Magic Weapons, Worst To Best

Enthusiasts, I have–

Just say you had nothing to write about and get in with it.

–oh, fine. It’s a list.

It’s a listicle.

Fuck you, man.

8-The One True Ring Bottom rung,. Worst possible Magic Weapon there is. Owning it damns you, using it psychically announces your presence to Satan, and it comes attached to some sort of dickish imp that smells like raw fish. All it does is make you invisible. Harry Potter has a blanket that does that, but it doesn’t corrupt your soul at the same time.

7-The Thing From Krull. This dumb thing:

Did you see that dumb thing? You’d lose a finger while it was still sitting on the kitchen table. Also, it’s called a glaive, and that is the noise that Jerry Lewis makes. You’re wandering around Krullville with a handful of nubs yelling like a nutbar, “Has anyone seen my GLAAAAAAIIIIII-ven? Nice lady.” This is not a good Magic Weapon. Two stumps down. Still: better than the One True Ring in that it doesn’t transform its owner into a swamp-krampus. I cannot overstate how awful the One True Ring is.

6-Captain America’s Shield Made of a mysterious and powerful metal called Vibranium, Cap’s iconic shield is completely indestructible–in the comics, it’s survived point-blank nuclear blasts–and he’s taught himself to ricochet it off trees and walls and other pieces of CG scenery so that the disc always returns to his hand. The only time it doesn’t come back to Cap is when he surrenders to the U.S. government and they take it from him. And, honestly, your Magic Weapon gets points off if the cops can confiscate it.

(In the movies, Cap’s given up his shield to the government once; in the comics, he did it fucking constantly. It was like a nervous tic. Sometimes, he would do it on principle, like after Watergate, and other times there would be a secret plot in the Department of Defense or somewhere to oust the man-of-conscience Steve Rogers and put in a soldier that would follow orders. And of course the replacement would be a drugged-up psychopath who got his superpowers in a favela, and he would get obsessed with Steve, and you can guess the rest. About a year-and-a-half later, things would go back to normal. Happened at least three times during my childhood. Steve Rogers renounced the title of Cap like Jean Grey died.)

5-Bowel Disruptor I’m ashamed of myself for never having recommended Transmetropolitan, Enthusiasts. It’s Hunter S. Thompson in the 24th-and-a-half century, and I’ve personally stolen a shit-ton from it. You can get a used copy for five bucks. Trust me.

4-Lightsaber HOT TAKE INCOMING: Lightsaber is an overrated Magic Weapon. Anyone other than a Jedi attempting to use one would self-decapitate in seconds, and don’t give me any of that The Force Awakens shit. Gimme a good blaster any day.

3-Excalibur This is a Magic fucking Weapon right here. And it’s simply more dignified than the Bowel Disruptor, so it received points for that. Excalibur glows with the power of a thousand suns to blind the enemy! And that’s about it, but it does come with the title of King of England. (Feel free to replay the scene from Holy Grail in your heads.)

2-Mjolnir You thought that was a Magic fucking Weapon? Eat my gooch, Excalibur. Mjolnir can do your little sunshine trick. Glowing is maybe 9,000th on the list of wild shit Mjolnir can do: fly at ludicrous speeds, summon lightning, open doors between dimensions. Mjolnir has facilitated time travel on more than several occasions. You can also hit monsters in the face with it.  But unlike the Power Ring, Mjolnir can only be wielded by the worthy which means Doctor Doom can’t steal it and hold the world hostage.

(When Vision casually yoinks Mjolnir in Age of Ultron–an enjoyable but confusing mess of a movie–it’s treated like a big deal, but scads of comic book characters have hoisted the enchanted hammer made of mystical Uru metal, forged in the heart of a dying star. Captain America, obviously. Storm picked it up once. An alien with a horse’s head named Beta Ray Bill. Even heroes from competing intellectual properties toted the fucker around: both Superman and Wonder Woman had no trouble.)

1-Power Ring The one Green Lantern has. This is our winner because it is as powerful as Mjolnir, but even sleazy people like you and me could use it.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk.