Justice League of America #257 - Dec. 1986

The final showdown with Adam!

The Story: "Coming Down!" by J.M. DeMatteis, Luke McDonnell, and Bob Smith. Picking yup from last issue, Martian Manhunter is desperately trying to reconnect the mental link he had with Zatanna and Gypsy as they toured Adam's psyche.

While he tries, we Zatanna wake up on some sort of beach, followed by Gypsy, who is unconscious.

Zatanna realizes she insisted Gypsy come along to teach her a lesson; feeling she was too naive in wanting to help people like Adam, even after all he has done.

Realizing that was wrong, she uses her powers to send Gypsy back to reality, where she arrives safe and sound.

Still in Adam's psyche, though, Zatanna has a troubling encounter:

While in the embrace of Adam (eww), her father Zatara resurfaces, and shows Zatanna who Adam really is, turning him into a type of demon, a representation of Adam's lust!

She runs away, and finds even more bizarre psychic landscapes, with seemingly no way out:

Zatanna then comes across the God-Head itself, as it begins to devour Adam's psyche. She flings herself into the God-Head, after getting a message from her father, saying to come find him. She does, and then the God-Head promptly spits her out!

Manhunter is furious with Zee, thinking she gave up trying to save Adam, but actually the opposite is true--while being one with the God-Head, she saw "the plan". She takes Adam's hand, and he wakes up!

They both start to talk that the God-Head wanted this to happen, wanted them to be bonded like this and take this trip together. After calming down a hysterical Pam, Zatanna and Adam depart, Zee nonchalantly resigning from the Justice League and maybe even Reality itself:

Later, Manhunter and Gypsy tell the rest of the team what has happened, none of them liking what they hear. But they don't have time to discuss it for long, since Firestorm suddenly arrives, needing their help!

Roll Call: Martian Manhunter, Elongated Man, Zatanna, Vixen, Steel, Vibe, Gypsy

Notable Moments: This story continues in Legends #1, and then dovetails back here, for the next issue of JLA.

At some point, not sure when, but I guess Batman resigned from the League, since he makes no more appearances in the book after #254.

The end to the Zatanna story is weird and abrupt, and certainly partly dictated by DC's plans for the League. But its weird in a sort of compelling way--you don't know what the hell Zee is talking about, which gives the thing a loose end, which isn't always a bad thing.