Should Superman be weak to magic

[Lorendiac]

Yes, that sounds about right.

Of course... in theory...sword users only chance should be to make first strike against Superman a lethal one.., strike hard before Superman knows its a magic sword. Once he knows it can hurt him...Superman just uses super speed to avoid being hit, or just flies out of reach and uses breath or vision powers to win.

Mind you...how many fights should Superman win by using his super speed to avoid being hit at all? Vast majority... but we all like a few dozen panels of an all out brawl rather than than "logical" use of known powers.

I have said much the same thing in the past -- going back to when I was just a kid starting to collect comic books and thinking that Superman's use of super-speed was awfully inconsistent -- but I eventually got tired of beating my head against a brick wall that way when nothing was going to change.

[mathew101281]

Superman isn't a creature of magic. Their is no reason for him to have any invulnerability against it. As far as I'm concerned the only defenses against magic that should exit in the DCU are magical items (wonder woman's bracelets or Alan Scott's power ring) or innate magical ability. Shazam and other characters who gain their invulnerability specifically from magic should have more natural defenses against it.

I've always felt that DC's magical side was more developed then Marvels and Marvel's cosmic scifi side was more developed then DC's.

[Johnny Thunders!]

Yes but he should never be helpless or without tools.

[jimmy]

Well, this raises questions of just what we mean by "science" in the first place.

I mentioned the example of gunpowder earlier. My point was that any person of normal intelligence is capable of memorizing the formula for black powder, and then mixing up a barrel of it on his own time from the basic ingredients of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal, if he knows exactly what he's doing. And after he's prepared the stuff, he can use it in an old-fashioned musket, or set a fuse and arrange for the entire barrel to blow up at once in order to clear some pesky rocks out of his way, or whatever it is he feels like doing. The relevant laws of chemistry and physics work the same way for everybody!

On the other hand, imagine a world where the only way to make "gunpowder" was to cast a magic spell. It involved taking a barrelful of an inert substance (or mixture of substances) and chanting a spell over it while making certain ritual gestures. And suppose it was established that there were only about a thousand people in the known world who could actually do this and end up with a load of gunpowder as a result! Everyone else could mimic the exact words and the exact gestures, but absolutely nothing would happen to the contents of the barrel, because the gods (or whatever cosmic forces were running things) simply did not see fit to give most mortals the mystical ability to transmute raw materials into gunpowder. To me, that would be a sharp example of the difference between "magic" and "science." Science is supposed to work by consistent rules for anyone who tries to duplicate a certain process and gets each step exactly right; magic is far more arbitrary and won't work for most people no matter how cleverly and diligently they try!

P.S. On the other hand, a classic SF novel, Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen (by H. Beam Piper) had the hero -- a Pennysylvania State Trooper -- suddenly end up in a parallel world (medieval technology was as far as they'd gotten) where a certain secretive "priesthood" basically claimed that my second scenario was correct -- "only those of us who have been blessed with divine authority can create the magical substance known as gunpowder, and we charge an arm and a leg for it!" But of course the hero was able to share, with his new friends in a local castle, the revelation that the first scenario was actually correct: It was all just a matter of knowing the secret ingredients and the correct process to use, and once you knew how, anyone could whip up a nice big batch of fresh gunpowder! (He naturally was denounced by the relevant priesthood as a dangerous heretic who must have sold his soul to a demon in order to gain a new magic spell which would allow him to appear to replicate the Sacred Process of Making Gunpowder.) But the way I look at it -- if he had suddenly discovered that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make "real gunpowder," but the local priests could, then that would have proved that he had now entered a world where "science" didn't work the way it was supposed to, and "magic" was going strong!

Consistent rules - Yes, to a certain point, as the devil is in the details - Science law(s) can seem to be quasi-stable and subject to change, once certain conditions are met -
- However, it really is our limited understanding of how this law works, that really lends itself to change more than anything since we define” the law(s)” by “Earth civilization standards” which is limited to begin with and, primitive to let say, compared to races of beings who have been around the cosmos, far longer.

"The more you know the more you don’t." and that is true of science!

Welcome to the world of Metaphysics. Going beyond nature as we perceive it, and to discover the "true essence" of things.