How Should Magic Be Depicted In The DCU?

[Agent Z]

How do you think magic should be depicted in the DCU? For example, Should it have limits to what it can do or no limits at all? Can anyone use it or only certain types of people? Can it's effects be replicated by science?

[JBatmanFan05]

It should have little or no editorial or in-story rules, I know I firmly think that. And no one clear explanation either (so no, not ALL it's effects can be replicated by science). I don't think it needs any firm limits, but only certain types of people can use it...which people?...I don't know, not too too many recurring characters though (such that the DCU feels disproportionately magical). But you have to allow for one issue/one arc villains or heroes to be able to use it. Say if Batman fights like a shaman or voodoo priest or etc who dies at the end of the story (or you never see the character again), you can't have rules saying no supernatural magical powers because only Zatanna or the Wizard Shazam and [insert 10 other characters] can use it.


All in all, whenever these thread topics come up, the answer for me is always: No firm anything, just better editorial supervision....so if Dick Grayson is suddenly gonna be a wizard for 5 years in the Nightwing title...do we really need to have that angle?...probably not, so the editors should say, sorry Paul Dini, we know you love Zatanna and magic, but too much magic there for a character not really about magic. My hypotheticals are silly, but kinda illustrate my approach of allowing a lot, but not allowing everything under the sun with magic.

In a more realistic hypothetical, not every Superman villain should be able to just bust out magic on Superman so the writer looks like he created this cool new ultimate threat to Superman. Yes, magic should always be a Superman weakness, but we shouldn't always see him crippled by it. Same with Kryptonite though and that's not magic related. No superhero weaknesses should be overused (if anything should be a firm limit, this is one, because it's very general and vague...what is overuse? You know it when you see it or enough people complain.).

[MadFacedKid]

Depends on the character.

I think Zatanna would be more reality warping with "backword words" while someone like Fate would be a legit spellcaster.

[Zero Hunter]

I think it should be more wild and hard to control. With the way reality has been messed with over and over magic should be more and more unstable and unpredictable. In the old days you had the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos to keep an eye on things like that, but until DC decides to bring that concept back magic should be a very dangerous thing only used by extremely skilled wizards and witches. Even being skilled it should still be shown that it can even get out of their control sometimes.

[JackDaw]

I think it should be more wild and hard to control. With the way reality has been messed with over and over magic should be more and more unstable and unpredictable. In the old days you had the Lords of Order and the Lords of Chaos to keep an eye on things like that, but until DC decides to bring that concept back magic should be a very dangerous thing only used by extremely skilled wizards and witches. Even being skilled it should still be shown that it can even get out of their control sometimes.

Yes, using magic should have some costs and consequences.

But...I'd make exactly same comments in regard to DC's "science" based heroes such as GL, Flash, Superman, Atom, etc.

DCU in general is pretty weak in terms of assigning any limits, consequences, or weaknesses to power set of any of its main characters.

[Lee Stone]

The less 'pew pew' the better.

I prefer magic that can 90% of the time be mistaken as 'coincidence' by non-magic users and isn't always instant.

[Jon Clark]

It should be varied. The type of thing where everytime someone has come up with a catch-all explanation we soon see an exception.

So Zatanna and Zatara are part of a limited clique where either backwards spells work for you or they don't. They might be able to teach you to speak backwards but it won't usually let you do what they do.

Doctor Fate is a centuries old repository of knowledge. He can do amazing things because he has spent most of history learning how. Now without the helm most people can't draw on the type of power levels he uses, but he could teach almost anyone to do what he does if he had the time.

The Spectre is magic. No spells. No artifacts. Just pure power. Can't teach it. can't be born into it. It just is what it is.

And so on. Each magic user can either be simiar to one of these three types or have parameters of their own. Some magic has rules. Some doesn't. and some even has rules that apply sometimes and not others. Fate's magic is identical; to Zatanna's ... except when it isn't. And The Demon on his best day can't compose a rhyme that does exactly the same things Mxyzptlk does even if the end results look identical. Terrence Thirteen can be perfectly isolated from the effects of magic and able to glibly explain anything away but Jimmy Olsen can be just as convinced that magic isn't real and it can still work on him anyway.

[Outside_85]

Technically magic should be able to do anything, but it is the individual characters that makes what magic is for them, like:

Shazam: almost only uses magic to beef up his physical attributes... making it his 'yellow sun'
Dr. Fate/Zatanna: can employ magic to create fantastical effects ranging from simple conjuring to warping the fabric of reality... but they are of different schools about how they do it.
Raven: is basically a psionic but her powers are fueled by magic

Magic, as I see it, is a kind of art that anyone can pick up and study, but it helps alot if you have somekind of magical spark within you. As such, any old human can pick up a spellbook, read an incantation and get the effect if done correctly, but only someone with the spark can 'make their own', like Zatanna's backwards casting. Like this is the heart of the difference between someone like Zatanna and someone like Constantine, John has learned the craft through trial and error and practice, Zatanna had flair and talent for it.

And then we move over to the magical creatures... basically I think demons, angels and gods are part of the magical fauna, and also draw their power from this realm, as do many of the supernatural phenomenon.

Magical items should do what they say on the tin, moreso than any mundane would... like a magical blade thats said to be able to cut through anything, will actually do so unless faced with greater magics that can stop it. And to top it off, magical items should be for everyone... but lets say magicians are more often aware of what the item is really capable of and are aware of any traps and such.

Technology should, at a very advanced stage be able to replicate the effects of most forms of magic, but it shouldn't be easy or appear 'elegant'... plus it should be something dangerous, 'meddling with forces beyond your comprehension', like TO Morrow breaking a hole into another dimension only to have something like Etrigan or Trigon come out the other way. Likewise, magical items shouldn't be easy to replicate through technology.

