Did JLA/Avengers read more like JLA and "oh yeah the Avengers" to anybody else?

[USERNAME TAKEN]

Wow this is surprising. I hadn't read it but I'd heard Superman catches Thor's hammer, but I didn't expect he actually stopped the hammer strike in his open palm. Should he have been able to do that, given his magic weakness?

I just assumed he stopped Thor's arm or something.













If you were surprised, i was flabbergasted.

However, as some posters have pointed out, writers interpret the weakness to magic differently.

If magic lightning can severely hurt Supes, i don't why a magic hammer (for all intents and purposes) damage him seriously.

[Kunoichi]

I didn't feel that way about the story.

[Kurt Busiek]

If magic lightning can severely hurt Supes, i don't why a magic hammer (for all intents and purposes) damage him seriously.

For the same reason that the magically-created Wonder Woman has punched him without putting her superstrong fist through him, or that whacking him with Dr. Fate's magical helmet won't knock him out.

Or, for that matter, for the same reason magic lightning has been shown not to hurt him, too. [Once, it turned him into Captain Marvel.]

He's not weakened by the mere proximity of magic, like he is Kryptonite. Magic works on him, much like it does on anyone else. But it doesn't work _better_ on him than it does on other people.

Thor's hammer was made with magic, and can do magic things. If Thor opened a portal with it, Superman could go through it. If Thor channeled a godblast, it'd hurt Superman like the dickens. But hitting someone with Thor's hammer is a physical impact, not a magical attack. Hitting with it has never done specifically-magic damage to the Hulk, Iron Man, Mister Hyde or countless other people Thor has hit with it, who also have no magical invulnerability.

It hits hard. But it's magical effects are things like weather control, transformation to Don Blake, "always* return to Thor's hand" and channel various energies, not "+14 magical impact damage."

And Superman can take a lot of physical impact.**

The bottom line is, Superman's vulnerability to magic has been inconsistently portrayed over the decades, but the most-common description of it is that magic will work on him like it does on anyone else. So a magic spell that turns people into newts will turn him into a newt (or possibly a super-newt) and a sword enchanted to cut through anything will cut his skin. But a sword enchanted to make the wielder the finest swordsman in the land, while it's a magic weapon, won't hurt Superman, because the magic in the sword isn't about doing physical damage, it's about making the wielder ultra-skilled.

Thor's hammer does magical things. But that doesn't mean everything it does has magical effect, or that merely being magic will hurt Superman in a way that it doesn't hurt other character who also don't have special resistance to magic.

If Mjolnir had an "Odin Say Knock You Out" spell on it, that'd work on Superman. But it'd also work on most people Thor's fought, and it doesn't seem to do that, so it doesn't seem to be there. So it won't do it to Superman -- magic works on him, but the mere presence of magic doesn't (with rare exception) hurt him.

That's the most-common treatment of Superman and magic, and the one everyone who worked on the book was aware of and agreed on.

kdb

*well, usually. It has been shown to be held back by various forces, including magnetism and "a robot is holding it," and at least once returned to where Thor was when he threw it rather than where he was later, so it's been open to a certain amount of interpretation over the years.

**he's been shown on a few occasions to be harmed by the "magic-fueled" punched of Captain Marvel, but shown on other occasions to not be. And on many, many, many occasions he hasn't been harmed by the attacks of magically-created or powered beings.

[Kunoichi]

If Mjolnir had an "Odin Say Knock You Out" spell on it, that'd work on Superman.

This is the best thing I have read since joining these forums.

Thank you, Mr. Busiek.

[USERNAME TAKEN]

**he's been shown on a few occasions to be harmed by the "magic-fueled" punches of Captain Marvel, but shown on other occasions to not be. And on many, many, many occasions he hasn't been harmed by the attacks of magically-created or powered beings.


































Thank you for replying me and clarifying Supes weakness to magic and the actual scope of said weakness. (i can't actually believe i am replying Kurt Busiek on a thread!!)

However, i highlighted the above phrase because i remember reading Superman/Batman:Public enemies (Loeb and Mcguiness) and Supes stated categorically when he was fighting Captain Marvel that he was at a disadvantage because Cap was "magical" in nature. That was what i based my statement on when i was referring to Mjolnir's impact on Supes.

I guess different writers choose to interpret Supes magical weakness differently.

[Duy]

Thank you for replying me and clarifying Supes weakness to magic and the actual scope of said weakness. (i can't actually believe i am replying Kurt Busiek on a thread!!)

However, i highlighted the above phrase because i remember reading Superman/Batman:Public enemies (Loeb and Mcguiness) and Supes stated categorically when he was fighting Captain Marvel that he was at a disadvantage because Cap was "magical" in nature. That was what i based my statement on when i was referring to Mjolnir's impact on Supes.

