dating... Penguin? Penguin's really popular right now, right?

I've seen some women wearing pants like that.

Yes. Make Zatanna 63 Chris Angel. A 63 Chris Angel that sexually molests Batman.

That doesn't make them not stupid.

Not if you shave properly.

No.

As I said, magic in DC doesn't really have a face, and when they try to have one it shifts all the time depending on the tone and content of the story. Sometimes it's Captain Marvel, sometimes it's Etrigan, sometimes it's Phantom Stranger, sometimes it's the Spectre, sometimes it's Zatanna, sometimes it's Constantine. And even then, you have popular mystical heroes and stories that have /nothing/ to do with any of those characters: one of DC's biggest strengths in its mystical side is that its stories are widely varied and weird. No one character could ever hope to encapsulate all of it, and pushing Zatanna as some sort of focus for that would only dilute both the DC cosmoverse and Zatanna as a character.

>Sometimes it's Captain Marvel, sometimes it's Etrigan, sometimes it's Phantom Stranger, sometimes it's the Spectre, sometimes it's Zatanna, sometimes it's Constantine.
And honestly, I think Zatanna works better than any of those. She's the only one whose position as an essential member of both the mainstream DC universe and as someone linked with the weirder, darker parts of the magic corner of the DC universe makes her unique. Her character and history make her perfect as a sort of 'ambassador' between the two and to introduce casuals into the magical stuff.

>And even then, you have popular mystical heroes and stories that have /nothing/ to do with any of those characters: one of DC's biggest strengths in its mystical side is that its stories are widely varied and weird.
I don't see how making Zee the face of DC's magic side of the universe takes away from any of that.

>No one character could ever hope to encapsulate all of it, and pushing Zatanna as some sort of focus for that would only dilute both the DC cosmoverse and Zatanna as a character.
As long as they don't make her the end-all, be-all magical character, they could avoid that easily. She's just someone who has a lot of connections and is arguably important as a magic user. You could still have weirdness and diversity. She doesn't even have to be the center of it all, just briefly at times, the lens through which we glimpse into the dark and creepy magical underworld beneath the bright and sunny superhero universe of DC Earth.

DC's magic scene isn't uniformly dark and creepy. If it has any recurring theme it's the power of mythology and the rules of storytelling and narrative being more important than the rules of reality, neither of which Zatanna is really all that strong in. Captain Marvel is one of DC's biggest magical mystical titles, and it's also the brightest sunny title DC's got. Until, of course, they made Captain Marvel into the face of magic and turned his setting into a dark twisted mess for decades.

Honestly, I don't really consider Captain Marvel to be within the magical corner of the DC universe. Sure, he IS a magical DC character and all, but I consider him to be more apart of the mainstream universe. His origins are totally different from all the other magical DC characters, and I'm not just talking about his canon origin. I mean, he started out as the premier superhero of Fawcett Comics. He's a superhero first, if anything else second. He's more at home with the JLA or the JSA than with Zatanna or John Constantine, although the potential for a story with him teaming up with those is always there.

When I'm referring to the magical corner of the DCU, I'm referring to the 80's and 90's Vertigo stuff. I agree that it's more than just being dark and creepy and yes, it is about the nature of storytelling and narrative. But I am referring to 'The Dark', which is what DC has been labeling them since the nu52. So John Constantine, Swamp Thing, Shade, the Changing Man, the Endless, and so on. Although the DCU is great in that a lot of mainstream DC heroes who just happen to be magical do crossover with these from time to time.

>Until, of course, they made Captain Marvel into the face of magic and turned his setting into a dark twisted mess for decades.
When was this? All I can think of is post-IC when they had no idea what to do with him.

make her a fat sassy black transgendered woman. This will appeal to all the sjws that are buying comics these days

I'm referring to post-IC, almost all of Captain Marvel's appearances would be some sort of big Justice League story and whenever the Justice League dealt with magic and mythology he'd play a big part. Subsequently, almost all his stories got turned into big dark events where his shit got messed up, and then even when they tried giving him his own stories they couldn't stop inserting unnecessarily grim storylines and stupidly tragic mishaps.

If you took out the trans part who would that appeal to?

Yeah. Geez. They did NOT know what to do with Billy post-IC. And if you don't like the nu52 version, then the character has gotten shat on for awhile for you.

I wish we could've gotten something like Thunderworld but in the mainstream DCU.

Honestly Zatanna has a tendency to look really ridiculous and cheap when put up next to characters like Shade the Changing Man, Swamp Thing, and the Endless. She works for guys like Constantine and Deadman who have more of an absurd or personal angle to them already, but her brand of superhero magic I'd say is actually more superhero-y than Captain Marvel who can often come off like a Lewis Caroll fairy tale character.

