How Should Magic Be Depicted In The DCU?

[Agent Z]

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.

I think people tend to prefer characters with limits to their abilities rather than ones who will fully hold back. The former is considered more relatable. That might be why there's always a call for magic to have limits and rules. For some it's easier to immerse themselves in a world with limits.

[Outside_85]

I think people tend to prefer characters with limits to their abilities rather than ones who will fully hold back. The former is considered more relatable. That might be why there's always a call for magic to have limits and rules. For some it's easier to immerse themselves in a world with limits.

That might be, but for me personally, I kinda like the idea that especially the heroes are always holding back. Not just because it leaves more room for characters to grow, but also because you can have those 'balls to the walls' moments when a hero really unloads on someone richly deserving of a spanking, like when Superman delivered his 'world made of cardbord' speech to Darkseid in the JLU finale or when Raven finally broke free of Brother Blood's control and pretty much curb stomped him.

[John Venus]

Like a form of energy within the user and around the universe which they can tap into for spells. The bigger the spell, the greater the magical energy required to finish the spells and also bigger spells comes with bigger consequences and more rituals and tools required for it. So no casual time travel or reality warping unless it's a God like being. Magic should be just vague enough that writers can do whatever they want but still defined enough that the readers can guess what the readers can or cannot do.

The more powerful the magician, the more casually they can create spells. Zee could levitate objects without reciting spells whilst it would take more effort for a rookie like Traci 13 to do the same.

Also, each magician should have their own specialized style and tricks. For example, Zatanna is good at slight-of-hand tricks, escape arts, bargaining and has a good balance of magic and non-magic-magic skill. She acts as the go-to-person for any magical problems that any Muggles or superheroes face and is the most approachable Homo-Magi. She deals with everything from fake magical psychics and people who use magic to swindle others to city level threats like the Wizard and Abra Kadabra to world level JL threats like Queen of Fables, Felix Faust, Klarion, Circe and Enchantress. She should be the type of magician who thinks their way out of problems. Be it using Palindromes to counter a sentence reversing whip in her ongoing or perhaps even bargaining with Faust for the release of two innocent souls.

Dr. Fate is more akin to DC's Dr. Strange. Traveling between dimensions, well versed in the ancient knowledge and arcane magic but also grappling between being his real human self and the Nabu infused helmet that bestows ancient knowledge upon him but also controls his mind and personality to an extent. Inza should be a magician as well as his most trusted aide and tether to humanity. Aside from Inza and the JSA, Dr. Fate lives largely secluded from humanity with many believing him to be a myth but he is feared among the denizens of the magical world. He frequently spends his time dealing with magical threats like Neron, Morganne Le Faye, Modru, Trigon and other similarly powerful threats. He is generally more 'punchy' in his approach to dealing with threats and has a no nonsense attitude towards his job. Dr. Fate should also be dealing with themes of order and chaos so his powers, mindset and approach to problems should have those themes as well as questioning whether order is always good or if chaos is always bad.

The Spectre should be God like powerful and pure unadulterated spirit of vengeance doling horrific punishment to criminals but he also needs to fit within a shared universe. Much like Fate, Spectre should also be split between the sensitive Catholic cop who was brutally murdered and the vengeful spirit that follows God's command to punish criminals. Whilst Fate is more of a pulp superhero, the Spectre should be straight up horror. He should also be the guy who protects the Multiverse from even greater threats than what Dr. Fate or Zatanna faces from Eldtrich horrors that lies at the edge of the Multiverse whose tendrils are light years long to fighting arch angels that are bigger than worlds to giving the devil the middle finger. His 'bigger picture' approach and traveling through the Multiverse means that us humans have become like ants to him so he may not be able to get involved in human affairs as much as before. I will have it so that that one point he cut a deal with the JSA to not get too involved in human affairs so humanity can become better through their own choice. Substituting mercy and compassion over vengeance. Taking inspiration from Alucard, the Spectre's powers should be locked down to different levels and he can only access them by asking permission from the Presence who just might fuck him over by not granting him that permission. The more levels he is able to access, the more powerful he becomes.

Wonder Woman should also be counted among the magical pantheon and she deals with the Greek Gods, more specifically Athena and Aphrodite whilst the Atlanteans worship Posiedon. Captain Marvel deals with the Roman Gods and somebody is going to have to bullshit up an explanation for that because I am all out of ideas. Swamp Thing deals with the Green and plant related magical world. Raven, Obsidian, Shade and Nightshade should be dealing with shadow magic which should be it's own can of worms. Traci 13 should deal with the low key urban supernatural stories that appeals to the YA crowd. I am not sure how to fit Etrigan into this because he's yet another character who is torn into two identities and dealing with horror monsters.

...............well this got long and yeah, I think about this shit a lot.

[MajorHoy]

With squiggly lines.

[Incognito]

I think there should be different classes and types of Magic. I always thought that magic is a force where it exists everywhere (people, objects, environment, etc.) or magical energy is connected to your soul or whatever (every magic has a price). To me, magick is more of a skill set than a power.

Zatanna is pretty much the most well known and powerful homo magi of the superhero community. She is one of the Justice League's resident magic user, she could deal with any problem from street levels to world-level threats. Homo Magi are born with the genetic ability to use magic (their base magic power is usually from their lineage - Zatanna's father use linguistic magic), the more experienced they are the most powerful they become but having more magick could corrupt them. Just like what John Venus said, Traci 13 deals with urban-level supernatural stories because she's a street-level magic user. Constantine is not a homo magi but he learn magick through decades of experiences which makes him very powerful to fight demons from low-tier to possibly higher-tier demons.

Well this one is from my head canon from the 'Personal Headcanon' thread, Nabu is a very powerful sorcerer and delivers a whole encyclopaedia of magic but the host needs to practice and hone his skills of magicks. Dr. Fate pretty much has his own base of operation because he's not really close to mortal humans, and he needs the Tower of Fate so the host could practice his skills. The Tower of Fate contains a lot of magical items and the corridors is similar to M.C. Esher's Relativity. Magic in the Tower Fate to me should be a bit more surreal to the human eye. Dr Fate only appears to help the JL only for bigger magical threats.

Shazam should be about gods and the rock of eternity. I once had this idea that Shazam's lightning could transport him into the realm of the gods and could get his powers from any god but he only gets a portion out of it.

Phantom Stranger and Spectre should be celestial, above all the magical heroes. Spectre is pretty much a powerful force that even deals with street-level thugs just to haunt them to celestial-level villains.

Wonder Woman and Aquaman as well as the Amazons and Atlanteans worships the greek gods (Greek Goddess for the Amazons) and Poseidon (for the Atlanteans). Poseidon looks like a big sea creatures it's because he has the ability to change his appearance to mortals or all Gods and Goddess from different pantheons look like that because we perceive them that way. Wonder Woman and Aqualad wasn't born with an affinity of magick but instead use magical weapons forged by the Gods instead (i.e. WW's lasso and Aquaman's trident).

Raven is more of a psionic (empathy, telekinesis, telepathy) but could be considered magical in nature because of her father Trigon, she does have many demonic abilities such as the ability to manipulate hellfire and summoning demons also she should be connected to the emotional plane of existence so she could sense all emotions and help out who really needs it psychologically, I once had this theory/headcanon that her magick is actually apprentice-level and that's why she rarely do magick. Etrigan is a full demon he deals with demonic threats on Earth by swapping his host Jason Blood to enter the earthly plane, just like any other higher demons or devils he can make deals with mortal and imprint their souls.

