Synopsis
Zatanna Zatara is midway through a magic show when she goes to pull a rabbit from her hat when the magic becomes unstable and summons a monstrous being which attacks the audience. Zatanna’s magic proves unreliable as she fights the being back but soon Wonder Woman arrives to help fight and to follow-up on an invitation she had extended to Zatanna following their time together on Team Wonder. Zatanna is reluctant to join Diana but her devotion to magic brings her to Wintersgate Manor with other magic users such as Klarion the Witch Boy and Morgaine le Fey.
Outside of the manor she is accosted by John Constantine who has been denied entry following the ritual which caused Zatanna’s father John Zatara’s death. Zatanna leaves him out in the street alone and enters the mansion as John causes her to doubt her faith in the future of magic users.
Elsewhere, Wonder Woman sits in the Oblivion Bar looking to find recruits for her new team, she drinks with Detective Chimp and they speculate why the magic users have ignored her requests for assistance despite the recent imbalance which has been brought upon magic after the fight with the Omega Titans. Detective Bobo also reveals that he has been named the new “Nightmaster” following from Jame Rook’s death. To break from their solemnity the two decide to travel to the Hall of Justice to investigate the bodies that Diana had found.
At Wintersgate Manor, Jason Blood explains to the magic-users and affiliates that the tear in the Source Wall is allowing an entity into their universe which is targeting those in the room and suggests a unification of the magic users, Blood is also quick to dismiss the idea of Wonder Woman’s Justice League Dark when it is put forward by Morgana. Though paying some attention, Zatanna notices a small tree has grown from a nearby plant-pot and is eavesdropping on the arcane summit.
Wonder Woman and Detective Chimp make their way down to half a mile below the Hall of Justice in the new base and Diana introduces Man-Bat who is ecstatic to have a new member join the team. The trio head to the cadavers and Diana explains that her old friend, Etta, suggested that they take Langstrom to help study the bodies from A.R.G.U.S.. Langstrom explains that he wants to do good for people and to redeem himself as a scientist despite currently having the body of a man and the head of a bat, he then leads them to the horribly mutated bodies.
Zatanna finds their spy in Salem, Massachusetts by the Tree of Wonder. Swamp Thing sits staring at the colossal tree trying to communicate with it as Zatanna arrives and demands Alec explain himself. Alec explains how he neither agrees with Blood’s idea to downplay the threat, nor with Diana’s method of beating the entity into submission. Zatanna rant about how she cannot find the answer and the ensuring anger, Alec relays this to the silent tree but to his surprise it replied, and wanted to speak to Zatanna.
From the tree fire erupts around Zatanna and soon her father’s spirit is stood before her, he shows her a vision of the future Justice League Dark and explains how the original owners of magic are set to return and to reclaim their power – the same being which incinerate John all those years before – and that there may be one who has the power to fight back and that Zatanna must find them before she is caught by the “Otherkind” and soon she is force back to reality as an entity called only the “Upside Down Man” reaches at her.
In the morgue, Diana, Detective Bobo and Langstrom inspect the bodies when a rumbling shakes the room and suddenly the bodies reanimate, each moving off the table and lurching towards the heroes, Langstrom takes a dosage of his classing Man-Bat formula but the bodies continue but soon Swamp Thing and Zatanna burst into the room spouting the prophecy that one of the team will bring about the death of magic and humanity.
