Smallville questions

[dans]

Did any magic users live in Smallville when Clark Kent Superboy lived there?

Do we know if there are any haunted houses in Smallville?

Do we know if any Homo Magi ever lived in Smallville? Or any magicians of other kinds?

Do Homo Magi live on both E1 and E2?

[DocQuantum]

Yellow Peri lived there for awhile. I can’t remember any haunted houses in particular, but feel free to invent one on the outskirts of town. There were always new characters being introduced in those comics.

Oh just remembered Gary/Gareth the warlock! He was definitely homo magi. Clark met him as a baby and again as a teen.

[dans]

Gary Gareth is good. I want a bad guy, to maybe a relative. Thanks!

[dans]

Does anyone remember the issues in which Superbaby met Gary?

[lawrenceliberty]

Superboy 178. I'd like to see what happened to the Clark/Lisa Davis relationship?

[DocQuantum]

Oct 21, 2020 13:44:23 GMT lawrenceliberty said:

Superboy 178. I'd like to see what happened to the Clark/Lisa Davis relationship?

Paul Kupperberg released an ebook with his unpublished scripts that deal with those subplots concerning Lisa Davis and all the political intrigue. I have the ebook but haven’t read it yet. I don’t think we need to follow those scripts exactly, but it could give us an idea of where they were going.

[dans]

Well, the story I have in mind is an imaginary story about Lana still having powers after Superboy throws the Sky-Girl belt into the sky, so I won't be examining any Lisa subplots. I'm just looking for a good origin for a one issue villain...

[johnreiter902]

Zatara the Magician also visited Smallville twice, in Superboy vol. 2 #14 and #49

[johnreiter902]

Oct 21, 2020 13:17:36 GMT dans said:

Does anyone remember the issues in which Superbaby met Gary?

Superboy #178, #187, and Superman Family #194

[dans]

Oct 22, 2020 0:09:09 GMT johnreiter902 said:

Oct 21, 2020 13:17:36 GMT dans said:

Does anyone remember the issues in which Superbaby met Gary?

Superboy #178, #187, and Superman Family #194

So, suppose that after Superboy #187, Gary got jealous of Clark because Gary has to say a poem in order to cast a spell and use his powers, but Clark's powers are always 'on', no poem necessary. So Gary thinks of a poem and casts a spell on something (say, a brooch) that allows him to cast a spell just by thinking of the specific effect he wants to accomplish, rather than having to think of the whole poem. Then his parents discover his artifact, and they take it away from him, because they want to be sure he learns to use his powers correctly (some day, someone may steal his brooch, or he might even lose it, and he will be way out of practice making up rhyming spells...) And then, one day, Gary uses his powers where someone can see, and there are bad consequences, and Gary's family has to move - and they misplace the brooch and fail to take it with them when they move... and the next guy who moves in finds the brooch...

So what spell does young Gary come up with that gives the brooch the power to respond to his will, rather than him having to speak the words?

Me not want to say poem, Me just want to go zoom!

Thing, make spell that me want! Make me a savant!

When me want to do deed make spell that me need!

[DocQuantum]

Sometimes it's that easy, especially in golden age and silver age comics, but I tend to think magic has to have limitations for dramatic reasons most of all. If Gary could simply replicate his spells in the form of mass-produced objects, he'd quickly be able to amass great power with an army of magicians. Undoubtedly, if that were the case, someone would have tried it already.

I'd suggest that, if Gary were to cast a spell on an object and thus enchant it enough to be endlessly useful, it would have to come at a cost... perhaps his lifespan is limited, or his health is impaired from now on (for example, he's got an open wound that won't heal, or he can't catch his breath whenever he exerts himself too much).

[dans]

I wasn't thinking of anything that drastic, Doc, but I did have some limitations in mind. I'll have to think it through some more - if it IS that easy, why don't his folks do it?

It seems like something like this must involve some transfer of Gary's power - so perhaps:

• artifact spells are weaker than spells created by poem
• when holding the artifact, the mage cannot also create spells by poem
• once created, anyone else can use the artifact
• while someone else is holding (or maybe only when using) the artifact, the creator is not able to cast any spells of any type
• the artifact, once created, can't be destroyed without drastic harm to the creator - perhaps death, or removal of all magical powers
  

so as long as Gary is using it, while he doesn't have to recite poetry to case spells, any spells he does cast are noticeably weaker than the same spell cast by poetry.

Those actually sound like some pretty good reasons not to fool around with the spell. Almost nobody who knew the limits would ever create an artifact like that. But Gary is too young to know what he's messing with.

With these limits, if Gary created an artifact like this, his parents never knew about it, because if they did, there is no way they would ever lose track of it.

So the back story would seem to be, toddler Gary creates one of these artifacts because he doesn't know better, uses it for a while, is unhappy because he is weaker when using it, and he throws it away in disgust, while never telling his parents. At some point in their lives, homo magi kids must be taught about the dangers of this type of artifact. But maybe, before Gary learns of the dangers, when he is 15 or 16, all of a sudden his powers disappear when someone else discovers this discarded artifact and learns to use it.


So what should I call this category of artifact? It probably has some mystical, vaguely sinister-sounding name that is rarely whispered in homo magi circles, but everyone who's been taught about it instantly recognizes.


And unless I get a better candidate, I'm going to use this as Gary's spell:

• When me want to do deed make spell that me need!

[jonclark]

The idea that the totem would draw on Gary's own magic sounds logical. It might not need more of a limit than that.

It might be that the totem would be an either/or where no matter how many totems you had only one would work at a time. So Gary's own powers wouldn't be usable if someone is using the totem. That totally prevents any attempt to mass produce it since if you did you'd only ever have a single user at any time and all the others would be useless.

Or it might be proportional where if you made 100 of them each would only let you cast spells at 1% of the creator's power. Gary might not be effected since his using the totem for him is drawing on the same power as speaking a poem. Any other user would only have access to the half of Gary's power in the totem. It is also possible that Gary might have cut his power in half semi-permanently so that using wither the totem or a poem Gary is limited to the portion of his power inherent in the poem or the portion in the totem, but not both.

[starskyhutch76]

Perhaps in trying to focus his power through the brooch, it is permanently bonded to him. If anything ever happened to the brooch, he would die.

[dans]

Thanks, gentlemen! I think we have this one locked up. It is possible for a member of homo magii to create a token of this class, but because of the dangers inherent in creating a token like this (it lessens your powers, other people can use it to use your own powers against you, destroying it hurts you in some way) generally they do not. Gary is thought to be too young to stumble on the idea so it has not yet been included in his education.

I think there should be a couple of other drastic limits on the power of such talismans - such a talisman cannot be used to harm the person who created it; any such use will reflect back on the human instead of damaging the home magii; if the homo magii who created it dies (of any reason) anyone who happens to be holding it at the time the mage dies will also die; the talisman disintegrats when the creator dies.

I'll bet this is WAY more thought behind this type of talisman than went into the Wizard's 'Wand of Glastonbury'!!!!