Everyone Gets Superman’s Weakness To Magic Wrong

Remember that infamous scene in the first X-Men movie when Storm says to Toad,  “Do you know what happens to a toad when it’s struck by lightning? Same thing that happens to everything else.”? Well, Superman’s vulnerability to magic is a lot like that. Kal-el doesn’t have any natural protection against magic the way he does bullets or other physical threats.

This leads some people to claim that he is weak to magic, but that’s like saying that someone walking down the street is weak to getting hit by a car. Magic is just as dangerous to Superman as it is to Batman or Lois Lane, not more so.

The best way to explain it is this is when someone holds a piece of Kryptonite in Superman’s general vicinity, it starts to sap his strength and slowly poisons him. The longer he’s around it, the sicker he gets until, eventually, his body shuts down completely, resulting in his death. Think of it like a peanut allergy, except without a school-wide ban on Kryptonite and jelly sandwiches.

Now imagine that one of DC’s magic wielders, like Zatanna, conjures a kitten from the aether and hands it to Superman. He can stand there and pet that adorable little floof-ball all day without getting sick or feeling like his power is being drained from his body.

On the other hand, if that frisky feline suddenly decided to bite Superman’s finger mid-belly rub, it would hurt him, unlike a non-magical cat, which would just break its poor little jaw on Clark’s steel-like skin.

That’s because Superman isn’t really weak to magic he’s just vulnerable to it. If Black Adam fires a bolt of lightning at Superman and fries him to a crisp, it’s only because that’s what the bolt would do to anyone lacking some kind of magic resistance.

Another reason magic can’t really be considered a weakness for Superman is because unlike Kryptonite, magic under the right circumstances can actually help him.

Readers familiar with fantasy role playing game’s like Dungeons & Dragons or Final Fantasy will be familiar with the concept of a “buff”. Basically, it’s a magic spell that has positive effects when cast on a character. If Zatanna or Constantine cast the DC equivalent of Haste or Protect on Superman, it would temporarily enhance his abilities the same as with anyone else.

If we’re being honest, the main reason why comic nerds are so quick to pull out the “Superman is weak to magic” card as if it’s some mindblowing trivia is that there are so few ways to actually hurt the Big Blue Boyscout that naming anything other than Kryptonite is a cheap way to sound like an expert on DC lore.

It’s particularly funny when you consider that when Superman “died” in the ’90s, the best DC could come up with was to have someone stronger punch him to death. Holy crap, Superman is weak to punches from beings equally strong or stronger than him! We can’t wait to break out that nugget of trivia on our next visit to our local comic shop.