Zatanna is the daughter of adventurer John Zatara and his wife Sindella, and a member of the mystic tribe of sorcerers called the Hidden Ones or Homo Magi. Zatanna inherited her mother's ability to manipulate magic and her father's penchant for heroism. Sindella later faked her own death to return the Hidden One's sanctum in Turkey, leaving her daughter in John Zatara's care.
Zatara traveled the world with his daughter and taught her to harness her magical abilities. Zatanna was later raised by strangers, however, when the evil witch Allura cursed Zatanna and prevented her from seeing her father. Zatanna was left to search fruitlessly for her natural parents.
Zatanna discovered her father's diary and created a stage persona for herself. Her quest to find her father led her into a brief affair with John Constantine. Later, with the help of the Justice League of America, Zatanna was able to lift Allura's curse and reunite with her father and later her mother. Tragically, Sindella died rescuing her daughter from the city of the Hidden Ones, while her father died saving her and the spiritual dimensions of the Great Evil Beast.
As a long-standing member of the JLA, Zatanna fought countless super-villains and mystic threats. After the death of her father, however, she retired from active adventuring and continues to maintain her family home of the Shadowcrest. She now lives in San Francisco, seeking a normal life while trying to preserve the balance of Earth's light and dark mystical community. In this role, she serves as one of the Sentinels of Magic.
Zatanna is a member of the Homo Magi race and is genetically gifted with great magical talent. She can cast an incredible number of spells, which she usually does by speaking backwards as a tribute to her father. However, the backward-speaking is not always necessary for her to cast spells. Speaking backwards is as easy for her as it is to speak forwards. Zatanna has shown great control of her magic ability, which extends to an ability to elemental sorcery:
Pyrokinesis-Generation and control of fire.
Aerokinesis- Generation and control of the air.
Cyrokinesis-Generation and control of ice.
Hydrokinesis- Control of water.
Geokinesis- Control of earth.
Chlorokinesis-Control over plants.
Thermokinesis- Able to manipulate the temperature of a place to stay warm in cold environments.
Zatanna's mastery of magic also grants her a wide range of other powers:
Flight, weather control, healing, illusion casting, reality-warping, telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, force field generation, dimensional travel, size alteration, spectral sight, mystical invulnerability, probability manipulation, memory manipulation (erasing and altering people's memories), superhuman strength, superhuman durability and extraction and teleportation of souls (she only uses this ability in dire situations).
The upper limit of her spell-casting ability is unknown, but she is already considered among the most powerful magic users in the DC Universe. She has been shown to dispel the magical spells of other strong magic users, often with relative ease. Despite this, Zatanna seemingly still has not lived up to her full potential yet. It is possible that her guilt over performing mind wipes may be subconsciously holding her back from attaining even greater levels of power. The only known limitation to her magic is that she cannot bring the dead back to life.
Upon meeting her mother in Justice League of America
#165, it was revealed that there is a special magical device called the Medulla Jewel, which was powerful enough to provide life to an entire army which managed to defeat the combined efforts of the Justice League. The Medulla Jewel can be worn by only one of the Homo Magi per generation, and as Sindella was that bearer for her generation, so too was Zatanna for hers. The device was destroyed upon the meeting of her mother, and it has never been referenced again and therefore might be considered to be retconned out of existence.
Zatanna is also a gifted stage magician and hypnotist who routinely enthralls audiences with her mystifying and entertaining performances. Though she usually has at least a couple hundred specific spells prepared at any given moment, she is adept at magical improvisation and can readily modify her spells to handle unpredictable situations. She often uses her magic to assist in performing everyday tasks, especially if she is too busy or fatigued to do them the mundane way. Zatanna is multi-lingual, being fluent in English, Spanish, and her trademark "backwards speech."
As a magician, she is considered among the most powerful and knowledgeable in the world and often works alongside the most powerful magic-users on Earth, including Doctor Fate, Madame Xanadu, and Captain Marvel. However, the actual extent of her powers is not fully known. According to Green Arrow, she is the most powerful member of the Justice League. Of all the magicians and sorcerers on the planet, the JLA always go to Zatanna when they need magical assistance.
Regardless of whether or not she is an active member of the Justice League, Zatanna is highly respected for her knowledge of the magic arts. As she is a performing illusionist, she also spends more time on Earth's plane than most other magical heroes. This makes her more available than the others, and she is also more friendly than most. Although the events of Identity Crisis may have strained some of her relationships, she still has the trust of her allies. Recently she gave Superman help after he sought her advice on information from Arion ( Superman). More recently, she had been helping Mary Marvel come to terms with her new powers in the pages of Countdown to Final Crisis.
Countdown
#37 further highlighted the vast repository of mystical knowledge and powerful artifacts at Zatanna's disposal. Unbeknownst to Zatanna, Mary was under the influence of the villainous Eclipso, who caused Mary to attack Zatanna in an attempt to seize her artifacts. Even with the incredible power of Shazam at her disposal, Mary was no match for Zatanna, who quickly evicted her from her home. Zatanna also helped Magog, despite the strain between him and the Justice Society.
Although magic is her primary weapon in battle, Zatanna is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant who can hold her own surprisingly well in a physical fight. Her fighting prowess often takes her opponents off-guard, since they mistakenly assume that she is helpless if her spell-casting ability is neutralized. Zatanna has said that she has a red belt in martian kung fu, an exotic fighting method that few opponents are familiar with, giving her an added advantage in combat. She has also received combat training with the Justice League as well as with Batman himself.
Shadowcrest is a supernatural mansion that serves as Zatanna's personal sanctuary and base of operations, much like Batman's Batcave or Superman's Fortress of Solitude. Shadowcrest's library boasts one of the most extensive collections of books on magic and magical knowledge ever assembled. It also houses an arsenal of powerful magical relics that can do "just about anything you'd want them to do" (according to Zatanna). Even Zatanna doesn't fully understand everything about the house, but she believes that in some way, the house is just as alive as herself. Shadowcrest appears to be physically located on the outskirts of Gotham City, but the interior of the mansion actually exists in an entirely separate magical dimension.
. . .
