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aboutzatanna · 2 years ago

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The Rules of Magic

One of the most frequently asked questions about Zatanna is how does her magic work? Can she really do anything by speaking backwards?

Well there has been a few rules established about magic but they are disparate and spread out so I will try to coalesce all of them into a singular post. If I missed anything let me know. Also this post isn’t going to be listicle on magic I’m also going to add my own suggestions for how magic works in the DCU in order to fill in some of the blanks.

Anyway, if I missed something or got something or you have your own suggestions let me know in the comments or through a PM.

First, lets establish some ground rules:

Magic began around the same time as the creation of the universe itself. When the Big Bang happened it also released magical energy into the universe as well.

There are characters who are born with magical power, characters who are born with specific magical abilities, characters who get their powers from magical items or they have been physically altered by a magical item, potion or magical being. There are multiple magical civilizations in the DCU: Atlantis, Themysicra, the Hidden City, Skartaris, Gemworld, the Land of Nighshades, the village that Ice/Tora Olafsdotter hails from and countless others.

There are equals, opposites and in-betweens when it comes to cosmic entities. The opposite of order is chaos, the opposite of creation is the Great Darkness seen in Swamp Thing (which in itself was a small piece of a much larger being), the opposite of Hecate is the Otherkind, then you have beings like Dr Fate whom in some incarnations is either an agent of Order, a Lord of Order or in some versions an arbitrator between order and chaos. It really comes down to whoever is wearing the helmet. Then you have individual characters who act as opposites; famously Abel and Cain then you have Phantom Stranger and Spectre, Etrigan and Zauriel, Spectre and Eclipso, Phantom Stranger and Madame Xanadu, etc.

Where DC differs from Marvel primarily when it comes to magic is that in Marvel it’s a learned ability whereas in DC it’s usually an ability you are born with. Now, this a very simplified way of putting it since Marvel has characters who are born with magical power (usually as part of their mutant powers) like Scarlet Witch and Magik and DC has characters who are normal humans who learned magic like Kent Nelson, Inza Cramer and Jared Stevens. When Strange casts spells he is invoking the name of an inter dimensional being which in turn allows them more influence into his dimension, it’s usually Vishanti but even Dormammu’s dark dimension is a place he’s sometimes drawn from as well but Strange can’t rely on one inter dimensional entity too much or they might endanger his realm. Hence why there are Dr Strange arcs where he has to make a faustian bargain with a powerful magical entity for more power because their power and longevity means they can create spells that no human can ever figure out within their life times.

At DC too, other dimensional entities often play a role in granting power to individuals. One area where both Marvel and DC overlap are the ancient gods having their representatives or champions on earth. Marvel has Moon Knight as the current most famous example. DC has Diana who was Athena and Artemis champions in the Perez era, Dr Fate is the host of Nabu and his representative, Spectre is the champion of the Presence/God himself, Captain Marvel/Billy Batson is the wizard Nabu’s champion and the Merlin has his own champion in the form Jason Blood/Etrigan the Demon.

Now, lets look at how DC has classified their magical characters:

This was made by James Tynion IV for DC Nation #4 and I’m glad somebody at DC tried their hand in trying to consolidate the various magical characters into a cohesive system.

But if you turn this into columns in a table in a database and try to slot in characters you’ll probably be bonked on the head by your supervisor and told to eliminate redundancies. Why do Sorcerer and Magician have to be separate? Why do Guardian and Champion have to be separate? Or Archmage and Judge? Where do characters like Raven, Amethyst, Blue Devil, Enchantress, Vixen, Fire (Pre Crisis), Ice (Pre Winnick) and others fit in?

So here is my attempt at a more streamlined version in which I simplify this into 5 categories:

-The Enchanted:

This category denotes characters who have no innate magical abilities but gained them via potions, magical item or by being cursed by a magical being.

To be an Enchanted one you would have to have no innate magical power of your own prior to contact with a magical item (be it potion, magical items) and even if you have altered by a magical being, you’re still free to live your life the way you want to.

Characters who fall into this category include:

-Jim Rook/Nightmaster who was a rockstar whose power comes from a magic sword he found at an antique shop.

-Detective Chimp who became intelligent after drinking from the fountain of youth.

-Blue Devil aka Daniel Cassidy who was a Hollywood stuntman cursed to look like a demon. The same applies to his side kick Kid Devil/Eddie Bloomberg.

-Vixen/Marie Jiwe McCabe whose power comes from the magic totem passed down to her by her ancestors.

-Sargon the Sorcerer, if he possesses no magical power without his ruby then he falls into this category as well.

-If the Gingold that Ralph Dibny drank that gave him magical powers was of magical origin then he would count too.

-Alan Scott would count too since he was a normal human, altered by the magical Starheart and later became an immortal green energy being and he ended up passing down those genes to Jade.

-Max Mercury also falls into this category as he was a normal human granted his speed powers by a Shaman.

-Vandal Savage is harder to classify since the origin of his meteor has never been clarified and is constantly revised.

-Ras and his Lazarus pits would count since the pits were always described as mystical in nature.

- Bloodwynd whose power comes from the mystic Blood Gem created by African American slaves.

-The JSA villain Ian Karkull who uses technology to harness the powers of the dark dimension would also count. Although he is an odd case of using technology to access magic.

-Vampires, ghosts and werewolves count as well if they were once normal humans who were transformed into supernatural beings by other supernatural beings.

Basically, magic is energy and that energy can imbued into any object either by a powerful sorcerer or entity or the object was exposed to ambient magical energy in it’s environment.

If somebody was changed through exposure to a magical object or being then they are an enchanted.

Characters who have no innate power but rely on magical books and artifacts in order to cast spells would also fall into this category.

-Homo Magi:

These are normal humans who possess the ability to manipulate magical energy both within their bodies and ambient magical energy within their environment to cast them spells.

There are two categories of Homo Magi:

Type 1 Homo Magi:

This category includes characters like Zatanna, John Zatara, Madame Xanadu, Dr Mist, Merlin, Arion, Traci 13, Manitou Raven, Nabu, they are characters who manipulate magical energy in it’s purest form and the energy is formed within their bodies. They can use this power to manipulate elements (earth, wind, fire, thunder), teleport, transmute objects, predict the future, create illusions and cast spells or curses. There are many different ‘subjects’ of magic so it’s not unlikely for someone to be good at one thing but bad at others. Zatanna has historically been terrible at seeing the future whereas Xanadu excels at it thanks to centuries of experience but she doesn’t do the flashy stuff that Zatanna usually does mostly due to the wizard Merlin blocking her powers centuries ago.

Most Homo Magi need a ‘key’ to access their abilities. It’s not required but it’s easier if they do. Every magi group have their own ‘key’. For the Zatara’s, it’s their backward speech but most it’s hand movements or any incantations. Hence why Zatanna can still cast magic even without her backwards, it’s the difference between using a screw driver to screw something and doing it with just your hand. It is usually a mark of experience, power and control for someone to cast spells without their ‘key’. Top level magicians like Nabu and Merlin can cast spells with very little movement and sometimes with just a thought.

The bigger the spell the greater the magical energy is required. Stuff like time travel, traveling from one universe to another or one dimension to another, reality warping, creating life from thin air is beyond the ken of normal Homo Magi. That kind of feat would require a huge amount of magical energy as well as magical knowledge which can only be attained through centuries of knowledge or it can be done through a power magical artifact or by bargaining with a cosmic entity. A sufficiently good illusionist can always fake reality warping and time travel.

Think of Homo Magi as living batteries of magical power. They run out of magic power the more they use it. Prolonged magical use, much like any physical activity leads to exhaustion and hunger and they have to wait a couple of hours or days to recharge. Younger mages like Traci 13 and Zachary would have a smaller pool of innate magical energy to draw from while experienced ones like Zatanna, Xanadu and Dr Mist would have larger pools to draw from. Magical energy grows through persistence and training.

Type 2 Homo Magi:

This category includes characters whose magical power manifests as a singular ability or one ability that can branch out into many. Like the Type 1 Homo Magi they’re born with innate magical power in their bodies but when they draw out their power it’s already manifest as something specific. And just like Type 1 Magi, prolonged use of their abilities leads to exhaustion and fatigue and they still have to train to be able to do more with their abilities.

Fire/Beatriz Da Cotza (in her Pre Cisis) and her green flames is one example. So is Ice/Tora Olafsdotter and her ice powers, Aquaman’s ability to communicate with marine life plus Mera and other Atlanteans water bending ability would fall into this category. Sometimes one ability can branch out into many like Nightshade/Eve Eden whose primary power is creating shadow portals but she has other abilities like controlling shadows and low level magic which also stems from her shadow powers and connection to the shadow realm. You can also slot in Rose Canton, Alan Scott’s wife, and their off spring Todd and Jade as well. Jade inherited Alan’s altered human genes making her an Enchanted while Todd inherited his mothers Homo Magi genes but developed a connection to the darkness instead of plants (maybe ��he has an ancestor who had that power). You can also slot in characters like Johnny Quick and Jesse Quick into this category as it explains why they need a password for their powers to activate their powers while other speedsters don’t.

