Zatanna: Trial of the Crystal Wand is a February 2003 animated pilot written by
Paul Dini for
Cartoon Monsoon. It had
Tara Strong voicing
Zatanna and Klarion and
Steve Blum voicing Zatara and Damon, Zatanna's brother.
Trial of the Crystal Wand shows examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptational Modesty: Zatanna wears a t-shirt and jeans rather than her famous tuxedo and fishnets. Justified as she is depicted as a minor here and would be too young to wear them. That being said, her shirt does have short sleeves and leaves her navel area exposed, neither of which was ever the case in her usual apparel.
- Adaptational Nationality: Klarion is American in this cartoon instead of him being British like in the comics.
- Bolivian Army Ending: Zatanna is seen defeating playing cards while Damon and Klarion are trapped.
- Bring It: Zatanna says to the playing cards at the end that she's counting on them to try and fight her.
- Canon Foreigner: Zatanna's brother Damon Zatara was created for the pilot, as she was an only child in the comics. The closest thing to Damon that ever appeared in the comics would be Zatanna's younger cousin Zachary, who didn't exist until three years later.
- Cool Shades: Zatanna briefly wears them while flying on the rocket.
- Epileptic Flashing Lights: Occurs as the smoke makes Zatara frozen as a rock.
- Faint in Shock: The rabbit faints when he sees Zatanna fall from the pole supporting her escapeology act.
- I Warned You: Damon says "Ha! Told ya so!" to his sister for using magic at school.
- Logo Joke: The Cartoon Monsoon letters show up as Zatanna flies with her rocket.
- MacGuffin: The plot of the pilot hinges on Klarion forcing Zatanna into getting him The Crystal Wand while using the fate of her father as leverage.
- Missing Mom: Zatanna's mother isn't seen or mentioned.
- Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Zatanna is a teen and Klarion is a pre-teen.
- Pull a Rabbit out of My Hat: A rabbit came out of Zatanna's hat.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "Let! Me! Out!"
- Rivals Team Up: Klarion and Zatanna team up so she can give him the Crystal Wand and he'll un-freeze Zatara.
- Sdrawkcab Speech: Per usual, Zatanna recites her incantations backwards, with an escape trick where she's at risk of falling to her death resolved when she says "Tekcor raeppa".
- Truer to the Text: The cartoon portrays Zatanna as a teenager like how she debuted in the comics as opposed to her DC Animated Universe incarnation being introduced as an adult.
