Seven Soldiers of Spring wants to know if you believe in magic! Zatanna does, but here she's in a self-help group for heroes with low self-esteem. While she's a published author, a renowned stage magician, and a card-carrying member of the JLA, she's not doing great. Her dreams were troubled with visions of a coming doom, and when she and a group of magical adepts (plus Dr. Thirteen) ventured through magical realms to find her father's 4 books of magic to combat the threat, they instead encountered a formless monster Zatanna brought forth three nights earlier, when she cast a spell while horny for the perfect man.
The other 4 were burned to skeletons, but Zatanna survived, minus her ability to cast spells. Which is when she's approached by Misty, a teen runaway who wants to learn magic, and has a magic die (not the one Klarion found) that helps her do stuff. From there, Zatanna teaches Misty about magic while capturing Z's magic boyfriend/stalker, learning the truth of Misty's past, and ultimately confronting a terrible and powerful being deep in Slaughter Swamp.
Zatanna also, maybe gets some closure with her father, as parent-child relationships seem threaded through this book. She has an idealized vision of her father, describing him in the first issue as a warrior, who knew how to use magic wisely and responsibly. This is after the preceding two pages showed him performing on Letterman (with Zatanna as his child assistant stumbling about trying to capture their rabbit), and turning the entire audience into white rabbits. Very responsible, but Zatanna doesn't see it, and measures her lack of impulse control versus his as a failing. The magical homonculus boyfriend for one, but Morrison also references the whole "mind-wipe" thing from Identity Crisis (without ever specifically mentioning that trash fire. Also serves as convenient pretext for Zatanna not to call in the Justice League when she starts to grasp the scope of what she's up against.)
If Zatara wasn't the enlightened sorcerer Zatanna recalls, he did love his daughter, reaffirmed when she gets a final chance to speak with him and learns the truth of the 4 books she seeks. Misty, in contrast, was discarded by her mother. She was the heir, but once there was no need for an heir, Misty was to be killed. But the "huntsman" (Nebulon) didn't do it. (He instead brought back the brain of a '31st Century telepathic savant.') Very Snow White. Does that make the Seven Soldiers Misty's seven dwarves? There is no affirmation of love between daughter and mother here. As it turns out later, Misty doesn't desire reconciliation. She wants what was supposed to be hers.
Which I think would make the vice for this book Gluttony. Zatanna's initial spiral is due to her desire for the "perfect" man. He had to be able to keep up with her, crazy, clever, tough and wise and funny. She couldn't leave it to meeting such a guy naturally, nor could she accept getting less than absolutely everything she thought she wanted, and the result was a monster. Misty's mother wanted to hoard power for herself, and Misty will ultimately make the same play when given the chance. There's even a brief bit where Zatanna and Misty exorcise a temptation demon, who killed a bunch of people in a weight loss group by getting them to gorge on chocolate.
Gluttony's contrary virtue is Temperance, which is to use reason to exert control over desires. Zatanna, through most of the mini-series, consciously or unconsciously, is exerting more abstinence than temperance. She hasn't really lost her magic, she simply doubts her control and judgment to the point she's keeping herself from doing it. But magic isn't bad; if it was she wouldn't teach Misty about it all, and it was magic which enabled her to keep up with Zor and keep him from taking over the world. Even when she wouldn't use it, Zatanna's knowledge of magic lets her guide Misty in helping people in need. It isn't even about not using it for frivolous things; again, her father turned an audience into rabbits for part of a show. It's about being in control, not doing crap like trying to conjure the perfect man or mind-wiping Batman in desperation or longing.
Whether Misty grasps that is uncertain at this time. Zor doesn't. I'm not sure about the Sheeda, who seem in some regards like Greed personified, coming to an era and just taking everything. But if they did that, wouldn't there be no humanity left to build up again? Like I said, I'm not sure on that thread. Something to ponder.
Sook keeps a lot of the book within tight borders. Strict square or rectangular panels, arranged in orderly rows across the page, from top to bottom. Basic stuff, clear and easy to follow layouts and storytelling. Zatanna is, again, consciously or unconsciously, keeping herself locked down tight. trying to stick to the world that defines the limits of what most of us can perceive. (I say "most" because maybe some of you, dear audience, have perceptions far beyond the rest of us.)
Until the magic gets thrown about. Then characters are hopping from one small square (panel) to another, sometimes upside-down and looking up at themselves in the earlier panel in a different part of the page. All the while, there's a whole other world serving as a backdrop that they move through and comment on. When Zatanna fights Zor in the Slaughter Swamp, the two characters are simultaneously standing still up to their knees in the swamp, and fighting across time and space. Using planets as stepping stones, chucking comets around like the Silver Age Spectre. Zatanna getting blasted through the 4th wall (which shatters like a pane of glass), at which point she can clutch at the panel Zor's in and tear it down like a curtain.
I'm not sure what to make of Zatanna's fashion choices in the book, however. Especially in issue 3, when she's wearing the classic "stage magician" look with the coat and top hot and the white button up, but she left a couple of buttons in the middle open, so she's got basically a "boob diamond" thing. She also was sitting around topless, with just fishnets on when she summoned up her perfect guy. (I would have strongly considered Lust for this book's vice, but that seems better fit with one we'll get to in 2 weeks.)
Let's wrap up with connections between this and other mini-series. The self-help group in issue 1 is meeting some time before the 0 issue that kicks this whole thing off, as the new Gimmick Girl is part of both the self-help group and Vigilante's initial attempt to put together a new Seven Soldiers to finish old business. Ali-Ka-Zoom, part of the original Newsboy Army discussed in Guardian shows up as a ghost in issue 3. Zatanna's got his old top hat and his magic box (and apparently the panel in Guardian of the kids turning on one of their own and shoving him in wasn't a metaphor, and no one ever found Cap after that. Oof.) Zatanna, Misty, and Ali are a little late to help Ali's old pal, the former "Li'l Scarface", now Don Vicenzo, fight off the Sheeda hordes that attack his home at the end of Shining Knight, though not too late to save Sir Justin's flying horse.
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