As established in JLA #165, if a Homo Magi had a child with a normal human, then that child would have only half their power and if that child breeds with another human, then the resulting child would have even less power. Hence why most of magical characters segregated themselves from humanity in order to preserve their power and species. Expanding on that it makes sense why those with similar powers decided to group together in single communities and explains why the DCU have so many hidden societies. This applies to both types of Homo Magi.

Most characters listed here are connected to hidden magical societies. Zatanna’s mom hails from the Hidden City. Raven is from Azarath. Amethyst is from Gemworld. Ice was originally from a hidden society of heroes with ice powers. Eve Eden is from the land of Nigthshades. Dr Mist comes from the ancient African city of Kor. Xanadu and Morgane Le Fay are form Avalon. And there are some like John Zatara and Beatriz Da Costa (Pre Crisis) who weren’t born in magical societies but still developed magical power likely because they had an ancestor who had magical powers.

I would slot in the wizard Shazam and Black Alice as Type 2 as well. I would interpret their abilities as being able to tap into and draw power from other magical beings and create a facsimile of it either for their own use or in the Wizard Shazam’s case, grant it to someone else like Billy Batson. This would mean the Wizard Shazam and Black Alice are very, very, distant relatives.

Obsidian, Shade, Nightshade, Shadow Thief and Ian Karkull are not related but they draw power from the same dark dimension. Either through their magical heritage, magical items or in the case of certain iterations of Shadow Thief and Karkull, using technology. Different keys to access the same power source.

Some characters like Eve Eden/Nightshade and Raven draw power from their dimension and these dimensions are ruled or threatened by powerful entities.

-The Entities:

These are the pantheons, the lords of order and chaos and other cosmic entities.

They are masses of magical energy that accumulated over time given life by human thought and imagination eventually becoming autonomous beings in their own right. They are our dreams and nightmares. Some of are so powerful that humans once worshiped them as Gods and they rule over different dimensions, others are so weak they can be exorcised when you stop believing in their power or existence.

Since they are Gods, they shouldn’t be so easy to kill, they are energy and energy can never be created nor destroyed just changed from one form to another. So even if you ‘kill’ a god, the energy that made them up will simply reform either into a different version of the old god or a new being entirely. If you happen to be standing to next to a ‘magical hotspot’ the magical energy could form into something resembling your worst fears or your best dream. Or if you died near there, a facsimile resembling you (like a ghost) could be created.

Trolls, orcs, goblins, dragons shouldn’t count as entities unless those being were specifically created using pure magical energy by a sorcerer or an entity. Otherwise, they are just beings who exist in other realms much like humans and animals do in ‘our’ realm or they are just beings living in hidden societies on earth.

It is possible for Homo Magi to attain god like power but because they started off as humans, they are still considered Homo Magi albeit very powerful ones. This is where characters like Nabu and the wizard Shazam would fit in. They’re powerful but they’re still not Entities.

Energy changes over time and the Gods exist in cycles, some exist in physical forms, others change their forms constantly and some don’t take on any forms but humans see them however their minds process their appearance. And because Gods exist in cycles, there are old gods and there are new gods, chiefly the ones from Apokolips and New Genesis who have a slightly different kind of existence as the Fourth World characters are melding of both magic and technology. As established in the Days of Vengeance story line, there are different ages of magic and the rules change slightly for each age but they overall stay the same. What would change over time would be the power and potency of magic. I would interpret the first age as when gods and mortals co existed due to both the human and god dimension overlapping and magical power flowing more freely into earthly realm. Then the second age when the two realms moved apart, the third age when they were the furthest apart and the fourth age when they began to intersect again and the fifth and current age being the just like the first age when the two dimensions became even more closely aligned.

There also exists Entities who exist not because of belief but because of the mere existence of the aspect of existence, they are Neil Gaiman’s Endless. Dream will exist so long as someone dreams and likewise Death will exist from the birth of the first being to the end of the universe. They are the highest level of beings. Higher than than Greek, Norse or Abrahamaic pantheons, all of whom, while still unbelievably powerful and representing an aspect of existence, still require followers to sustain their existence. Even if a human does not worship them, just knowing they exist or writer stories about them or name things after them is enough for them to sustain their existence. The Titans of Myth exist on a level higher than Zeus but below the Endless.

Most entities exist in other dimensions. Some can’t leave either because it would upset the cosmic balance since they are so powerful or because of a pact they made with other entities. If there is a dispute between various entities, the ones who settle such conflicts would be the Lords of Order and Chaos and their representatives. Their job is to act as arbitrators and keep the Entities in life and eliminate them if necessary.

What most entities want is to spread their power and influence sometimes at the expense of other entities while others want to maintain peace and balance while still looking after their followers. The entities know they have to maintain followers and representatives in order to preserve their existence. If they are forgotten, they lose their power and they die a true death (this does not apply to the Endless). Hence why many of them will outright life claiming credit for creation of life on earth or other similarly outrageous claims.

Because some entities are so powerful and because any all out conflict between them would result in annihilation of everything and because some of them can’t actually leave their realms without help or can’t directly interact with the mortal world, they often need a representative to carry out their will. Which brings us to:

-The Champions:

They are the representatives, the enforcers, the ones who carry out the wills of the various entities.

-Wonder Woman is the champion of Athena and Artemis.

-The Spectre is the champion of the Presence.

-Deadman is the champion of Rama Kushna.

-Jason Blood/Etrigan are the champion of Merlin.

-Billy Batson and the Marvel Family are the champions of the wizard Shazam.

-Swamp Thing who serves the Green (or at least when he serves them) counts as well.

-Raven can be interpreted as a Champion of Trigon but she rebelled against him.

-The Phantom Stranger is at times shown to be a servant of the Lords of Order. But other times he’s shown to be operating on his own will... or is he? You can never really tell with the Stranger and that’s how it should always be.

-Dr Fate is usually depicted as a servant of the Lords of Order. Although I do have an issue with order being depicted as inherently good while chaos is depicted as inherently bad. After all fascism is a kind of order albeit a tyrannical one while democracy is a form of controlled chaos. When order becomes stale or tyrannical then chaos is necessary to uproot them while order is necessary because too much chaos leads to injustice and prevents us from achieve a common goal. Personally, I like the suggestion made during the Eric and Linda Strauss era Dr Fate ongoing and in Gaiman’s Books of Magic and even during the exxtreeeeme 90′s era Jared Stevens Dr Fate book that order and chaos aren’t inherently bad and that Fate has both order and chaos in him and acts like more like an arbitrator between them. He has to choose whether order or chaos is necessary for each situation.

-Donna Troy's Titans Seed origin definitely counts as an example of being a champion.

Basically to be a champion you have to be empowered by a cosmic entity or a sorcerer on a similar level to serve as an agent who carries out the will of their benefactors. Some have more free reign like Deadman, Billy Batson and to an extent Diana while others like Phantom Stranger, Dr Fate and Spectre operate under much tighter rules.

By carrying out the will of the entity, the champions are (intentionally or not) maintaining the belief of the existence of said entities which prolongs their existence and allows them greater and greater influence over the mortal world.

Black Adam does not count as a champion since he only serves himself and acts 100% of his own will. He was a champion once with powers granted to him by the Wizard Shazam but because he was corrupted by them he was banished by the Wizard Shazam to the distant cosmos which he didn't return from until centuries later. So he is an ex champion but now one of the Enchanted.

-The Offspring:

They’re the children of Entities.

To count in this category, you have to be the child of an entity and another non entity being (human, troll, orc, alien, etc). If you’re a being created from nothing or clay brought to life like Diana or the Galatea from the myths then you don’t count. If you’re a descendant of a powerful sorcerer like Merlin, Nabu or Shazam and have inherited their power through the generation then you don’t count either.

-All the children Zeus sired with mortal women would count as this but not the ones he sired with other Goddesses. And just like in Greek mythology, a child of a God could be born perfectly normal (like many Greek heroic figures) with no supernatural powers beyond feeling a connection to the parent God or they are born as a full blown God themselves with their own powers.

-In the recent Truth & Justice #1 mini we learned that Vixen is a descendant of Anansi. He was her great, great, great, x1000 grandfather. Thus she shares a psychic connection to him and so she counts as an Offspring.

The more human like Offspring may not have flashy powers but they do share latent abilities from the entities which mostly manifests as a psychic connection to the Gods.

