Warning: contains spoilers for Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League: Batman #1!DC has flipped the script on the relationship between John Constantine and Zatanna with a shocking admission. The two have been on-again/off-again lovers for many years and in a story appearing in Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League: Batman #1 readers are treated to new insight into their relationship, and who plays exactly what role in it.
John Constantine and Zatanna are proof positive that opposites attract. Zatanna comes from magical royalty; her father, Zatara, was a world-renowned magician whose daughter inherited his powers. On the other hand, Constantine comes from a working-class background, and while magic does run in his family as well, he did not have a nurturing environment and wasn't raised in the tradition. Indeed, Constantine sometimes gets by more on guile and cunning than magic. Despite their differences, the two found each other and have fallen in and out of love many times. Recently, in the pages of Justice League Dark, the two took steps to rekindle their relationship, but any joy was short-lived as the Justice League, including Zatanna, were killed at the beginning of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths. In reality, however, Zatanna and the League were whisked away to alternate worlds, ones based on their innermost desires - and now the surviving heroes must scour the Omniverse for them.
In the issue’s “Time’s Up” story from Meghan Fitzmartin, Dan Jurgens, and Norm Rapmund, Zatanna is trapped in her own world, where her power continues to grow. Zatanna senses that something is trying to get through to her, but she is not sure what it is. She then finds herself on a city street, and facing John Constantine, who tells Zatanna she has made herself hard to find. She attacks him, asking who he is to order her around. John replies “you know who I am,” before transforming into the New 52-era version of Zatanna. This variant tells Zatanna that she initially chose the form of Constantine because he is the “voice of reason” in her life, no matter how much she tries to admit it. The presence, revealed to be Zatanna’s inner consciousness, next takes the form of her father Zatara before she is able to break free of her false world and reunite with the Justice League.
Constantine IS the Voice of Reason for Zatanna
Those close to John Constantine have many names for him, most of them unflattering, but "the voice of reason" is rarely ever one of them. It may seem like an unlikely role for him; the rest of the DC Universe sees John as arrogant, a screw-up and a drunkard, and his words and actions often reinforce those impressions. However, Constantine has acted as the voice of reason for Zatanna on many occasions; his pragmatic nature perfectly compliments her own ambition. Constantine grounds the far more powerful Zatanna, and seeing Constantine was enough to cause Zatanna to begin questioning the world around her.
While he may be a smirking agent of chaos to pretty much everyone else in his life, it turns out that John Constantine is the voice of reason to Zatanna, showing that whatever the rest of the Justice League may believe, the ultimate rogue is capable of having a healthy relationship - albeit with one of the most powerful magic-users in existence.
Dark Crisis: Worlds Without a Justice League: Batman #1 is on sale now from DC Comics