THE FOUR COLOR GRIMOIRE 03

No Gods But My Own was the name of my Substack newsletter. I’m in the process of shutting it down and wanted to have a more permanent home for these essays here at We the Hallowed. The Four Color Grimoire was the second volume in the series. Originally posted on on March 15th, 2022 and published in the book The Four Color Grimoire on March 31st, 2023.

03. THE PIECEMEAL MAGICIAN

This section was difficult. Not because I couldn’t find a plethora of amazing magic based characters (there were plenty) but because most of them work better as an integrated mass than as individuals. Magical characters in comics have had a long history of being gimmicks or only having that single dimension in their personalities. There are a couple notable exceptions but, for the most part, these characters seem to exist for nothing more than the novelty of the occult. It’s in that vein that I present an amalgamated mass of them in The Piecemeal Magician.

Who better to represent the idea of The Piecemeal Magician than The Ragman, Rory Regan. The Suit of Souls was patched together by the same men that sculpted the Golem of Prague and by their design it is fueled by the souls of evil men. After inheriting his father’s junk shop, Vietnam veteran Rory Regan discovers The Suit of Souls buried within the stacks and it bonds with him, flooding him with not only the memories of all who have worn the suit but also all the evil that the suit has absorbed. Along with the memories, Rory is given all the skills and strengths of those who now reside within his suit of rags.

Anyone with more than a passing familiarity with occult practices understand that fictional sorcery has little to do with its real life counterparts. Practitioners don’t shoot fire from their hands or turn guns into butterflies. They don’t absorb their enemies into their patchwork super-suit. Not that I’ve witnessed, at least. Real life magic is far more mundane, looking more like a poetry recital than a CGI light show.

So if that’s true then how do these comic book mages have anything to say about the true practice of magic?

It’s all about discernment and finding the aspects of magic that each of them express through their stories and character. Many of them have one or more parts of what could give you scraps of a solid, effective practice and you should try piecing them together like Ragman’s Suit of Souls, taking power from each of their strengths.

Let’s take a moment and stitch together The Piecemeal Magician:

All it took was a single moment of carelessness and egotism for the surgeon Doctor Stephen Strange to lose both the use of his hands and his livelihood. Once Strange had run out of traditional treatments for this tragic injury he began traveling the world for alternative solutions. This led him directly to a powerful sorcerer known as The Ancient One and the magical practice that would be his fate.

Doctor Strange shows us that through diligence and flexibility you can overcome even the most crippling of barriers. Strange’s hands were never healed and he never got back to what he had once thought was his true calling. Instead, he allowed his experience to change his trajectory. He found new goals, new purposes. The ego that had led him to his downfall gave way to a sense of humble service.

Showmanship is what Zatanna brings to the table. Of all the magicians in comics, Zatanna is the only one who has the perfect day job to cover her activities. She brings the power to her stage show as a performer and utilizes her mastery of stagecraft when fighting otherworldly menaces. Her father had been a stage magician and sorcerer before her and the love she holds for him makes her practice both ancestral and contemporary at the same time

In chronicling the training of wizard Timothy Hunter we see the benefit of having as many teachers as possible. The boy is destined to be the greatest user of magic the universe has seen but only after scholarship and experience. Talent does not just drop in your lap. It must be honed.

Guile factors more into the magic of John Constantine than wisdom. He teaches that it’s important to always think on your feet and look to your circle of fellow travelers when you’re stuck in a corner.. For this working class warlock it’s more about who you know than what you know. Armed with his silk cut cigarettes and a dry wit, Constantine is all about utility and cares little about the kinds of practices his allies might use as long as it is effective.

The essence of Doctor Fate is inhuman. He is just an entity built within a helmet, driven by a Lord of Order. Many people have worn the helmet and become Fate but it cost them their lives in exchange for the promise of great power. That unquestioned devotion is a great metaphor for blind faith and the loss of identity in a life overwhelmed by spiritual extremes.

Doctor Druid and Brother Voodoo sit on the opposite side of that, showing that traditions have great value, even when done in a novel way. Though both of these characters were created as insensitive stereotypes of their respective practices, their mythology has come around in more recent years to show a greater reverence to the traditions they are named after.

Keep digging and you’ll find even more. The list of supernatural beings in comics is long and the lessons you can learn from them are vast.

An important lesson revealed by The Piecemeal Magician is that magic has a very real price when taken too far. They are all masters of their craft but none of them are aspirational figures. Their relationships suffer from their obsessions and they lack stability. The same can be said of most comic heroes but it seems that much more stark for the users of magic.

In The Piecemeal Magician we see that magic is hard to define within a single unifying concept. That is probably the most valuable lesson The Piecemeal Magician can leave us with. Each of these parts has value, no matter how novel or absurd the style may be.

So go out and stitch your own Suit of Souls.

Bring the magic together.

Be cautious not to be devoured.

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Eric Millar

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