-Raven would count as well since she is the child of a human woman and a demonic father and all her powers stem from her demonic father.

-Lilith Clay from NTT is the daughter of the Theia of the Titans of Myth and a mortal man and that’s the origin of her vast psychic ability. If an Offspring gains powers, it’s usually not the exact same ones as their parents or ancestors. It can be something vastly different. None of the children of Ares has the same powers he does either. The same goes for the various children of gods in other mythologies as well.

Prior to the Nu52 continuity, Wonder Woman’s mother Hippolyta was revealed to be the daughter Ares during John Bryne’s run:

Source: Wonder Woman Vol 2 #136

And also during the Silver Age WW comics:

Source: Wonder Woman Vol 1 #183

But she has no special powers beyond the ones that the Goddesses granted her as well as power derived from various magical items.

Overlap

Yes, there are also overlaps in the way I categorized magic.

-Vixen/Marie Jiwe McCabe would count as both Enchanted and Offspring. Seeing as she is a descendant of Anansi and her power comes from her connection to the amulet.

-Raven would also fit into Champion and Offspring category. After all, she was born with her powers, Trigon has attempted to use her multiple times as his pawn and gateway to the mortal world and Trigon himself would count as an Entity.

-Alan Scott is an Enchanted who had offspring with the Homo Magi Type 2 (Rose Canton) resulting in Jade who inherited her fathers ability (which were a result of his genes being altered by the Starheart) which makes her an Enchanted. While Obsidian inherited his mother’s genes and her schizophrenia but his abilities are different from his mothers. This could be explained away as Rose having an ancestor who had shadow abilities.

-Now, I also slotted in Johnny and Jesse Quick as T2 Magi. This is my own interpretation of their power set. In the latter’s case, this would make Johnny's daughter Jesse Quick is both the child of a Homo Magi and a Meta human (her mother is Liberty Belle). Jesse and Johnny have only one power which is access to the speed force by reciting a formula (the key). Jesse has some of her mother abilities like super strength and enhanced durability and ability to access the Speed Force from her father. The Magi gene is non dominant so it’s rare for her to inherit it in the first place. Think of it as similar to how blood types are passed down. Since Jesse Quick married Rick Tyler (Hourman 2) who is a meta human, their kids would most likely be meta humans, although if they had more than one kid, it’s possible that one of them will have a less potent version of her Homo Magi abilities. Or may be it will show up in their grand kids or great grand kids at some point.

As we head down the rabbit hole of classification, things are bound to get more complex.

For example, all Atlanteans count as Enchanted since their ability to breath under water was granted to them by a powerful sorcerer and entities. Still, among them there are Homo Magi of both types as well as meta humans.

On Themyscira too, all the Amazons would count as Enchanted, since they were all women whose lives were cut short by violence, given a second chance on a Paradise Island with new bodies by the Greek Goddesses. Among them there would be Amazon Homo Magi of both types and possibly metas. This explains Amazon mages like Magala and the Hecate tribe seen in JLD.

Wonder Woman herself was the soul of a child that Hippolyta had during her mortal life, whose soul was preserved by the Goddesses and then reincarnated into the mortal world which would put her in the Enchanted category. Then she won the contest becoming a Champion and when she died, ascended to being the Goddess of Truth.

And if Diana counts as an Enchanted one because of her birth then so should Hector Hall; the son of the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl who were reincarnated ancient Egyptian. Hector was born without a soul, which made him a target of various magical beings, seemingly died and was later reborn as the 5th wearer of Dr Fate. He also had a romance with Lyta Hall (who was initially the daughter of Diana and Steve Trevor and later the daughter of a different hero) resulting in Daniel Hall who would go on to replace Dream of the Endless, thus ascending to an Entity.

Here is a rough Venn Diagram to represent these classifications in which I tried to fit in as many characters as possible:

Now lets look at things from a cosmic perspective:

Origin of Magic & GL

As established in the comics, the Big Bang also released magical energy into the universe.

I imagine not every part of the universe were bathed equally in magical energy, some parts more than others. I imagine the Maltusians (the race that the Guardians of the Universe) hails from had little to no magical energy affect. But sectors like Earth, Mars, the planet Despero hails from and Thanagar were more affected than others. Hence why there have been sorcerers and entities from those worlds. We know from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Martian Manhunters ongoing that there have been Martian Gods. There have also been a few mystical characters hailing from Krypton but I don’t think they were as common on Krypton as they are on Earth/Thanagar/Mars. Same goes for Rann, Tamaran and the Vega System (which Tamaran is located in).

We know from the comics that the Maltusian Krona attempted to look back in time, to before the Big Bang but the experiment went wrong resulting in the creation of the Multiverse as well as the Anti Matter world with the Anti-Monitor and his counterpart the Monitor. Krona is responsible for unleashing ‘evil’ into the universe hence the Maltusians became the Guardians of the Universe in order to rectify that mistake.

Now, ‘evil’ is an abstract concept so what if instead of ‘evil’, Krona accidentally unleashed excess magical energy into the universe? The excess magical energy combined with the imagination of sentient beings lead to the birth of various cosmic entities. One of the GLC’s oldest foes are after all the ‘Empire of Tears’ a race of demonic creatures imprisoned in Ysmault and also Nekron.

Now, the Monitor and Anti-Monitor wouldn’t count as magical beings even if the same incident gave rise to them. The Anti-Monitor was born, not from magical energy, but from anti-matter energy and to counter balance him, is the Monitor and logically his powers would stem from matter.

So in order to rectify this mistake, the Guardians created the Manhunters but they malfunctioned resulting in the genocide of Sector 666 and setting Atrocitus on the path to becoming the founder of the Red Lanterns. The Guardians chose to disband the Manhunters and in their place chose to empower the residents of the sectors with a tool powered by their will and imagination thus the creation of the GLC. The organization wasn’t created just to fight Entities but to allow each GL to protect their homeworlds from other invaders and threats.

So are the GLC magic?

Nope. The ring is pure technology. It’s tech so advanced that humans can’t even comprehend it yet.

Imagine if you and a Magi were trapped in a darkened tunnel and the Magi illuminated the tunnel by summon a palm sized ball of light but you used a flashlight. Same result but different ways to get there. In this analogy, the GL rin would be akin to the flashlight.

Furthermore, in the comics, it’s also established that the Starheart or the ‘Green Flame of Light’ was mystic energy of the universe that the Guardians couldn’t control so they balled it up and tried to hide or suppress it but a small piece of it ended up escaping, accumulating debris along the way, becoming a meteor and crash landed on earth in ancient China. There, it was fashioned to a lantern and later given to Kublai Khan as a gift who in turn gifted it to Marco Polo and centuries later ended up in the hands of Alan Scott who became the Golden Age GL of earth.

The Guardians created their own power source comprised of their own mental energy which became the Central Battery which the GLC draws power from to this day but it’s likely they took inspiration from the Green Flame of Light to do so.

The current volume of Green Lantern, ‘Green Lantern Vol 6 (2021)’ introduced a race of magical beings who worshiped the Starheart and hates the Guardians for taking away the ‘magix’ of the universe.

So.....to summarize everything I’ve written thus far:

-The Big Bang released magical energy into the universe. Some parts of the universe were more affected by this energy than others. This magical energy mixed with the imagination of various sentient beings resulted in the creation of various Entites.

On earth, these entities were worshiped as Gods. To restore order to the universe and rectify their mistake, the Maltusians aka the Guardians of the Universe created the Manhunters and when that backfired they created the Green Lantern Corps. They also suppressed the magics of the universe but a small fragment of it landed on earth and at some point it became the ‘Starheart’, the power source of GL Alan Scott.

There are 5 categories of magical beings:

The Enchanted: Not born with any power. They get their power from various magical items, potions or they have been cursed by a sorcerer or demon which results in supernatural ability. And they have free will to do whatever they want.

Homo Magi: Those who are born with magical power. Their bodies create magical power naturally. There are two types; Type 1 who can create pure magical energy (like Zatanna, Xanadu, Traci 13) and Type 2 who has either one power or one power that can branch out to into many (Nightshade, Johnny and Jesse Quick, Fire, Ice). You are either one or the other you can’t be both types at once.

The magical gene is non dominant so generations of intermingling with humans would lead to the power being wiped out. Hence why the Magi segregated into magical societies for centuries.

Entities: As described above beings made of pure magical energy who reflect the fears and hopes of humanity. Different entities have different levels of power. On earth, they maintain harmony through pacts and bargains. They can’t be killed only changed from one form to another and their existence is sustained by beliefs. If enough people stop believing in them or powering them they would cease to exist. Eg: Ares exists due to war, if war and conflict ended then Ares would cease to exist or if war lessened then he would be depowered at the very least.