I honestly like the New52 Shazam. It's a return to form in the vein of simple wish fulfillment with magic being strange and personal, and adventures mostly being about a kid who goes on childish adventures. Black Adam notably got toned way the hell down from his World War III days.

>Honestly Zatanna has a tendency to look really ridiculous and cheap when put up next to characters like Shade the Changing Man, Swamp Thing, and the Endless.
Idk.

They need to rework her powerset a bit more and make her less powerful. Her magic should work in more subtle ways and should be limited. As it stands, it's not really defined on what she can or cannot do with her powers except for some vague rules here and there. And sometimes she accidentally says something that fucks something up. But her powerset is really cool and allows you to do some really cool narrative stuff with it. I like that she kind of influences reality around her, they just need to make it a little less broken.

>I honestly like the New52 Shazam. It's a return to form in the vein of simple wish fulfillment with magic being strange and personal, and adventures mostly being about a kid who goes on childish adventures. Black Adam notably got toned way the hell down from his World War III days.
I like it too honestly, except for Billy being a little shit.

A lot of Zatana's appeal is that her magic is so simple to conceptualize and doesn't really make sense. Giving it really defined rules would probably go against what makes her popular, I'd sooner give her Silver Age style stories where her ridiculous abilities are met with equally ridiculous situations. One of Dini's runs' problems was that all her conflicts were painfully mundane.

>A lot of Zatana's appeal is that her magic is so simple to conceptualize and doesn't really make sense. Giving it really defined rules would probably go against what makes her popular, I'd sooner give her Silver Age style stories where her ridiculous abilities are met with equally ridiculous situations
Well with Zatanna, you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place regarding her powers. I don't even necessarily dislike how she has no defined upper limit to her powers. I'd love a series where she goes absolutely crazy with them. But I think people would be more receptive towards defining her powers better and using them in more clever ways. The thing about that is, you need a clever writer to be able to fully utilize that sort of thing and I'm not sure if there are a whole lot of writers good enough to write those sorts of powers in a satisfying way Hell, you kind of need a clever writer to write her as absurdly powerful and still keep her stories interesting. I think Grant Morrison is probably the only one that could really do this.

>One of Dini's runs' problems was that all her conflicts were painfully mundane.
Fucking thank you. I hated this about his run so much.

One of my favorite bits from his whole run was where she was visiting that therapist, and then it turned out that she was a magical therapist whose office was in another dimension and every being actually perceived it differently iirc. That's the kind of weirdness that should be in a Zatanna story.

But it still frustrated and bored me to no end how you have this character who can potentially do anything fight nothing but super mundane, pedestrian threats. I mean, come on. That's not exciting at all. Grant Morrison had her fight a rogue time angel ffs. That's so much more interesting.

That's the sort of woman Bruce would find annoying

I liked the idea from Young Justice that the words are just the focus. That way you could keep her absurdly powerful, but the cleverness comes in planning and improvising. There is nothing stopping her from using spells on the fly, it's just that if she wants to bring out the really powerful stuff she needs to have done her prepwork before hand. Chronicles of Amber uses a something similar for its magic.

And fighting a rogue angel is mundane as fuck in urban fantasy and comics. I'm pretty sure Grant had the JLA fight rogue angels twice in his run.

Batman's a sub. Look at all his love interests. They're all very assertive, aggressive, sexually charged women. He's attracted to strong women.

You can work with that. Bruce thinks she's a flighty, annoying partygirl while Zatanna thinks he's an uptight, asocial weirdo. Despite everything they're kinda-sorta friends.

He's attracted to strong women, but he's not a sub. His interest lies in women who can cause and aggressively respond to conflict. Basically his fetish is having shitty relationships.

He's a sub, man. Pretty much all the sex scenes Batman has ever been in the women are forcing themselves on him.

>I'd be happy.
But women wouldn't give a shit and they're the point of this thread

Batman's also incredibly repressed with a host of psychological issues.

Yeah. Who knows, he probably see the assertive women as his own mother in a way. I know that the movies love to go that route.

Whatever they do, keep Lacey Chabert.

Mmmmmm...Lacey...

I don't think any movie has gone with that idea. Very little Batman works go into his relationship with his mother.

Boco, shut the fuck up.

Lacey Chabert would be a great live action Zatanna too.

Yes sir...

That's why i said movies. For some reason the movies love to do the creepy shit with his mother. Like Nolan's TDKR with Selina stealing his mother's pearls and getting his attention.

Nolan's Martha isn't a character and doesn't have any impact on the story or other characters. BvS is the only film that's actually given Martha a direct impact on Bruce.

And what's wrong with steampunk becoming mainstream, huh?

No. Zatara needs to go up to Batman levels of popularity. Zatanna needs to die.

literally just spread her around
she hits like 3 or 4 different fetishes just by existing and DC needs someone less grimdark and more different for their non-comic stuff

Do you really wanna live in a world where girls are dressing up as this slut for halloween?