I guess different writers choose to interpret Supes magical weakness differently.

Yep. Captain Marvel is always pulled out because he's magical, but I've read issues of Superman where he fights Arion or Chaon or other magical beings and he doesn't have a problem at all. It's up to the discretion of the writer, and I think in something like JLA/AVENGERS, awesome (in the pure sense of the word) imagery is the way to go, and I don't think it gets visually better than Mjolnir drawing first blood, and then Superman catching it later on.

[USERNAME TAKEN]

I think in something like JLA/AVENGERS, awesome (in the pure sense of the word) imagery is the way to go, and I don't think it gets visually better than Mjolnir drawing first blood, and then Superman catching it later on.












If we are talking purely aesthetically, then yes, it looked awesome. However, if you were a Thor fan, you would question that scene.

But heck..i think we all agree that the interpretation of Supes weakness to magic is entirely up to the writer scripting the issue.

[Duy]

If we are talking purely aesthetically, then yes, it looked awesome. However, if you were a Thor fan, you would question that scene.

But heck..i think we all agree that the interpretation of Supes weakness to magic is entirely up to the writer scripting the issue.

I am a Thor fan.

In fact, Thor is probably my third or fourth favorite Marvel hero, and Superman is probably my fifth or sixth favorite DC hero.

[Kurt Busiek]

"**he's been shown on a few occasions to be harmed by the "magic-fueled" punches of Captain Marvel, but shown on other occasions to not be. And on many, many, many occasions he hasn't been harmed by the attacks of magically-created or powered beings."

I highlighted the above phrase because i remember reading Superman/Batman:Public enemies (Loeb and Mcguiness) and Supes stated categorically when he was fighting Captain Marvel that he was at a disadvantage because Cap was "magical" in nature. That was what i based my statement on when i was referring to Mjolnir's impact on Supes.

That's one of the "few occasions" mentioned above.

Not one I could have taken into account in writing JLA/AVENGERS, though, since JLA/AVENGERS #2 came out before that story was published.

Plus, of course, it contradicts numerous earlier stories in which Captain Marvel's punches don't have any magical effect on Superman at all. Nor do the also-magical-in-nature Wonder Woman's, and other magical characters.

I guess different writers choose to interpret Supes magical weakness differently.

There's not much in comics that doesn't get interpreted differently over time. That's one of the reasons why I try to figure out what's the most common interpretation, and stick with that.

kdb

[Madison Carter]

You know who *really* got the shaft in this series?

Any Green Lantern not named Hal Jordan.

Just look at the cover of #3: Kyle, Guy, Kilowog, G'nort, Scott, Stewart, even Jade...all using their rings to help transport a ton of other heroes. Hal? Not even lifting a ****ing finger.

[Kurt Busiek]

You know who *really* got the shaft in this series?

Any Green Lantern not named Hal Jordan.

Just look at the cover of #3: Kyle, Guy, Kilowog, G'nort, Scott, Stewart, even Jade...all using their rings to help transport a ton of other heroes. Hal? Not even lifting a ****ing finger.

He would have been lifting a finger, but this is before DC dropped the Comics Code.

kdb

[Cyke]

I'll have to go back to it, but unless they said something like, "we were mind controlled to say those things", or, that they were "only trying to bait each other and didn't mean it", the venom in their viewpoints still stands.

I believe issue #3 had someone deduce that since Cap and Superman were the best representations of their respective universes, they were the ones most keen to feeling the differences of the cosmic mergers, and it was affecting them negatively. Simply put, they were being affected by unnatural events and lashed out in reaction to it. That's more or less the same as being drugged the old fashioned way, so no, I don't think the venom in their viewpoints stand.

[Cthulhudrew]

It hits hard. But it's magical effects are things like weather control, transformation to Don Blake, "always* return to Thor's hand" and channel various energies, not "+14 magical impact damage."

I have to retool all my D&D campaigns now. Thanks, Kurt.

[carabas]

However, i highlighted the above phrase because i remember reading Superman/Batman:Public enemies (Loeb and Mcguiness) and Supes stated categorically when he was fighting Captain Marvel that he was at a disadvantage because Cap was "magical" in nature. That was what i based my statement on when i was referring to Mjolnir's impact on Supes.

It's a Jeph Loeb story. Proper continuity and characterisation cannot coexist with the name Loeb in the credits. The same story has Lex Luthor, who once got cancer from wearing a kryptonite ring, injecting the stuff into his veins, and throwing away his presidency, years of planning, not to mention his entire public image, just to punch Superman in the head with his brandnew silver age power suit.

[Ben D]

He would have been lifting a finger, but this is before DC dropped the Comics Code.

kdb

Best. Quote. Ever.