The Champions: the ones who carry out the will of the Entities or a powerful, wizard or sorcerer as their representatives and have been granted power by them. Eg: Dr Fate, Spectre, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel/Shazam, Phantom Stranger, Deadman, etc.

The Offspring: the child of an Entity and another being (usually human). Some of them have powers, some do not but they do share a psychic connection to their Entity parent even if said Entity was a distant ancestor.

All the various dimensions we see were formed after the Big Bang that sent that magical wave across the universe. Some were created or at least shaped by powerful sorcerers or entities. As established in ‘Adventure Comics #413′ if a powerful sorcerer finds themselves trapped in a dimension they can’t just teleport themselves away from they’ll just have to find the nearest magical portal that will take them home.

And that about wraps it up.

What do you guys think?

A lot of the information here isn’t new. I’ve made only very few additions and a few tweaks here to canon (like the Quicks being Homo Magi and Obsidian’s powers coming from a distant ancestor). I mostly focused on categorizing existing canon material in a cohesive way. Make each category broader but still defined to fit in as many characters as possible. It’s not a wholesale rewriting of the DCU power system so much as it is a new way of organizing them and thinking about them.

One thing I couldn’t find a straight answer for is whether Jason Blood had magical abilities before he was bonded to the demon Etrigan. Blood has been shown doing magic on his own but whether it’s through rituals or due to his bond with Etrigan was unclear. Same for Dr Occult, it wasn’t clear whether he had innate magic or whether the source of his power was the talisman he always carried. He seems to have some innate powers but mostly seems to rely on magical items.

Neil Gaiman’s Books of Magic series and Sandman run, Ostrander’s Spectre and Suicide Squad runs, Wolfman & Perez’s New Teen Titans, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing run and his short GLC stories which also heavily influenced Geoff Johns Green Lantern run, Johns own GL run, Wagner’s Madame Xanadu series, the current GL run by Thorne, Robinson/Goyer/Johns JSA run, Pasko & Simsons Dr Fate mini series, Giffen & DeMattis’ Dr Fate series, JLD Vol 2 by Tynion VI & Ram V, Neal Adams Deadman stories, were all heavy influences in creating this post and I recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.

Also, I know my posts are loooooong and I try to break them up with images, bullet points, bolding specific texts and other tricks to make it more readable. If you have any suggestions to make posts more readable and accessible, do let me know.

And as always feel free to ask me anything.

litnu txen emit!

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thebartallenblog · 4 years ago

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Hello, I just read your post about young justice of its cancellation and I really liked your opinion, it was a very disappointing path both at the level of history, I may hate it, maybe it will be me, but I really hate the bad development of some characters and from time to time art was at least good in a way

In the end it was nothing more than a great disappointment, just look how at the beginning there was really great enthusiasm in all aspects and they just didn't take advantage of it and threw everything away.

I would not even call "bad development" of some characters, rather the practically non-existent development, the biggest example would be Teen Lantern who was basically a character in the background and his origin seemed quite unsatisfactory, is what I say the enormous potential and enthusiasm totally wasted.

It is as if Bendis wanted to make the series to recover characters that had been absent for years and to be able to introduce some of his own creations, then the series became some kind of "Sample Book". Let me explain:

Do you want to see the forgotten world of Gemworld? Here it is!, Do you want to see a teenage version of Green Lantern? Here it is!, Do you want to visit the also ancient and forgotten world of Skartaris, spending a whole number telling the story of Warlord even though it will not have any relevance to the story? Here it is! (again), for some reason you want to see all the characters from "Wonder Comics" together? Well you know by this point.

And basically this was the series after the first arc.

In fact, the art was probably the best of the series at the end of the day, first great with Patrick Gleason, then John Timms who actually liked his art the problem was that he couldn't draw all the characters in the best way but really I'm glad that we had it really could have been something much worse (seriously only see Teen Titans).

And finally Scott Godlewski, you know probably this is the only thing that really saddens me about the cancellation, we finally had an artist who understood the characters much better than Timms (I really really like his Bart for example), and we only had him for 5 issues and well...

Whatever, I wouldn't even call the series pessimally bad or horrible, it's probably just because I like the characters and I'm still interested in their main characters as well as the great appreciation I have for the original Young Justice.

Just a biggest deception.

#Young Justice #Young Justice 2019 #Young Just Us #Bart Allen #Tim Drake #Kon El #Conner Kent #Cassie Sandsmark #Jinny Hex #Keli Quintela #Wonder Comics

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toughguywithbossygirlfriend · 5 years ago

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Justice League Dark #12 : Diana, Bruce and the Dragon

With my previous post about “DCeased #6″ I showed how Diana cared deeply for Bruce now a little bit of the reverse ... plus a little more of their similarities.

(Edit from DC Comics Rebirth Justice League Dark #12)

Underneath the Hall of Justice ... If we take a better look at the Great Skeleton in the Background ... especially his weird head structure...

(Edit from DC Comics Rebirth Justice League Dark #12 and “JLA:A League of One”)

It reminded me of the Dragon Diana killed a long time ago : Drakul Karfang

(DC Comics JLA: A League of One from 2000 )

and if you add the Weapon stands and its subterranean location ... this is Diana’s version of the “Batcave Trophy room”. We’ll take a peak at the “JLA : League of one” later, for now back to “Justice League Dark” :

This part is actually a side story in the Issue #12 showing us the past... the moment the creation of the “Justice League Dark” was decided :

Diana wants to have a Talk with the other Great Seven of the JL to get their approval for the creation of a New JL Team. Through the different Pics it is made Obvious that Bruce stays in the distance of Diana and the others... He doesn’t say a word ... something’s Up ... something more important then a meeting to create a Justice League to protect innocents from Magical threats ?!? ...

(Edit from DC Comics Rebirth Justice League Dark #12)

Diana : “..a covert team that works in the dark...”. Covert team ... Fighting in the Dark ... That’s already so much “Batman !” ..

Of course Diana doesn’t have any problem convincing them ... they are SO easy ! ... except one ... someone who stayed silently behind. The Amazon princess surely noted this since the beginning of the meeting but didn’t make a comment. Instead she waits for the both of them to be alone afar from prying ears... This seems so natural that you get the feeling this isn’t the first time they do it. They don’t need words, they just know. These two definitively share a connection apart from the rest of their friends.

(Edit from DC Comics Justice League Dark #12 and DC Holiday Special from 2017)

As soon as they started their little talk, I couldn’t help but recall their chat about their relationship with Darkness in the DC Holiday Special 2017 “Solstice” story and how they both needed to guard against being consumed by it (An amazing little story for the two from Greg Rucka). Again we are reminded how close, how similar, once you get deeper into their souls, once you cut off their visible differences Night and Day, Female and Male, Science and Magic, Godlike power and Genius Intelligence... Differences that, in the end, are nothing else then complements.

(Edit from DC Comics Justice League Dark #12)

Diana understands Bruce is more concerned then she expected, ... even afraid ! Batman afraid ? what the hell can frighten the Dark Knight ? ... At first, it looks like his fear is about instigating a “Crisis-Level events” of Magic ... but then ...

(Edit from DC Comics Justice League Dark #12)

Bruce : "...Why spearhead this yourself ? There are dozen heroes...” Damned ! that’s a very interesting statement.

If Batman’s fear was only about instigating a crisis level event why would he want a random other Hero to lead this Dark Justice League ? ... Choosing another Hero to lead that team wouldn’t prevent these kinds of events to happen and ... Leaving the fate of everything in the hands of a Rookie instead of Wonder Woman ?! No chance Batman would prefer that ! ...

Plus , lets face it, there is NO way Batman would have kept his mouth shut during a JL meeting if he was against the “JL Dark” or “afraid” it could lead to a crisis level event fo Magic. On the contrary he would have said it and made sure every one around the meeting’s table wets his pants, especially Clark who is easily affected by magic. This alone proves he already approved this new team ahead of the meeting.

This is about Diana leading the team.

But what does he really fear with her as the leader ?

Some have suggested he doesn’t trust her ... no, that’s definitively not it. He trust her to lead the main JL team on the Battle field (recent exp: Dark Nights Metal #1). He trusts her to protect Gotham (recent exp:Trinity #14). He trust her even if she loses her powers (recent exp: Batman #39 - #40), or is blinded(recent exp: Trinity #17). He proved that countless of times. Hell !, they passed 37 years in Gehenna with only each other to lean on. This isn’t about trust !

(Edit from DC Comics Justice League Dark(2018) #12)

Issue 12 is the 5th part of the “the Lords of Orders” story line and the Justice League Dark team has to embrace Dark Magic and Chaos to stop the Lords of Order (currently gone mad). To do that Diana and her team must become the “Lords of Chaos” for some time...Enough Darkness to taint, or destroy, the souls of most other Heroes... Actually the whole “JLD” series circles around : Diana, Magic and Darkness ...

