New Brevoort Formspring

Dear Mr. Breevort

I’m writing to express my dissapointment at Marvel continuous treatment of magic side of Marvel Universe.

I am not talking about specific book series, I’m not saying there are no good books about magic users. I enjoyed Morudin arc in New Avengers and think Scarlet Witch is a very good series. Before that I enjoyed Loki: Agent of Asgard and works of Kieron Gillen. You certainly do have good stories about characters who use magic.

However, I’ve noticed some disturbing thrends in the kind of stories that are being done by Marvel. it occured to me that basically ever since end of Joss Whedon’s Runaways run every book has been doing only very limited type of plotlines for magicusers. They are either :

a)posessed/mind controlled/under other kind of someone else’s influence (Doctor Strange in New Avengers vol.2, Scarlet Witch in Avengers: the Children’s Crusade, Billy Kaplan in New Avengers vol.4, Nico Minoru assuming that A-Force #6 solicit doesn’t flat out lie to us)

b)turned evil or pushed on the verge of it or at least treated as untrustworthy and able to turn evil at any point (Scarlet Witch since Avengers Dissassembled up to Children’s Crusade and then in AXIS, Nico Minoru in Avengers Arena and Avengers Undercover, Loki in Loki: Agent of Asgard and Mighty Thor vol.2, Kaluu in Mighty Avengers/Captain Amerca & the Mighty Avengers, Doctor Strange in New Avengers vol.3 with the whole Black Priests thing and in Secret Wars, Adam Warlock in guardians of the Galaxy vol.2, Shiklah in ANAD Deadpool books)

c) de-powered (Doctor Strange in New Avengers vol.1 and Strange: the Doctor is Out! and now in Doctor Strange vol.4, Loki in Journey Into Mystery)

d) Screwing up royally and having to fix their screw-up (Billy Kaplan in Young Avengers vol.2, Doctor Voodoo in Doctor Voodoo: Avenger of the Supernatural)

e) Having to deal with vaguelly done “magic is Broken/Magic is in danger” storyline where they have to fix magic itelf having one of the above plotlines (Current Doctor Strange and Scarlet Witch books (while vaguelly similair storyline is happenning in Hercules) and previously Doctor Strange in New Avengers vol.1)

And I’m not even counting all the times when they are beaten or outright killed to make a villain look strong and they usually do not get a satisfactionary opportunity to get back at them (one case I can think of was horribly done). Meanwhle other heroes get their own storylines in which they can actually save the world, save their own team in “last one standing” fight with a villain,  go through character arcs not focused on any of the above, deal with real-world problems and with crazy comics stuff alike, be intellectually challenged by stronger opponnents, explore and build their supporting cast and rogues gallery, experiment and venture into new territorries, be challenged with a moral dillema etcc. Magic users don’t get that and if they do, not without having to deal with one of the above plotlines at thesame time.Characters whose powers are connected do widely-understood magic do get those plotlines (Iron Fist, Ghost Riders, Thor, Ares, Blade) but characters who actually USE magic don’t. At the current state of things even when magic user gets a good storyline, like Billy in New Avengers or Loki in Agent of Asgard or Wanda in her current bookad likely Nico in A-Force, i cannot help but find my enjoyment hindered by the pressence of those tired, overused, at this point just cliched plotlines threw in

One could say that it’s because of the nature of magic, that the audience cannot accept with willing suspension of disbelief intact magic users saving the day, that they seem to be overpowered. But in face of wide, international success of books like Hary Potter, Dresden Files, Brandon Sanderson novels, Lord of the Rings movies (in which Gandalf NEVER has to deal with any of these plotlines, even when he “dies” he does so taking the villain down), or manga/anime series like Naruto, Fairy Tail, Fullmetal Alchemist or Fate/Stay Night, this argument simply doesn’t hold water.

Thank you for hearing me out and please - let your wizards be heroes for a change. Not victims, not punching bags, not liabilities, not on the verge of flipping off and killing everyone, not facing constant threat of losing their magic, just heroes.