Magica de Spell is no doubt the biggest sorceress visiting Duckburg. She is living at Mount Vesuvius in Italy. She is so much of threat that Scrooge has stationed two detectives aoutside her house to watch her. The main reason why she is so dangerous to Scrooge, may be that she worships the same god Scrooge does: Mammon. The struggle between Magica and Scrooge is so harsh that Scrooge tries to introduce an "anti-sorcery law" in "For Old Dime's Sake" (US 43-01). He may have succeded, because in "Cash Flow" (AR 143) we can see a "wanted poster" with Magica's picture on it and the text: "Wanted for black magic" (The poster of Barks with "Wanted for being bad" is another matter) . In "A Little Something Special" (D 96325) we are informed that Magica is a licensed sorceress. We are not informed what university she took her degree, but we may guess that is was the university at the Brocken.

Magica's dime-fetichism

Magica's first appearance is in "The Midas Touch" (US 36-01). She enters the Money Bin to buy a dime from Scrooge. Donald tells Scrooge that she is a sorceress, but Scrooge sells here a dime anyway. He sells her his first dime by accident, but gets is back. The fun starts when Scrooge tells her that it is the first dime he earned. She is going to make an amulet that wil make her the richest sorceress in the world. Magica could probably get rich by using her magic in other ways, but she is obsessed by the thought of melting a dime owned by the richest man in the world into her amulet. This may be caused by the threat of exclusion from the sorceress guild if she did it another way. Another reason is probably that the first coin belonging to the richest man in the world has, according to Magica, more power than his other coins. There is no end to Magica's creativity in her attempts to obtain the Dime. In "Of Ducks, Dimes and Destinies" (D 91249) she buys a candle to travel in time for one hour (she cannot afford a time bulb), but she forgets that the Dime has no power if it has not belonged to Scrooge. In this story we do, by the way, see that the witches has not forgotten the treatment of the medieval witches. They were not told to go away for disturbing old ladies like Magica is in "The Unsafe Safe" (US 38-02).
In "Ten-Cent Valentine" (WDC 258-01) we are told that to retain its power when the sorceress reveals her warm emotions by melting it on Mount Vesuvius, the Dime has to be unbroken. One of the ducklings grinds what Magica and Scrooge believes to be the Dime, and Magica goes back to Italy while Scrooge stays in bed. Huey, Dewey and Louie makes a cake with one hard thing in it to cheer Scrooge up.
What makes the Dime so powerful, is the fact that it is owned by world's richest man, not that it is owned by Scrooge - he just happens to be that man! This is evident in "A Little Something Special" (D 96325), where Magica saves Scrooge from her accomplices because the Dime does not have any power if it is owned by a bankrupt Scrooge. Instead of stealing the world's richest man's first dime, she steals the world's second richest man's first dime.
All the defeats Magica faces may have given her a nervous breakdown in "Raven Mad" (WDC 265-02). She is probably mentally unstable when she lets a raven (Randolph) put the Dime at the top of a rocket going to the sun saying: "Hee, hee, hee! The sun's rays will bathe me with good fortune! I'll get extra-rich every time I get a sunburn!". To Magica's disappointment, the raven saves the Dime after Donald imposes a witch.
That would not have happened had Donald never been born. "The Duck Who Never Was" (D 93574) tells us what would have become of Duckburg and its inhabitants in such a case: Gus would as Scrooge's closest relative been polishing coins. He would have used the Dime to buy food from Magica paying with the Dime. This would ruin Scrooge and Duckburg. Magica would have been the richest sorceress in the world, and sorcery would have been the worlds biggest growth industry.

