(Nickel Comics 001-007, 1940)
Warlock the Wizard, in addition to having a name built to confuse someone familiar with modern D&D classes, is an interesting member of the Magic Guy type of Golden Age super-heroes, in that while he has some innate skill at magic he is much more of a magic item user than a lot of his contemporaries (and yes I am aware that this makes him closer to an Artificer than either a Warlock or a Wizard). This introduces a bit more uncertainty into a Warlock adventure as it is possible that he will be separated from his source of power, something that is quite a bit harder to do in a Zatara story, say
Warlock’s tools of the trade (pictured above) are:
-Hugin the raven. Acts as a familiar, scout, fetcher-of-other-tools, messenger and occasional subject of transformation magic.
-the Hand of Abraxas. Speak the magic word (conveniently, it is Abraxas) and the hand detaches from the stick and grows huge. Acts as transport, muscle etc. Since we’re already talking D&D, it’s basically a wand of Bigby’s Hand spells.
-the Lamp of the Gods. This is the big gun, which is why it only comes out occasionally and at the end of adventures. It seemingly offers consequence-free favours from the gods of assorted pantheons, including stuff like borrowing the Hammer of Thor to smite someone or petitioning Neptune for rain.
One more thing that I appreciate about Warlock is the repeated insistence that most people fear and hate him – a somewhat unusual thing in 40s comics and so a refreshing one.
As always, my attitude about magic item-using characters is that they should be BROUGHT BACK, preferably as legacy characters. Picture this: some workaday schlub decides to befriend their neighbourhood crows ravens and it just so happens that one of them is Hugin and in return for a generous attitude toward sharing table scraps they get the Lamp of the Gods left on their front steps. Good stuff!