Animal Man and Swamp Thing are both supernaturals and more akin to nature they are primordial energies everything is connected like the Force. The Red and Green exists practically everywhere from planets to planes of existence, Animal Conduits such as Animal Man, Beast Boy and Vixen are connected to the morphogenetic field of existence which allows them to tap into animals, for example, if Beast Boy was in Hell and he transforms into a cerebus he's tapping into the morphogenetic field of Hell and gain a new arsenal of creatures in his new downloaded power set. If Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy travelled to Gemworld and they have the ability to control magical vines then they are tapping into the morphogenetic field of Gemworld.

[DiceRoll]

Functional with a set structure of rules and restrictions and various "schools"/styles of application. If I had to make tiers, it'd be something like this:

Magic: As in their very existence is magic. This is where you'd find the likes of Spectre, Shazam (the Wizard), YJ's depiction of Nabu/Dr. Fate and Klarion.
Magician: Homo Magi. People born with a natural affinity for the magical forces around them and are able to manipulate these forces to cast magic.
Magic Users: While they cannot cast spells or channel magic through themselves, they are able to harness the powers of magical items/artifacts to replicate the feats of Mages.
And finally, Muggles, for lack of a better word: People who cannot channel or harness magical power/energy in any way.

[Dataweaver]

Zatanna's magic should be more involved than just “speak backwards” — otherwise, she could just say things like “ecaep dlrow tuoba gnirb” or “stnatum erom on”. Perhaps vaguely-worded spells tend to twist in unexpected and undesirable ways; maybe her spells require mental effort and/or some sort of thaumic energy consumption, so that if she attempts anything too big the spell fails and she burns out. The backward incantations should be necessary for her magic to work; but they should not be sufficient.

[Lee Stone]

If magic is too defined or limited it becomes science.

[Agent Z]

For the Amazons, here's my idea for how magic plays a part. Copied and pasted from another thread

New ideas for Amazons classes. All powers spring from the Amazons utilizing magic and mystical energies provided by the island

Soldiers - Super strength and speed rivaling that of Kryptonians.

Casters - Ranged spells and healing. Glass cannons.

Hunters and Scouts - Enhanced senses with some speed and strength and teleportation

Assassins - Shadow magic. Focused on stealth and speed.

Engineers and Metalurgists - Technopathy and metal control.

With the Atlantians, I'd just have their ability to control water be magical in nature like the Young Justice cartoon.

[Agent Z]

Also, should aliens have magic it should it solely be an Earth concept?

[mathew101281]

Also, should aliens have magic it should it solely be an Earth concept?

Of course aliens should have magic. In fact in the Legion their is a whole world full of them. I'm trying to think why they wouldn't.

[JBatmanFan05]

If magic is too defined or limited it becomes science.

Exactly, and it's not supposed to be that way or feel that way.

[JackDaw]

If magic is too defined or limited it becomes science.

I can see that.

But I suspect I'm not the only one that wants to see at least some semi-valid reason why the really strong magic users are "restricted".

Let me give an example. If Zattana is shown in one story de-powering an entire planet of Kryptonians...and it doesn't age her, damage, strain her or directly harm something or somebody else...then any frequent reader of comics with Zattana in is left baffled when she struggles later on to do far less impressive stuff.

If you're going to have a shared universe...then it's that sort of consistency that's far more important for me than detailed chronological continuity.

[AJpyro]

At least one or two examples of Magic should be the psychedelic WTf mind trip.

[Inhuman X]

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?

I think in the end we are best off leaving magic ill defined and a tool best left in the hands of a trusted writer rather than seeking to hand cuff them with rules. It's their job to provide us with a cool story. Leave it at that.

Comic books simply aren't games. In this day and age companies like Green Ronin that produce roleplaying games for the table top have made the simulation of superhero powers by means of rules allowing one to game out a battle on the table or define what character X can do into a science. As fun as it is, an actual book shouldn't read like a game being played out. Games spend a lot of time on the idea of keeping balance and everything in check for players to compete or tell a fun story as a group.

It is the job of a writer to explore how ideas change things and reveal it as an idea in print rather than create sport like competition for play.