Now I think it is time to remember the beginning of their exchange in the Hall of Justice :

Bruce : “Darkness can change a person” ... that’s what they really talk about.

More than everything, Bruce is afraid the Darkness this team will endure may change Diana. Very few times in his life he was so very very selfish : He said it himself, he doesn’t understand Magic, so he can’t lead that team but he would rather risk any other competent Hero being tainted and consumed in Darkness than Diana... that’s an unusual statement for him ... sacrificing someone else just to keep her safe ?... This gives us a good Idea what she really means to him.

I guess that same reason is why she won’t ask him to join the team even though they both traveled side by side thru numerous worlds of Magic (Tir Na Nog, Gehenna, Skartaris, ... to name only a few during Rebirth) and his IQ would be a great asset even against Magic (see : Trinity #14). But She’d rather have another Brain exposed to Darkness with her then him.

And if You have still doubts that Diana and Bruce are the two opposite sides of the same coin, the same soul split in two bodies ... here’s “striking fear in the heart of her enemies” ... the Dark Princess ... XD

(Edit from DC Comics Justice League Dark #12)

Now, ... a little sneak peek into “JLA: A League of One” (2000) (the Book where I think the Dragon’s skeleton is from) about Diana’s contingency plans.

Just enough to reveal that it was the first time Diana used ...some kind of contingency plans to bring down or neutralize every one in the Justice League except Superman whom she could only “distract” for a short time. That would explains why she had a plan to kill Superman rather than neutralize him as revealed in DCeased #6... Anyway, her plans worked perfectly including the one for Clark/Kal. Only one plan failed back then...

We are in 2000 !! ... the same year we learn about Batman’s contingencies in the JLA’s “Tower of Babel”.

(Edit from DC Comics JLA : League of One in 2000)

So about the contingency plans ... I was wrong,... Bruce didn’t rub off on her as I first thought ... she already had it in her !! ... She really is in the other side of the coin with Bruce on it.

Now I’m starting to think she was just mad at Bruce when she voted him out in JLA(1997) #46 because his plans to neutralize her worked perfectly, while hers for him didn’t ... mean girl !... XD

Since the beginning of the “League of One” story he could read Diana like an open book, and looked thru her Lies when everyone else in the JL just accepted them. The others are really so easy... At least the fight between the stubborn Diana and Bruce is way more real and entertaining than the ones in “The Hiketeia”. Still Bruce doesn’t use a contingency against her. He knows why she does all this : to protect her friends from the JL. So he only wants to stall her long enough to convince her that she is wrong. But if you’re facing Diana in a fight that’s far from enough and the Win goes to the Warrior Princess.

(Edit from DC Comics JLA : League of One in 2000)

Another thing that Diana learns in that story is that even without Powers he is way harder to defeat then she expected ... and last but not least ...she destroyed the Dragon but is still alive after that ...dammit, that annoying man is always right even about prophecies ! ...

Early stories like this one show why Diana interests matured and moved slowly from the shining Man of Tomorrow to the secretive Dark Knight. Explaining what was resumed in Trinity (2008) #6 about her romantic preference between the two.

#wonder woman #diana prince #batman #bruce wayne #wonderbat

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thecomicsnexus · 5 years ago

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Final Crisis

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS #12 MARCH 1986 BY MARV WOLFMAN, GEORGE PEREZ, JERRY ORDWAY, TOM ZIUKO AND TOM MCCRAW (RE-COLORED VERSION)

SYNOPSIS (FROM DC DATABASE)

In Brainiac's starship, Dolphin, Captain Comet, Rip Hunter, Animal Man, the Atomic Knight, and Adam Strange convince the reviving robot that his memory was tampered with to make him forget the Crisis. Admitting that his power is inadequate to battle the Anti-Monitor, he sets course for the world of a more powerful being. On Earth, the Anti-Monitor's visage is seen in the skies all over the globe. He repeats that the Earth is now in the anti-matter universe. His past victories over positive universes are meaningless, he says, because of the super-heroes' efforts to stop him. When he lists Supergirl and the Flash as casualties, Kid Flash demands to know what has happened.

The Supermen scan the globe and watch the populace panicking. Harbinger appears, and teleports them to a chosen destination, then gathers Dr. Light from Japan, leaving Sunburst to defend the island. When Dr. Light states that she caused Supergirl's death, Harbinger replies that the battle had already killed Supergirl, and that the Anti-Monitor's final attack merely gave her a swift death. In the skies, the darkness splits into a million shadow demons, which begin an all-out attack on humanity, and the super-heroes mass to resist them. The Global Guardians team with other heroes to free their native lands from the threat, but the demons' numbers seem endless. The Phantom Stranger summons Dr. Mist to help revive the Spectre who lies comatose. Below, Harbinger has gathered a large group of heroes, along with Pariah and Alex, to lead a final assault on their nemesis. Alex creates a bridge between universes, and they depart near Apokolips.

Brainiac's ship goes into stationary orbit, and he and his guests teleport to the planet, where Darkseid appears and introduces himself.

Back on Earth, the majority of the heroes are still battling the demons. The Dove is slain by a shadow-being as his brother watches in horror.

In Dr. Fate's Salem tower, the magically powered heroes have gathered to pool their shamanistic might. The Earth-2 Green Lantern and Dr. Occult form the nexus of their energy.

On Qward, in the anti-matter universe, Harbinger and the heroes have arrived in the Anti-Monitor's old headquarters. Kid Flash insists on joining them because of his mentor's demise. Suddenly, an image of the Flash appears to him—the last one Barry cast before his death. Wally follows the afterimage to where an insane Psycho-Pirate clutches at an empty uniform. Kid Flash knocks him out, and realizes that Barry Allen is truly dead when Lady Quark finds his ring. Pariah informs them that a great concentration of evil lies before them. They follow to find a towering Anti-Monitor, ready for the final slaughter.

In Atlantis, Aquaman leads his underwater legions against the shadows. Lori Lemaris saves a trapped Mera with a force beam. A demon closes in on her and kills her. In Chicago, Green Arrow of Earth-2 is killed by a shadow. In Philadelphia, Cyborg, the Son of Vulcan, the Vigilante, and the New Wildcat continue rescue operations.

In New Orleans, Shade the Changing Man witnesses the death of Prince Ra-Man. In Skartaris, Travis Morgan leads his forces against the black menaces. In Gotham City, both Clayface II and the Bug-Eyed Bandit perish at the hands of the demons. In Salem, the tide finally turns. The supernatural crusaders send their combined force in a net of energy to gather the demons from the Earth's surface, and bind them helpless in space. Over the Earth, lives have been lost, including those of Kole, Huntress, and Robin, but other lives have been saved. For a moment, the survivors can take stock.

On Qward, the Supermen of Earth 1 and 2, Captain Atom, Lady Quark, Firehawk, Wonder Woman, and other tarot's strike at the Anti-Monitor, but he ignores their blows, feeding on the energy of a nearby star, As Dr Light absorbs the energy of one of the binary suns they are between, the Anti-Monitor feels his power draining away. Alex begins to drain the anti-matter energy away from their enemy. Negative Woman uses her negative-self to bind the Anti-Monitor and inhibit him: then Harbinger leads all the energy-producing heroes against him, Dr. Light blasts him with the energy of a sun, and he falls into the ruins of his fortress. Alex creates a dimensional hole, large enough to enclose the Earth and return it to its proper universe. The heroes follow. The ball of bound demons hover and then fall on the fallen enemy. Thus, the Anti-Monitor absorbs his slaves energies and rises again, while the heroes start to give battle. Wonder Woman is caught in a withering flash of power, and is borne away to an unknown destination. Superman of Earth-1 and Lady Quark vow deadly revenge, but Kal-L knocks them out, and tells Superboy to take them back. Since he has no world and no wife to return to, the elder Superman has the least to lose. Then he confronts the monstrous Anti-Monitor, and batters him. Superboy sends Superman and Lady Quark back through Alex's shrinking body, and turns to aid him. Superman continues his one-man war against the Anti-Monitor, striking telling blows, while the villain, his power waning, absorbs more energy from the anti-cosmos, and blasts him and Superboy. Darkseid, watching the conflict on a viewscreen, proclaims his planet to be endangered if the Anti-Monitor survives, sends a power burst at him through Alex's eyes. The enemy, devastated, is hurled into the core of one of the binary suns. Superman, Superboy, and Alex are stunned to see the spectre of their enemy rising from the sun. Superman smashes into his foe's fiery body, scattering him: the remains fall back into the sun and the star begins to implode.

