Magic
Hmn... now is the alienation all that bad? I guess if it takes you out of the story it might. But the familiarity of the science fiction terms may be what makes thngs feel less original sometimes. Like an alien with just a rubber nose or ears, after a while it doesn't seem so alien. In many cases, I'd think you'd want to make magic alien; something special or "occult".

On the other hand Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have a lot of magic (or magical elements) in them. Though not everyone's cup of tea, it sure hasn't stopped them from reaching many many people.

Posted by beta-ray on 2009-10-22 00:01:45
Re DOCTOR VOODOO
It would be interesting to know what was said about DOCTOR VOODOO #1 and what, specifically, was criticized, since Remender and Sankovitch apparently set out to write Dr. Voodoo as a superhero who happens to use magic. The sequence in which Dr. V. took down Dormammu was generic to a fault. That could have been any superhero taking down a villain in his lair, without any point except to impress the reader (and his teacher) with his toughness.

There were problems with so many specific plot points that listing them all would take a while, but the primary problem was that writing Dr. V. as a superhero ignores the spiritual aspects of sorcery. The sorcerer worships the gods he invokes and turns to them for assistance; they don’t look to him for assistance. The idea that Agamotto would warn Dr. V. about a looming threat is nonsensical. Using anything related to Chthon involves worshipping the being -- are readers supposed to think that Dr. V. is evil because of that? There isn’t any basis for thinking that the voodoo god and spirits Dr. V. worships can affect anything not on Earth.

Dr. Strange was misinterpreted throughout the issue, but that, of course, was due to Remender using the Bendis version of Dr. Strange, which has nothing to do with the classic version. Rather than list all the specific problems with that version, I’ll just ask one question: How much sense does it make to suppose that the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth’s dimension could be neutralized by immobilizing his hands?

Comparing sorcery to SF might seem apropos, but only if the writer believes that the purposes of the story are to generate special effects and have video game-type fights. Religion is more cerebral.

SRS


Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2009-10-22 01:30:00
Clarke's Third Law
Citing Clarke's third law ("Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.") one wonders if the difference is essentially that our culture has seen enough techno-babble and has enough education that they can better understand the 'less advanced' technologies of warp drives and matter transmitters than 'more advanced' technologies like psychically invoking the energies of Agamotto and Oshtur.

Posted by SKleefeld on 2009-10-22 13:22:45
Semantics IS a weird beast. We can basically take any concept and make it sound good or bad depending the specific words we use. Lets say I call someone a deviant or a hoodlum. Not the type of person you'd want to associate with right? But if they were *mischievous* then heck, they sound a whole lot more fun already, right?
And yeah, there ARE semantics of concepts too. There's your example, but something as simple as a tool can hold a lot of weight too. You see someone with a hammer and nails is building a cabin out in the woods, well that's just quaint and down to Earth. But someone like Tony Stark uses high priced gadgets to do his handyman work and all of a sudden we have a completely new perception. He's still industrious, but on a whole different level.

Posted by doncorswhazie on 2009-10-22 14:34:01
What a reader expects
Some problems readers had with the DOCTOR VOODOO material might have been based on their expectations. Many comic book stories are based on simple archetypes who behave in simple, predictable ways, and a successful story consists of depicting their actions dramatically. Complexity isn’t sought by the writer or, in many cases, by the reader. Stories that challenge preconceptions or have characters behaving unpredictably might be confusing. However, if a writer simply reverses the orientation of the archetype -- has a villain disguised as a hero, for example -- that is easy to understand and is a change from the usual fare at the same time.

The Mockingbird-Phantom Rider storyline from WEST COAST AVENGERS featured two characters, both of whom had behaved badly and were struggling to resolve their hatred for each other. Decades later, that storyline stands as one of the best I’ve seen Marvel publish because it featured relatively complex characters in a dramatic struggle with an unknown, unpredictable outcome. Stories that feature only simple archetypes cannot have the same impact on an experienced reader because the outcome is always known in advance. He’s reading it for visual thrills and validation of his beliefs, e.g., good triumphs over evil.

SRS


Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2009-10-22 16:08:42
Magic vs. Super-science
This has been a major beef for me lately. Science in the M.U. is pretty much magic. Bruce Banner can create personal force fields from scraps; Hank Pym can conjure up a huge extradimentional infinite mansion and talk with an otherworldly being of infinite power; Iron Man (in the second arc of Mighty Avengers) used Reed Richard's computer to create a vaccine to the Venom Virus in a few minutes, and pretty much any super-scientist can pull out some new gadget to solve the current situation out of nowhere.

