Doing In the Wizard: Difference between revisions

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== Comic Books ==

* General comic book example: when DC jump-started the [[Silver Age]] by reinventing a number of their once-popular characters, they tended to replace mystical origin stories with scientific ones. For instance, the new [[Green Lantern]] got his powers from being a [[Space Police~~|space policeman~~]] with an advanced technological weapon, rather than finding a magical lantern. This is probably largely because of the influence of Editor in Chief Julius Schwartz, who was also major editor in the field of prose science fiction.

* General comic book example: when DC jump-started the [[Silver Age]] by reinventing a number of their once-popular characters, they tended to replace mystical origin stories with (pseudo-)scientific ones. For instance, the new [[Green Lantern]] got his powers from being a [[Space Police]]man with an advanced technological weapon, rather than finding a magical lantern. This is probably largely because of the influence of Editor in Chief Julius Schwartz, who was also major editor in the field of prose science fiction.

* The early 1960s ''[[Blue Beetle]]'', Dan Garrett, gained superpowers from a magical beetle-shaped amulet from Ancient Egypt. ~~The~~ ~~amulet~~ ~~recently~~ resurfaced in a storyline revealing that it was actually a long-lost bit of [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]]. Justified in that the alien race behind it, the Reach, have disguised many of their plans and weapons as "magic" so that no one would ask questions, while at the same time doing in wizards that could prove otherwise.

* The early 1960s ''[[Blue Beetle]]'', Dan Garrett, gained superpowers from a magical beetle-shaped amulet from Ancient Egypt. (While the scarab is not itself magical, Garrett did use magic to activate it.) Between "Infinite Crisis" and "One Year Later", the amulet resurfaced in a storyline revealing that it was actually a long-lost bit of [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]]. Justified in that the alien race behind it, the Reach, have disguised many of their plans and weapons as "magic" so that no one would ask questions, while at the same time doing in wizards that could prove otherwise.

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* [[Hawkman]]'s powers are ever-changing in nature: He's either the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh, or an alien. Or the reincarnation of an alien pharaoh. For example, the mystic that gave the third/fourth Hawkman his powers was retconned into being a Thanagarian scientist.

** Although while the scarab is not itself magical, Garrett did use magic to activate it.

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* ~~Likewise,~~ [[Hawkman]]'s powers are ever-changing in nature: He's either the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh, or an alien. Or the reincarnation of an alien pharaoh. For example, the mystic that gave the third/fourth Hawkman his powers was retconned into being a Thanagarian scientist.

** Likewise, the nature of the "Nth Metal" that gives him his powers keeps changing; from a simple anti-gravity material, to all-purpose [[Green Rocks]], either scientific or magical or even angelic in nature and naturally or artificially originating either from Earth, Thanagar or Heaven. Pick one from each column.

* There was a period when [[The Mighty Thor]] and his fellow Asgardians were actually [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens]] whose exploits inspired Norse mythology, but who weren't actually gods. This has since been completely ignored.

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** The new film also makes the claim that magic and science are in fact one and the same, and Asgard seems to exist physically in another dimension or region of space.

* [[Batman]] has done his fair share of this, usually pointing out people explicitly trying to use smoke-and-mirrors to appear mystical, or some ancient artifact that was thought to be "cursed" or "enchanted" having a rational explanation, like a rage-demon-possessed mask that actually had a few small poison-tipped spikes that drove the bearer mad. That said, he's also explicitly encountered ghosts, wizards, gods and demons, so it's less a case of "There's no such thing as magic" as "I won't believe it's magic until I prove it one way or the other."

== Film ==