They bravely await the end and Superman wishes that Lois could have lived to see their triumph. At that, Alex produces Lois from a void-pocket in his body where she had been sent to wait. She tells her husband that she had been to a tranquil world. Alex cannot return them to Earth but he can take them all to this beautiful world. Superman, Lois, and Superboy opt for that choice. The foursome vanish seconds before the exploding sun would have reached them.

Back on Earth, Lyla is explaining facets of the Crisis to Pariah and Lady Quark. Wonder Woman was returned to the clay which Aphrodite and Athena had given life, then spread across Paradise Island.

Time then continued to reverse itself, as the Amazons were returned to their original homeland before they fled Man's World. Zeus brought the homeless Wonder Woman of Earth-2 and her husband Steve Trevor to Olympus, where they could live peacefully. The bodies of Robin of Earth-2, the Huntress, and Kole were never found. All those who died were mourned. In Keystone City, Jay Garrick determined that Kid Flash's illness was in remission, his body chemistry being changed by a blast from the Anti-Monitor. He could again move at super-speed, though only to a maximum of Mach-1. Wally donned Barry Allen's uniform, and announced, "From this day forth — the Flash lives again!"

The Great Disaster will not exist in the Earth's future, but a lost child will be found in Command D. adopted by General Horatio Tomorrow of the Planeteers, and named Thomas. Jonah Jex will be torn from his era to fight in the future, while the Guardians of the Universe must face the first division in their ranks. Thus, Lyla concludes her tale, and Lady Quark and Pariah ask her to help them explore their new homeworld. They leave with her, honoring the memory of their benefactor, the Monitor. And, in Arkham Asylum, the staff discuss a new patient who seems beyond help, straitjacketed in a rubber-lined room. Roger Hayden, formerly Psycho-Pirate, gibbers about Earths beyond numbers, the Anti-Monitor, and the memories, which only he had been allowed to keep.

NOTORIOUS DEATHS IN THIS ISSUE

Anti-Monitor

Dove

Green Arrow (Earth-2)

Huntress

Kole

Robin (Dick Grayson, Earth-2)

Sunburst

Bug-Eyed Bandit

Clayface II (Matt Hagen)

Lori Lemaris

Ten Eyed Man

REVIEW

The ending of Crisis is the only part of it that remains canon after it (as it happened on new earth). Although many things about it will not remain (no one will remember the multiverse, not even the ones that survived it). Same will apply to deaths like Huntress, who will be completely replaced post-crisis.

So, was it worth it? Absolutely. Wolfman’s idea of rebooting the universe every 10 years would have been a great idea, but sales will not always allow for it (this is the reason DC was never able to do a complete reboot, you don’t fix what isn’t broken, namely Batman, Legion of Super-Heroes and the Green Lantern Corps).

As for its legacy, this event is the father of all events. Cross-overs and team-ups have been plenty, not only at DC, since the Golden Age. And while there have been similar events in 1982 and 1984 over at Marvel, they barely had any impact (Spider-symbiote being the one thing to remember). Crisis was a whole different thing. But sadly, it happened at DC, that means that not all the opportunities will be taken seriously.

Crisis offered the chance of a blank slate, but instead, the relaunch was sloppy and as a result, the universe required a soft reboot less than 10 years later. Crisis tie-ins are a good demonstration of how slow DC was to react to what they were doing. They do not match the chapter of the month.

Another interesting example is Wally West, who was restored in the end, with a slower speed, and became the Flash. However, it would take more than a year for Wally to take on his own book. This coincided with Justice League International and the end of Legends. Wonder Woman suffered the same delay as well. There were no plans to what would happen afterwards, because DC wasn’t fully aware of what they just did. They were too busy closing down titles, and the reaction to restart everything was delayed, sometimes by more than 5 years. Fortunately, the man of steel would end the year with one of his most emblematic runs.

As for the story itself, the science makes little sense, but I am willing to forgive those flaws. The essence of the event was to revisit the DCU history, to streamline everything and to showcase every single character they had. It was supposed to launch in 1983, but it had to wait until the 50th anniversary (while a long research had to be done to figure out the full DCU history). This story accomplishes that. The tie-ins... not so much. But Crisis as a story works very well. Without tie-ins.

There is a lot of love poured into it as well, and you can tell. Those final sequences with Alex Luthor, Kal-L, Lois and Superboy-Prime are beautiful and sad at the same time (again, DC would shoot themselves in the foot by desecrating that ending in 2005, but that’s a story for another time).

You cannot imagine another penciler for this story either. George Perez is the god of team-ups. Since then, he had some replacements, most notoriously, Phil Jimenez, but in 1985, it was pretty much him. And the art is so beautiful, and so meaningful, Crisis on Infinite Earths became on of the greatest achievements in comic-book history.

Jerry Ordway had to step in after Giordano and DeCarlo, for reasons I do not know. He was the perfect choice for this event. His style adds some clarity to Perez style, where Tanghal wouldn’t have dared to modify too much. As a result, you get an interesting hybrid. Ordway’s realistic faces, with Perez crazy layouts and detailed backgrounds.

The art in general is something to admire over and over. That scene where the shadow demons break apart and darkness becomes sky... that’s Michael Bay High Octane shit. You are basically watching a disaster movie.

Some of the deaths in this story mean nothing. Losing Green Arrow from Earth-2 or Helena Wayne will not have an impact. But they can seriously affect some readers.

One thing I didn’t mention before, was that New Genesis was actually part of the Crisis, as Darkseid only cloaked Apokolips, but apart from Crisis #10, I haven’t seen anything happening over there in other books.

Now, which version should you buy? All of them.

I grew up reading the spanish adaptation, which was pretty much the original with translated text. Then I bought 1998′s slipcase, which was already re-colored. I really think this one was the best as the wrap-around cover has the full Alex Ross painting. 2015′s deluxe edition includes the History of the DCU, with a new cover by George Perez. Perhaps this one adds more value. There is also a very expensive edition coming at the end of the year that includes all the tie-ins, but as you may have read, not all tie-ins are good or worthy of reading with this saga.

Then I actually recommend the digital version, as this book is so beautiful, you don’t even want to touch it.

I give this story a score of 10

#alex ross #george perez #dc comics #comics #review #1986 #modern age #crisis on infinite earths #harbinger #anti-monitor #the monitor #superman #superboy-prime #the flash #kid flash #wally west

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themyskira · 5 years ago

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for the meme: Phil Jimenez's Wonder Woman run or William Messner-Loebs' Wonder Woman run?

Ooh, that’s a tough one. As different as Jimenez and Messner-Loebs’ runs are, if there’s one thing they have in common it’s that their best work is inextricable from their worst.

Messner-Loebs gave us Artemis and brought the Themyscirans and Banas together as a people – but he did so through a story that ripped the Amazons from Diana’s life and turned Hippolyta into a shrieking harpy. He brought depth and complexity to Diana’s relationships with rogues like Circe and Cheetah, but his execution was often clunky and littered with dead weight like the White Magician and Mayfly. He started the modern trend of Wondy writers kicking to the curb everything that had gone before. And he gave us Taco Whiz, which had absolutely no business working as delightfully as it did.

Jimenez actually bucked the trend by not only retaining his predecessor’s supporting cast, but striving to knit together the disparate continuities, characters and (in some cases) characterisations of the previous decade. He re-established Themyscira as a core setting, cemented the place of the Bana and solidified Diana, Hippolyta, Donna, Cassie and Artemis as a Wonder-family. But his encyclopaedic knowledge of Wonder Woman was an impediment as much as it was a blessing, because he was undiscerning about it, determined to make every bit of canon fit when he should have been strategically pruning and course-correcting. (Case in point: Hippolyta, whose years of mischaracterisation he could have repaired, but instead made far worse.)

Visually, Jimenez has Messner-Loebs beat hands-down. His lovingly detailed artwork was a highlight of his run, whereas the art on Messner-Loebs’ was blobby and inconsistent for the first half and eye-bleeding nineties cheesecake for the second half.

In terms of the legacy each writer left, I’d argue Jimenez had the more lasting impact.

But in terms of which one I’d be more likely to re-read – honestly? Messner-Loebs.

While I appreciate Jimenez and what he was working towards, he’s a much better artist and plotter than he is a scripter, and I find his verbose dialogue and narration boxes a slog to get through. There are individual stories of his that I love and would happily reread – Gods of Gotham, A Day in the Life, The Witch and the Warrior – but the thought of revisiting Paradise Lost or the Skartaris arc just exhausts me. Whereas, for all its many flaws, uncomfortable elements and (at times) straight-up nonsense, there’s a lot of fun and enjoyable silliness to be found in Messner-Loebs’ run.

And honestly, where else are you going to find lines like this?

#comics talk #wonder woman #the image of ares at his most gigantic and menacing intoning the line 'AND I WILL BE THE CHEESE' never fails to make me giggle #renaroo

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zahri-melitor · 4 months ago

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October Solicits (because this set is actually worth discussing):

My biggest question over the Absolute Line is whether the Trinity being defined by their losses is because "they have just entered a new universe and have none of their background supports" or whether it is "they have grown up without any of the things listed".

Because "Batman, but poor and alone" or "Wonder Woman without the Amazons" are different premises if these have NEVER existed, or if they're just not accessible (heck, Rucka's Wonder Woman Rebirth is 'Wonder Woman without the Amazons').

I am interested in the fact that Wonder Woman potentially looks like "what if Diana was Bana-Mighdall", but then, that's the point of Artemis, when Artemis is used properly.

Batman: ahaha yesss time for Eddie to go legit OR 'legit' for a bit, he's been a big bad too often in the last 15 years, time to come be an annoying detective for a while.

Action Comics: look I think this is selling me on picking it up, at least to try, though along with everyone else I'm wondering at the weekly start. I really hope it's not on weekly for an extended period and he's just frontloaded the work, because to my eye Waid's got 6 comic issues coming out this month

Detective Comics: I am totally picking this up, just to see what they're doing.

Nightwing: also finally starting current Nightwing as I might as well pick up at a new run. I am cautiously interested but it appears like it will be a big tonal shift.

Catwoman: I am also cautiously interested in this, especially given my look into Grønbekk's prior work gives me a really weird read on what this run might entail. Will sample.

Green Arrow: which numbering system are we picking up for #350, as my rough calculation does not match (I think they're including both #0s in this count but not One Million) and if you're willing to do this, WHERE IS THE CATWOMAN ANNIVERSARY ISSUE. That said, will keep reading. I will miss Izaakse on art. I sort of hope Condon can write a plot that moves faster than Williamson's.

Flash: THEY ARE GOING TO SKARTARIS OH HAPPY DAY FOR MEEEEEEEE.

Batman & Robin: look PKJ on this is probably the best possible option for my own preferences in Damian storytelling, so I am very interested in what he plans to do.

Birds of Prey: EXTREMELY happy Babs is being sold as Oracle on the cover of this (coloured green too!), delighted to see Onyx in the title, and I'm so proud of Cass going undercover again. That's always fun.

Batman: The Brave and the Bold: oh look DC remembered that Aquaman exists.

World's Finest: ...at least it's not more interdimensional imps.

Shazam!: switching focus to Freddy for a bit, I see, between his new powers AND roadtrip - which means the Shazvan.

Batman & Robin Year One: look. I think it looks promising. I think they could have found a more interesting name for a crime boss than The General. I also think Waid might have WAY too much on his plate.

Poison Ivy/Swamp Thing: okay okay time for me to find out what all the fuss over the G. Willow Wilson run is about.

Jenny Sparks: my teeth are so gritted over this title. I am trying it, because she's my Jenny, but everything about it is raising alarm bells.

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thedcdunce · 6 years ago

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Prysm

“Yes,child. And I applaud your refusal to engage in mindless battle” - Prysm

Real Name: Audrey Spears

Aliases:

Princess

Gender: Female

Height: 6′ 4″

Weight: 40 lbs (18 kg)

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Brown

Powers:

Unique Physiology

Psychic Link

Abilities:

Artistry

Weaknesses:

Vulnerability to Darkness

Universe: New Earth

Origin: Half-human/ Half-alien

Citizenship: American

Parents:

Ch’ah; father

Queen Miraset; mother

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Adventurer

First Appearance: Teen Titans Vol 2 #1 (October, 1996)

Powers

Unique Physiology: Transparent body comprised of a substance similar to glass. Skin color changes depending upon mood and/or nature of energy absorbed.

Energy Absorption: Audrey can absorb UV radiation.

Energy Projection: Audrey can refract ultraviolet radiation for a variety of effects.

Flight: As an extended application of her energy processing powers, Prysm can fly through the force generated by the energy that she absorbs. Her range and velocity while in flight is close to the speed of light.

Psychic Link: Prysm possesses a psychic link with all of the alien-human hybrids that were genetically bred by the H'San Natall. Through this link, she can perceive the emotional trauma of her peers and can determine, within limited range, where her fellow hybrids are located.

Abilities

Artistry: Perhaps due to her being in-tune with the colors of the electromagnetic spectrum, Prysm is a capable painter, as she created very detailed portraits of her virtual family and of Isaiah Crockett by memory.

Weaknesses

Vulnerability to Darkness: Audrey must consistently absorb solar radiation or else her physical form will darken and she will grow extremely weak. This is why she rarely wears clothing while serving on the team, though she will occasionally wear clothing if she is out in public. Regardless, Audrey's physical appearance makes it virtually impossible to maintain a secret identity.

History

Prysm, real name Aubrey Spears, is a half-human half-H'San Natall member of the Teen Titans. She has a crystalline body that could capture and reflect light.

An alien race known as the H'San Natall initiated a plan to seed the planet Earth with super-powered sleeper agents. To this end, they inseminated human women with alien DNA to genetically breed a child who would develop superhuman powers, but also be able to coexist with humanity. While most of these subjects were left on Earth to be raised by their parents, Audrey was instead raised on the moon of Titan.

The H'San Natall enslaved a group of Psion scientists to monitor Audrey's progress. From infancy, she was placed inside of a sensory deprivation suit and secured in a containment tube. Her conscious mind was developed through a virtual reality simulation based upon Earth fairy tales and a bevy of 1950s American sitcoms such as Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best. In this environment she was known solely as "Princess".

When she was sixteen-years-old, three of her fellow hybrids and the Earth super-hero the Atom came to Titan and liberated her. Being released from the VR simulation was a traumatic shock to Audrey's senses. The entire life that she had known was shown to be a lie. She had no idea what she truly was, or what the real world was actually like. The hybrids fought against their Psion captors as well as the H'San Natall enforcer, Jugular.

Audrey returned to Earth with the others and found sanctuary at the Solar Tower of Loren Jupiter. Jupiter banded the Atom and the hybrid children together and they became the second iteration of the Teen Titans. Audrey took the name Prysm.

Forced into a strange, new lifestyle, Audrey did her best to assimilate herself into Earth culture. She knew that she would always be an outsider though because of her appearance, and because of this, she forged very strong bonds with her fellow Titans. When it appeared as if the Titans might break up, Prysm grew extremely upset, noting that this was the only family she had now. Fortunately, the team did not break up.

During the Titans' initial fight against the mercenary team Dark Nemesis, Prysm was captured and placed inside of a black containment cube that negated her powers. Denied the ability to process solar radiation, Prysm's body began to darken and she grew extremely weak. Teammate Argent saved her life by infusing her with silver plasma energy, but the overload of energy caused Prysm to rocket through the sky, bringing her to the lost world of Skartaris.

#prysm #audrey spears #princess #Teen Titans #dc #DC comics #thedcdunce

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graphicpolicy · 6 years ago

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New Challengers #4

Scott Snyder, Aaron Gillespie (A/CA) V Kenneth Marion In Shops: Aug 15, 2018 SRP: $2.99

The Challengers tackle undead barbarians and a zombie-dinosaur stampede way down under in otherworldly Skartaris. Good thing they find that flock of pterodactyls, too-turns out to be handy against rogue agents setting up a super-weapon! Unfortunately, the Challengers also find their HQ destroyed and their predecessors missing. Plus, their borrowed time might be up, because the hourglass tattoos are on the fritz. All in a day’s work for the Challengers! (Face palm!)

New Challengers #4 preview. The Challengers tackle undead barbarians and a zombie-dinosaur stampede way down under in otherworldly Skartaris #comics New Challengers #4 Scott Snyder, Aaron Gillespie (A/CA) V Kenneth Marion In Shops: Aug 15, 2018…

#aaron gillespie #comic books #Comics #dc comics #new age of heroes #new challengers #scott snyder #v. kenneth marion

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the-fallen-blue · 7 years ago

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So I'm about to enter the Skartaris arc of Jimenez's Wonder Woman... do you retain your opinion that "the art was worse than Deodato, the writing was worse than Heinberg and the pre-Crisis continuity fellatio was worse than Johns"?

man i was sofucking mean to poor phil, who is honestly a really gracious andamazing guy and the best kind of Wondy fan and deserved to write thetitle and the character more than 90% of people who’ve actuallyever gotten their hands on her

and Gods of Gotham is legitimately fucking astonishing,like top 20 Wonder Woman stories ever written

but... yes, skartaris remains a hot mess, sorry phil :(

Here’s a thing I didn’t know when I wrote WWwA and whichexplains a great deal in retrospect: the Jimenez run wasn’tactually supposed to be a run, it was supposed to be a singlefill-in arc, and then Editorial kept jerking him around like“actually we need five more issues, no wait you’ve got to finishin two, no wait you’re still on for another six” and honestly, itis tremendously to his credit that you can’t tell, at all.Storylines don’t truncate or extend weirdly, the shitty romanceprogresses at a consistent pace, threads don’t get set up and thenjust dropped or reversed like when Rucka shoved all the gods beyondthe veil due to sudden Crisis. But in a lot of places, Skartaris morethan anywhere else, there does seem to be a real crunch in the rushedway that new characters are established, like Jimenez is outsourcingthe necessary backstory and personality building to other titles orwriters because he just doesn’t have room to put the plot and thecharacterization in the same story. One of the pitfalls of the wayDiana’s mythos has been mishandled over the years; if it were aFlash or Batman story you could just pull a rogue who nobody’dwritten about for a couple years but Diana literally doesn’t havethose, her “viable story” rogue list at the point Jimenezwas writing was all of three villains deep.

