The ultimate nerd fight: The Battle of Blythe Road
Did the stair kicking bit happen? Eh. It might have been a Yeats biographer trying to drum up copies of his book. And it might have been like one step. But Yeats and Crowley did have a slap fight after Crowley showed up in a kilt with a dirk and sgain dubh for protection.
Jkjk yall!! Just drew these two cuz one was named Violet and another was named Purple and they just so happened to be nerds. (Yes very big brain of me) I'm fully convinced Donnie isn't afraid to throw hands with the adolescents. Especially if it means he gets to prove himself right.
A visual representation if you will:
[Vi as herself and Donnie as Magica]
Their "fight" will very much look like this, with Donnie doing the most and Vi doing the least.
(Thank u random Pinterest user who posted these scenes, I love it)
Sometimes you are going through an article and something so silly in it pops up that you question the validity of everything else in that article.
Such was my experience today. Oh yeah, this is a nerd fight but no hate to anyone involved, mistakes happen.
So What did I read? Someone actually said Zatanna Zatara is a rip-off of the Scarlet Witch.
Okay so let's start unpacking this, let's take a look at the article itself.
Okay, so this is a very aggressive start, DC and Marvel have a history of taking ideas from one another, including a whole team in Marvel that are basically a parody of the Justice League.
So I come in this article to number 12.
Special Note: I tried to find this article not on my phone, but it isn't easily found on the website's desktop page. So what does this say about Zatanna?
This is an interesting way of saying she makes things happen by saying them backwards, which seems a little misleading. At this point, one might give the benefit of the doubt and say the writer just isn't that familiar with the character.
The way this article is structured it's likely attempting to take Zatanna's base description and make her sound like the Scarlet Witch. So time to do some unpacking.
Talking about Homo Magi sounds like they are comparing Zatanna being a Homo Magi to Wanda being a Mutant. These two were introduced in the 60s. According to the Superfriends Wiki the concept of Homo Magi was introduced to comics in the 80s.
So Zatanna being a Homo Magi can't be a rip-off of Wanda being a mutant. Now maybe the implication is that because Zatanna has the same powers as her father it's the same as Wanda having her powers from being a mutant and Magneto being her father. This is very odd since inheriting traits from someone's parents seems like a pretty broad concept and not one that could be considered a rip-off.
But I will admit I am unable to confirm Wanda is the originator of the trope of a child inheriting superpowers from a parent in comics.
Next, we have the implied claim that being able to use mystical powers is what Zatanna is taking from Wanda, but this is an odd claim since when Wanda first showed up in comics her powers weren't magic-based, they were probability manipulation. Mutant powers, not magic.
Here is what Wikipedia has to say about when Wanda's powers became magic.
So Wanda's Powers likely became magical in the 70s, remember these two debuted in the 60s.
But the Article does keep going on about these two, so what does it say?
Okay, so, the claims. Hypnotic Beauty? What Comic Book woman in the 60s wasn't beautiful? Ma Hunkel existed in the 30s so I am not going to discount it, Maybe it's something about their costumes or character designs being similar? Of course, the claim is that Zatanna is a Rip-off of Wanda so we need to look at what they looked at in their orinal costumes.
So Scarlet Witch has a head piece, and Zatanna has a tophat. Scarlet Witch has a cape, Zatanna does not. Wanda has opera gloves, Zatanna has bare hands. Scarlet Witch is wearing a full-body leopard in pink, while Zatanna has fishnets.
These two costumes have more differences but just look at these two designs. MAYBE you can point out they both have black curly hair, but most pictures I see of Wanda's first appearance have her with brown-red hair, NOT black.
So the next claim is them having a Dramatic Flair. Now I think there is a much more logical reason for Zatanna having a Dramatic flair.
Zatanna is a stage magician, a literal performer.
Her not having a Dramatic Flair would be extremely odd. But where did Zatanna's inspiration come from?
Her father Giovanni Zatara who is a Golden Age character. His first appearance was in Action Comics #1 (June 1938), which means he predates the Scarlet Witch by 26 years.
She has the same powers as him, she is a stage performer like him. Her look mimics his, but with a feminine flair a stage performer would have.
Maybe I am too much of a comics nerd, but I believe calling Zatanna a Scarlet Witch rip-off really undermines Zatanna's impact as a legacy hero who has surpassed her father in the public consciousness.
And the conversation about comic companies wanting to get their own versions of various titles is really interesting so it's sad to see it handled this poorly.
There is speculation the original Doom Patrol was created because DC Comics wanted their own Fantastic Four, and rumours are that the X-Men were created because of leaked information about what Doom Patrol would be.
From what I understand, The Fantastic Four was originally based on horror Comics and concepts, making them a body horror comic.
The Fantastic Four is one of the first comics to tackle superpowers as disabilities, with Doom Patrol picking up the concept and making it more blatant. The X-men then took this concept making it about marginalization and disability.
Anyways this massive rant is over I hope you enjoyed this nerd fight.
Water ballon fight? Imagine what they'd do in a nerd gun fight.
I know what you meant but all I can picture is Chris starring you down from the barrel of his gun like “yeah keep reading that fucking comic book dweeb ass, nerd ass, glasses wearin mother fucker”