I really think science should be toned down a little in the MU. Characters should have specializations in some knowledge field and limitations in others, and building new gadgets should cost money and time.

As for magic, the problem is that the concept is not always familiar. It would be cool if the recap pages could tell us magical tidbits, like magic always having a cost, magical forces, magical limitations and other concepts that would be cool as factoids and help the reader to get used to it. Give it some clear limitations also: maybe the bigger effects require big rituals, or each effect has consequences of equal magnitude?

Posted by Deicide.UH on 2009-10-22 20:23:42
Context
I think the biggest issue with the example is that we have no context for the magical phrases you mentioned. In modern times we have an innate understanding of equations and holograms. But our only connection to the Cyttorak reference is Dr Strange, but it's not a solid enough context to have a mental image of what it means. If he were to refer to the Crimson Bands of Zeus or the Eye of Horus, it might be easier to relate to and would conjure up (you like that?) some mental image for most people.

I think the reason that Dr Strange worked better in the 60s and 70s was that people were willing to accept mysterious, esoteric ideas, with the burgeoning popularity of new age mysticism (no, I'm not a history scholar, so please pass over any ignorance or fuzzy facts). I would suggest that they didn't expect to understand or be able to mentally refer to every mystical reference, and so it was okay to spout gibberish in the form of active, occult arts. People just bought it. But these days we're grounded in science and facts and won't accept things that can't be categorized or defined.

We just inherently don't believe when someone yells out something nonsensical that's supposed to create an actual manifestation. Though we have been trained to believe that random Latin phrases are magical and can create something, so we'll accept Harry Potter's gibberish better.

Posted by PseudoSherlock on 2009-10-23 11:13:08
I thought Dr. Voodoo was awesome. I've basically just decided to overlook the issues with magic in the Marvel Universe, but I can understand the problems your reader had with them.

The problems as I see them are the silly names and the seemingly random nature of magic and magic artifacts.

As far as the names are concerned; Crimson bands of Cittorak? Eye of Agamotto? Holy alliteration, Batman! I know Stan Lee came up with this stuff and that that kind of makes it untouchable, but the silliness of them pulls me right out of a story that's supposed to be all serious and hard-core.

The random nature comes from the fact that at least as far as I can tell, the history and abilities of many magic artifacts in the Marvel Universe have never really been explored. We suspend our disbelief in holograms and such because these are an established trope of popular fiction with extensive previous explanation behind them. Perhaps a limited series sometime about the origins of Dr. Voodoo's most important magical tools? Perhaps this series could also tell us exactly what the things can and can't do.


Posted by wvantuinen on 2009-10-24 06:37:32
Using magic well
"The random nature comes from the fact that at least as far as I can tell, the history and abilities of many magic artifacts in the Marvel Universe have never really been explored."

One reason for complaints about the use of magic in fiction, the perception that there aren't rules, is the existence of powerful artifacts. The artifacts aren't self-powered. Logically, if an artifact had a limited amount of energy, it would be a single-use item or the writer would have to provide a gauge of some sort. Otherwise, an artifact is simply a means of invoking its creator. The Eye and Orb of Agamotto are powered by Agamotto. The Wand of Watoomb is powered by Watoomb. The Darkhold and DOCTOR VOODOO's Scrying Stones of Chthon are powered by Chthon. Without the gods as power sources, the objects would be useless.

There are stories, of course, about mysteriously powerful artifacts which grant wishes, etc., but in a close-ended story, the power source doesn’t need to be identified. The story is about the consequences, good or bad, of having a wish fulfilled.

The Infinity Gems and the Cosmic Cube are all quasi-sentient objects which tap into extra-dimensional power sources to a greater degree than any person can. Without the sentience, they would be pieces of junk.

Wanda’s Chthonic magic was supplied by Chthon, obviously. Presumably, the being let(s) her use its energy because the use of it did no harm and could make Earth’s dimension more hospitable. A writer could do a story about Wanda coming to grips with her connection to Chthon, thinking that it was a bad thing, and trying to eliminate it. She certainly couldn’t use her magic against Chthon -- and the Darkhold couldn’t be used against Chthon either. That was a serious problem with Slott’s MIGHTY AVENGERS arc.

Some of the complaints that have been aired about the absence of rules come from artifacts being used without connecting them to their creators, and/or because a story is written without a point. A story that features an artifact as nothing more than a power source that enables someone to take over the world or universe, with the heroes doing nothing more than taking the artifact away, is a waste of everyone’s time. A story written without any point (theme) is a bad story, regardless of how magic is used in it.

SRS


Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2009-10-24 13:20:15