#ducksverse

She was originally invented by the Italian writer Rodolfo Cimino for a 1971 story, and while she was used by some other writers she largely remained a Cimino-only character (which unfortunately is why she hasn’t been used that much lately... I was very happy to see her in a 2008 story.)

Lot of Cimino’s stories are kinda weird. Bizarre things happen in them (Roberta’s first appearance has this thing... a robot Scrooge has connected to his brainwaves...)

Lot of excuses for weird visuals and fun wacky stuff. The character work for Scrooge and Donald espcially can be weak but Magica is a lot of fun and sympathetic like she generally is in the Italian comics, and her relationship with Roberta is cute.

She is a sort of a technical witch and in her early stories she is specifically contrasted with Gyro Gearloose. Just like Scrooge has Gyro helping him, Magica has Roberta (although the latter relationship is much healthier and they’re equal friends...)

In the early comics Roberta says she is helping Magica to get the dime because she wants to defeat Gyro, and I don’t think this rivalry was ever done enough with but imo Roberta is the most interesting rival/counterpart for Gyro with Gyro’s technology that is basically magic and Roberta’s magic that is basically tech.

(I have way more ideas than what the comics ever did with it haha.)

But yeah in the comics Roberta is a tech wizard. She knows about mystical places as well but lot of her magical devices look technical and at least in Finnish it’s implied she’s specifically a magical engineer with a degree in... magical engineering I guess.

(also awh look at that background picture of babby Roberta)

In later stories Magica and Roberta are just partners and Roberta helps Magica as an equal partner-in-dime-crime, or in some stories she is just a good friend or a member of the witch society.

She takes care of Magica (in one comic overworked Magica collapses on her doorstep and she helps her to bed and takes care of her until she feels better), makes sure she remembers to eat, points out her more careless plans...

She’s good for her... They’re cute together...

A constant thing with her is the Women’s Association/women’s club she is a part of and it is one of the underutilized things for her imo. There is a lot of potential there for her to have her own supporting cast! And goals!

However unfortunately, writers kinda haven’t given her a consistant supporting cast there. I think some older Western comics had recurring characters there but they didn’t really have much personality or unique goals and relationships.

This is Dora who is a recurring character in those but doesn’t have much distinct personality.

The other problem is the organization??? club??  just kinda ??? does nothing? i think it vaguely throws charity parties but these are way too often used in plots as something that is there to annoy Donald or possibly Scrooge. The party happens in the plot, not to focus on Daisy and treat her as the sympathetic character but to cause problems to Donald since he is being dragged to a party by his GF SIGH WOMEN AM I RIGHT?

At least when Martina wrote the org they were actually trying to do feminist activism even if it was a strawman’s version of feminism at least they were... doing things.

I don’t really remember any time where the charity stuff would have been really focused on as something Daisy wants to do since she wants to help people...

They however ARE used as a source of peer pressure on Daisy.

When those stories focus on her they’re often about how she feels inadequate, or is afraid to express her opinions, or stresses out about impressing the other ladies. And these plots do work better... (As a sidenote, peer pressure and dealing with it is a major thing in the duck comics for a lot of characters...)

But even as I did think of this, I just kinda realized there is a female duck character who does all of this same stuff but better, and that’s Magica. Her self esteem issues, and the other witches thinking she’s a loser etc are also a thing and she’s just a much more interesting character to me...