Magica's accomplices

Magica's most important assistant is her raven. The raven has the gift of speech, and it may be the raven we meet in "Raven Mad" (WDC 265-02). If that is the case, Magica must have given it a magical language course, because all the raven says in this story is "nevermore." The raven is very important to the sorceress. In "Isle of Golden Geese" (US 45-01) it wears a microphone and a radio transmitter reporting what Scrooge is doing. In "The Unsafe Safe" (US 38-02) it is the leader of Magica's intelligence making all the birds in the world look for Scrooge, who has left Duckburg and his (almost) impervious money bin.
But the raven should have known that serving a sorceress is stupid - it has been the victim for Magica's spells many times. The most embarrassing episode is in "The Many Faces of Magica de Spell" (US 48-01) where given Magica's face to help Magica escape Scrooge's detectives. This is a pianful experience, and even more so when Magica tells the raven that she does not have any antidote (Huey, Dewey and Louie does; it is right there in the Junior Woodchuck Handbook). Later, Magica puts the bird "On a Silver Platter" (H 89068) and its wings flies about in Scrooge's money bin until Donald kicks them back where they belong. (In this story Scrooge fires the detectives outside Magica's house, by the way). Magica's other pets include black cats, bats and probably other creepy animals like spiders.
Now and then Magica cooperates with other people. The Beagle Boys are her favourite helpers - she works with them twice. The first time is in "Isle of Golden Geese" (US 45-01). In this story Magica hires them to run a ship, and she whips them with lightnings and treat them as labourers doing an (almost) honest day's work. The second time she works with them, is in "A Little Something Special" (D 96325). Now the Beagle Boys are Magica's equal; it is even Blackheart Beagle who has made the plan where Magica and the Beagle Boys use Flintheart Glomgold's gold to buy what they need to steel Scrooge's first dime, and the other money in his bin. Flintheart Glomgold's only interest in this, is seeing Scrooge ruined. Scrooge the superhero defeats them, but Magica and the Beagle Boys see their wishes come partly true - the Beagle Boys loots Flintheart's money bin and Magica steals his first coin. In "The Quest for Sampo" (D 99078), Magica teams up with Louhi to get her hands on Sampo, which should give her, wealth.

Magica's hobbies

We do not know much about what Magica is doing when she is not trying to steel a certain dime, but we find some information. She probably spend some time to make her pets used to being the subjects of all kinds of experiments. We also learn, in "The Midas Touch" (US 36-01), that she casts spells, hexes hexes, refules evil eyes and has ogres for rent. At the end of the story, we also see that she is good at throwing stones in people's heads, which means she probably practice her stone-throwing technique from time to time. In "The Unsafe Safe" (US 38-02) we are informed that she has black cats for rent She probably does not have a TV (we never see one, at least), so she probably spends the nights looking at life in Duckburg in her crystal ball, as we can see in "Of Ducks, (and) Dimes and Destinies" (D 91249). I am sure she spends some time on her collection of magic recipies, magic potions and books about magic too, but she spends most days finding new weapons in her struggle to steal the Dime.

Magica's weapons in the struggle against Scrooge

Magica is using many weapons in her struggle to steal Scrooge's Dime. Her primary weapon, is the flash blinder/foofer. This weapon is used in the first encounter, "The Midas Touch" (US 36-01). These flash blinders make the victim dizzy long enough for the sorceress to get away, but not long enough for her to loose her persuer. Besides, Magica reveals "antidote" in this first Magica de Spell story; the flash blinders do not work if the victim uses dark sun glasses. This means they do not work as she wants to in later stories. There is not much more to say about this weapon, except that it is very unpleasant to swallow a flash blinder, as Huey (or Dewey, or Louie, I do not have Donald's eye for detail) can tell us. In "The Treasury of Croesus" (D 94012) he does exactly that!
From time to time Magica run out of flash blinders. If this happens, she can always use her stun ray. According to Magica, this ray is "a power more stupefying than the evil eye." Unfortunately the battery is gone dead when she needs it the most in "The Unsafe Safe" (US 38-02).
One more trick that Magica uses a lot, is (magic) transformation - she transforms so our heroes do not recognise her. In her first story, "The Midas Touch" (US 36-01), she transforms to the moviestar, some other woman, and an old woman wearing a star that looks like the one jews had to wear during World War II. Later, in "Ten-Cent Valentine" (WDC 258-01) she impersonates Scrooge's private secretary in order to bug him. Later she transforms to a sexy jogger making Donald chase her. In "For Old Dime's Sake" (US 43-01) she acts as a stewardess, and the mayor of Duckburg.