[Adekis]

I have to admit I'd kind of like some hard-and-fast rules. Certain "Schools" of Magic work certain ways, other schools work other ways, but it'd be nice if each school was internally consistent at all times. As it is, I feel like each and every magic user has no limits. Zatanna can just say "dieskrad llik flesruoy!" (or execute similar absurdly powerful whims) and solve like half the DCU's problems, except when she can't, for arbitrarily defined reasons. Instead, there should be a definite limit to what she can and cannot do. And each spellcaster in the DCU should have their powers well-defined that way. Billy Batson only knows one spell, Zatanna knows a limited but increasing number of very powerful spells and several useful lesser ones, John Constantine knows an arbitrarily large number of spells, but nothing too powerful- even Doctor Fate needs rule- in fact as a Lord of Order, he probably needs rules more than the others! And everything needs a specific casting method.

And while I can buy things like Zatanna's power coming from genetics so most of her spell don't work for others, magical items should be able to work for anyone. No "only if you believe in it" nonsense.

I suppose this is just my inner D&D nerd coming out to play with all the hard and Munchkin-able rules, but darn it I get so tired of everyone being arbitrarily powerful.

We can probably let 5-D imps and the Spectre get away with nigh-omnipotence though.

[Outside_85]

I have to admit I'd kind of like some hard-and-fast rules. Certain "Schools" of Magic work certain ways, other schools work other ways, but it'd be nice if each school was internally consistent at all times. As it is, I feel like each and every magic user has no limits. Zatanna can just say "dieskrad llik flesruoy!" (or execute similar absurdly powerful whims) and solve like half the DCU's problems, except when she can't, for arbitrarily defined reasons. Instead, there should be a definite limit to what she can and cannot do. And each spellcaster in the DCU should have their powers well-defined that way. Billy Batson only knows one spell, Zatanna knows a limited but increasing number of very powerful spells and several useful lesser ones, John Constantine knows an arbitrarily large number of spells, but nothing too powerful- even Doctor Fate needs rule- in fact as a Lord of Order, he probably needs rules more than the others! And everything needs a specific casting method.

And while I can buy things like Zatanna's power coming from genetics so most of her spell don't work for others, magical items should be able to work for anyone. No "only if you believe in it" nonsense.

I suppose this is just my inner D&D nerd coming out to play with all the hard and Munchkin-able rules, but darn it I get so tired of everyone being arbitrarily powerful.

We can probably let 5-D imps and the Spectre get away with nigh-omnipotence though.

I have to admit that I am against this kinda thing entering comics, becuase they are mired in (as you say) game systems that needs to balance these kind of things simply for the purpose of being fair... but at the same time I always felt very weird as a Warhammer player that was featuring some godlike magicians like Nagash on the table or sorcerer demons, who in lore are described as mind-bogglingly powerful... but once on the table they had like 4-6 spells to work with and most often were limited to a single type that very often only did one thing well. It's fair enough that games keep everything fair for everyone... especially when it comes to mages and magical items (I remember the day when Warhammer was so unbalanced it was known as Characterhammer and a single dude on a monster could wipe out entire armies on his own), but I am against putting these kinds of limits on story telling especially when characters often have in-built limits on what they can do.

Like Zatanna can only cast spells/effects that she can actually articulate properly, which means that very often she ends up gagged or otherwise silenced by the badguy. The Spectre has his inbuilt human limitations along with the rules set for it. Raven limits herself simply out of fear of turning evil. And Madam Xanadu seems to have settled with simply reading the future.

[TRS80]

See Macguffin

[mathew101281]

Any fantasy writer would tell you that magic should have rules, otherwise wizards become to inconsistent to be interesting.

I feel magic should be broken up into classes just like super strength.

a. cosmic level: These are the supernatural equivalents to the Anti-monitor and other massive treats. These are the kind that literally are threats to the universe.
b. god tier: Mordu is the prime example of this class. It should take a team of heroes to take him out.
c. Upper tier: These are really good but still human magic users like Zatanna or a standard Dr. Fate.

etc.
What separates the classes should be the area that their powers can effect. Cosmics, like their name implies can influence matter on a galactic scale.
god tier characters can reek havoc over a planet. And upper tier have a much more localized sphere of influence. Then you have lesser magic users which have magics that are limited in someway like being tied exclusively to a particular object, or type of magic.

[Outside_85]

Any fantasy writer would tell you that magic should have rules, otherwise wizards become to inconsistent to be interesting.

And we could just look at Tolkien and see that perception disproved... like Gandalf was a wizard, but only rarely used the fact that he had an enormous amount of power at his disposal.

[Agent Z]

And we could just look at Tolkien and see that perception disproved... like Gandalf was a wizard, but only rarely used the fact that he had an enormous amount of power at his disposal.

Doesn't that type of thing tend to get a lot of criticism?

[Outside_85]

Doesn't that type of thing tend to get a lot of criticism?

You mean 'willful restraint of power'? I suppose it could if the reasoning behind it isn't solid... in Gandalfs case he didn't use it because it was basically not his place to solve people's problems for them, he was there to guide them along to the goal, nothing more.

But then again, keeping ones powers in check, is something characters do universally regardless of the source of their powers. Like Superman holds back all the time, so does Batman, Wonder Woman and so on.

If you mean: 'operating without rules or boundaries'... thats kinda being done by most characters with some super-power, like have you ever seen a case of Superman being unable to lift something? Or that many of these superstrong characters often break the laws of physics when lifting something big and heavy like a ship, before some bright spark decides that they now suddenly project somekind of aura that support the whole thing.