(Why under those circumstances you’d skip over trying a singlemodernization and just go whole fucking hog with the entirety ofVillany, Inc is a mystery to me, but if you’re sitting therethinking “this is my last hurrah on Wonder Woman” a littleself-indulgence doesn’t seem that implausible.)

#ask box #wonder woman #mirrorfalls

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mst3kproject · 7 years ago

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516: Alien From LA

The first thing I did in preparing for this review was look up 'Kathy Ireland interviews' on YouTube, and I am relieved to report that no, that is not her normal voice. Apparently it is her normal smile, though.

Cowardly nerd Wanda Saknussem recieves word that her father has died in Africa. When she goes to investigate or something, she falls down a hole to the lost continent of Atlantis, which is apparently a UFO that crashed into Earth a long time ago and is inhabited by people rejected from Mad Max movies. The ruler of this improbable place thinks Wanda and her father are spies, sent to scout out Atlantis in preparation for an invasion by the world above. Before they can find their way back to the surface, they must escape both the oppressive government and the many lower-level opportunists who would love to find themselves in possession of an 'alien' from the beyond!

This is a dumb movie that never lives up to its rather modest potential, but one thing I do kinda like about it is its worldbuilding. A lot of Journey to the Centre of the Earth stories, from Jules Verne onward, have been obliged to posit some kind of supernatural energy source to fuel their ecosystems. Most often this takes the form of a miniature sun at the center of a hollow shell (as in DC comics' Skartaris), providing the inner world with a sky that seems to defeat the whole concept of a land under the ground. At the Earth's Core shows us a subterranean world that runs on lava, but both Alien from LA and The Mole People tried to do something a bit more 'realistic'.

(I guess this means I have to watch The Mole People next week. Fuck! I hate The Mole People and I hate John Agar's oily face.)

The underground world we see in Alien from LA is filthy and gritty, without plant or animal life to give it any colour. The human environments are cramped, ugly, and utilitarian, even the parts we would be tempted to consider 'outdoors'. For once there's some justification for all the pipes and tubes, since one of the top priorities for such a colony would be getting air and water to everybody. We get an impression of the impossibly futuristic technology of the original spacecraft and of the cruder, more recent layer built overtop of it. And what do people living in such a place eat? Insects, of course! There's practically nothing else down there!

We also get an idea of how the Atlanteans see their universe. The government's official position is that there is no 'surface world' and therefore that 'aliens' who come from there cannot possibly exist. This suggests that they imagine their world as a cavern inside an infinite expanse of stone. Or perhaps they are aware of the Earth as a planet, but believe that nothing can exist on the surface because it would be exposed directly to space. Either interpretation suggests that Professor Saknussem's Atlantean counterpart, the scientist who was planning a trip to the surface to see for himself, is a very brave man and probably deserved a bigger part in the movie.

Unfortunately, by trying to be ‘realistic’ the movie encourages us to think about a number of questions that probably wouldn't come up in a more fantastical setting. For starters, where are the Atlanteans getting things like rubber for their tyres and cloth for their clothing? Up here these are plant and animal products, but there are no plants or animals in Atlantis. A character says she's never seen fabric like the cotton of Wanda's dress but there's no suggestion of what they use instead. Then there's the question of what this underground city runs on. I think we're supposed to assume that the spaceship has some kind of inexhaustible power source that the Atlanteans drawn on for their electricity, which is all well and good, but you can’t eat it. If the people here eat insects, then what do the insects eat? The food chain in a cave is usually connected to the outside world somehow, most often by bat droppings (I told you bats are awesome). There are deep ocean ecosystems that run off geothermal power, but even those get gifts from above in the form of dead whales and the occasional can of spam.

Not only do we have no idea how energy comes in to this sytem, we don't see how waste gets out. All these people will produce not only bodily wastes, but carbon dioxide, heat, garbage, and whatever the waste products of their industries are. The vehicles appear to run on gasoline – we even see a filling station. What happens to the pollutants to keep them from poisoning the air? Where is the oxygen coming from if there are no plants? Presumably the spaceship itself would have systems to cope with some of this, but they'd be designed to work in a vacuum, not in a pocket of atmosphere surrounded by rock – and the city itself has clearly expanded far beyond the spaceship. How does any of this work?

So much for the world, now for the characters who populate it. The only one we ever really get to know is Wanda – others are only important in how they relate to her. Her father is just her father, her jerk ex-boyfriend is just her jerk ex-boyfriend, the Atlanteans are either allies, foes, or mere background. We don't know why Gus decides to help her (besides maybe because his girlfriend threw him out and he has nothing better to do) or what Charmin sees in her. It is entirely Wanda's movie. This is rather rare, to see an adventure movie focused on a woman's journey, and the rarity of it makes it even more annoying that Wanda herself is kind of a joke.

Wanda Saknussem starts the movie as a stock pathetic nerd, a character we're supposed to like out of sheer pity, but it's taken so far that she becomes very difficult to identify with. Her ex-boyfriend, explaining why he broke up with her, tells her “your glasses make you look stupid, your hair is ugly, you dress like a nerd, you walk like a clod, and your voice gives me a headache” – and when she demands to know why he ever went out with her in the first place, he does not have an answer for her. We're told Wanda has no sense of adventure, but we see her as somebody with no self-respect. She begs the boyfriend who insulted her to take her back, and her squeaky voice makes everything she says sound unbearably whiny.

Her character development is supposed to represent her becoming more confident and adventurous, but of course what we see is her becoming more attractive. Over the course of the movie Wanda first loses her glasses, then cleans her skin in a steam vent, and finally puts on a dress with a low neckline instead of the shapeless tent she'd been wearing in the beginning. I'm a little surprised they didn't have her lose her squeaky voice while she was at it. This trope, in which a woman's appearance is used as shorthand for her entire being, is annoying, but I've always gotten particularly mad at the bit where she has to give up wearing glasses. It suggests that whether a woman is sexy is more important than whether she can see where she's fucking going, and as a person who wears glasses I must vigorously disagree. At least in The Princess Diaries the girl got contacts. Wanda just breaks her glasses and then apparently discovers she never needed them in the first place.

I do have to admit, though, that Kathy Ireland gave the part her all. For somebody to be a model, to put themselves on display in front of the whole world often in very little clothing, must require enormous confidence, but Ireland works hard to embody Wanda's lack of confidence at the beginning of this movie. Her body language while arguing with her ex-boyfriend or reading the letter at the diner is very turned-inward, with her arms kept close to her body, the posture of somebody who's trying to be unobtrusive and not take up space. At the end, she is not only less covered but walks more freely, swinging her arms and taking bigger steps as if she no longer cares whose way she gets in. Ireland's dedication to doing the Wanda Voice is also admirable... that must have been hard on the vocal cords. I'm left with the distinct impression that she could have been a decent actress if anybody had ever thought to put her in a decent movie.

After sitting through a movie in which Wanda becomes more confident and searches for her father, one would expect the 'happily ever after' to celebrate both her newfound spirit of adventure and renewed family relationship. The ending, however, contains neither. Wanda is wearing a bikini now, but she's back on the same beach where she liked to hang out before her trip to the bowels of the Earth, and her father is not with her. Instead, the movie tries to give us emotional closure by having the guy she kissed in Atlantis show up on a motorcycle to charm her.

That doesn't make any sense! How did he get here? How'd he get the motorcycle? How'd he get the driver's license?! Where's her father? Did he run off to Africa and leave her again? Did her trip accomplish anything at all? This isn't an ending, this is a distraction!

Alien from LA comes across as a movie that had some potential, but as usual, all the best ideas just fall by the wayside and instead we get a series of cliches strung together by writers who think we'd rather see the end of a shallow love story than a resolution to what the movie was actually about. Every time I watch this episode, the movie sucks me in – but every time, the ending disappoints me.

#mst3k #reviews #alien from la #80s

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