We see a different kind of transformation in Oddball Odyssey (US 40-02). Magica discovers Circe's secret cave. Inside the cave is a magic wand that she uses to transform Huey, Dewey and Louie to pigs, Donald to a goat (later to a tortoise), and Scrooge to a donkey. This reminds us of the treatment Circe gave Ulysses and his men. Magica does not succeed in transforming Scrooge after stealing the Dime, and Scrooge manages to break the spell (de Spell) by smashing the magic wand. Magica uses a special perfume on the letter she sends Scrooge, in order to fool him. In "Ten-Cent Valentine" (WDC 258-01) she makes Donald tell her who has got the Dime by using a similar kind of perfume. If she runs out of this perfume, she can always use her hypnotic wand, which we see in "For Old Dime's Sake" (US 43-01)
Circes cave is the most important discovery Magica has ever made. Inside it she found 'heinous herbs of horrendous power' herbs ("For Old Dime's Sake", US 43-01), how to make the victim's face look like the last person or animal it looked at ("The Many Faces of Magica de Spell", US 48-01), and she found a recipe that she hopes will help her to become the richest sentient in the world. ("The Treasury of Croesus", D 94012). In this story we see a fresco telling how Circe tried to steal King Croesus' first coin to extract some magic power from it. This tells us that wiches may have a biblical age - Ulysses lived in the 1200's BC, while King Kroesus lived in the 500's BC. The charm Magica makes using this coin, does not give her Midas' abilities; she touches Donald, but he does not turn into gold.

Magica soon discovers that these weapons are not enough, so in "For Old Dime's Sake" (US 43-01 she turns to more powerful tools. We see her commanding lightnings, cyklones, comets and meteors, but it is of no use to her. In "Isle of Golden Geese" (US 45-01) she has a real competitor when she uses potion number six to exercise her power over the creatures of the deep, and potion number seven to do the same to the creatures of the air. Fanny, last of the featherbrains, who owns the golden geese Scrooge wants without using any potions. This story is kind of strange - Magica does not want the Dime, but she needs a few goose eggs for a potion, and she hears of the Isle of Golden Geese because Scrooge has bought every goose egg in Duckburg. A nice detail is the duck's way of tricking Magica; they travel disguised as "withces travel club."
A bit more dramatic is the situation in "A Matter of Some Gravity" (D 96001), where Magica uses a new magic wand to alter Scrooge and Donald's personal gravity. This makes them fall sideways and even upwards - they would probably have ended up some place far out in outer space with no oxygen had not Huey, Dewey and Louie been able to save them.

Magica's sources to new weapons

Magica has many weapons. Some of these weapons (but not all) are made by Magica herself. In "Bottled Battlers" (JW 10-02) we are told that she has spent seven years on developing the powerful acid "Formula X", which she is planning to use on Scrooge's Money Bin. Huey, Dewey and Louie are, as the good Junior Woodchucks they are, gathering bottles left by the roadside. Magica puts them in a bottle. The glass is so hard, that only Formula X can break it. The formula is in one of the bottles the boys have gathered, and they use it all to get out. Magica sighs: Seven years work lost! ...acid from sulfarated vesuvian fumaroles .... boilings from the feet fuzz of abominable snowmen.... (sob!)" One more fact about Magica is made known to us in this story - her broom operates on "pure lead - free concentrate of vesuvian brimstome!"
Not all of Magica's weapons are her own inventions, we are told in "On a Silver Platter" (H 89068). Magica is a collector - she collects books with magical recipies. Still, she sometimes has to buy things on the open (black?) market to get what she needs. In "A Matter of Some Gravity" (D 96001) she tells that she bought the magic wand that alters people's personal gravity last year at the sorcerers' convention in Lucca!". She is also a regular customer at Marcus, Neiman and Abduls shop in Cairo. She buys one projectogem, one transmutation wand and one bag of global-transport dust! " in "A Little Something Special" (D 96325) and it is clear that she has bought cheap magic before. She cannot afford a wealth spell
In addition to her own inventions and what she is able to buy, one of her sources for weapons against Scrooge, is one of her hobbies: Magic archaeology. We are made aware of this in "For Old Dime's Sake" (US 43-01). Magica tells about what she has found in the oldest temple of Zeus, in the cave of Circe, in the ruined temple of Boreas, Juno and the furies. The most important find she has made, is the cave of Circe - this cave is mentioned in several stories. But even comets or mind reading are not enough for stealing the Dime. This should make it clear to Magica that she ought to use her talents on something else than stealing the Dime to get rich, but I guess that is not so easy to see when you are a sorceress....