Books of Magic: Difference between revisions

[[File:books_of_magic_8968.jpg|frame|"[[Kid Hero|Boy]]! [[Call to Adventure|Do you believe in magic?]]"]]

 

 

The books begin with four famous magicians from DC's history meeting Timothy Hunter, a poor adolescent British boy with messy, dark hair and coke-bottle glasses, who is destined to be the supreme avatar of magic of the age, on par with Merlin in the Dark Ages. They show him everything they know about magic, and at first he refuses the call but then accepts.

 

 

 

The ongoing series lasted for 75 issues (May, 1994 - August, 2000), and was followed up with a five-part mini-series called ''Names of Magic'' (February - June, 2001), in which Tim is admitted to "The White School" to study magic in earnest. This series served as a transition to another ongoing series named ''Hunter -- The Age of Magic,'' which dealt with Tim's last days at the White School, and his life post-graduation. This series lasted for 25 issues (September, 2001 - September, 2003).

 

 

Lastly, a fifteen-issue [[Darker and Edgier]] [[Alternate Continuity]] series called ''The Books Of [[Magick]]: Life During Wartime'' (July, 2004 - December, 2005) depicted an alternate Tim Hunter -- as well as alternate versions of Molly O'Reiley, [[Hellblazer|John Constantine]] and [[Zatanna]]) -- caught in a war between the Born (the Faeries) and the Bred (the humans).

 

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* [[Batman Gambit]]: Tim pulls off an ''impressive'' one with Barbatos in the very last issue.

** At least at first. Then Auberon says that Tim has no faerie blood and it seems he's the illegitimate son of Tamlin and Mary Hunter, and the changeling son of Titania and Tamlin is his half-brother whose fate is unknown. But it's never completely certain. A third possiblity raised is that Mary Hunter was a faerie nursemaid under a glamour who smuggled Tim out of Faerie at Titania's request to hide the fact that Her Majesty was a human sorceress under a glamour and the baby, having been fathered by Tamlin, was fully human.

** So the only thing really certain is that Tamlin is Tim's biological father and William Hunter isn't.

* [[Cloning Blues]]: Molly's clones, created by Sir Timothy Hunter, live lives of fairly literal soulless indoctrination to become suitable pretty-pretties for Sir Timothy.

* [[Does Not Know His Own Strength]]: Tim is the magical equivalent of this.

* [[Don't Fear the Reaper]]: Tim meets Death from ''Sandman'' several times; the first is at the end of all time (when the only thing ''left'' is Death), the second is when he's in the [[Afterlife Antechamber]] because his body is dying from manticore poison. He bumps into her a few other times throughout the series.

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Half of the entities Tim deals with on a regular basis.

* [[The Everyman]]: Tim.

* [[The Fair Folk]]: Dealing with them is a major chapter of the original four-part story, and a major part of the series proper once it began.

* [[Friendly Enemy]]: Tala the Queen of Evil (from ''[[The Phantom Stranger]]'') is portrayed as this to [[Zatanna]].

* [[God Save Us From the Queen]]: Who do you think?

* [[Horny Devils]]: Leah, though she doesn't really like it.

** Every character in the setting has a [[Spirit Animal]] or inner beast that reveals things about them through [[Animal Stereotypes]]. Tim's Spirit Animal is a human. Which is as freaky as it sounds.

* [[Like a Badass Out of Hell]]: Tim, multiple times.

* [[Merlin and Nimue]]: Provides the page quote from Tim's brief meeting with Merlin.

* [[Missing Mom]]: Mary Hunter died in a car accident a decade ago or so.

* [[The Slow Path]]: [[Inverted Trope|Inverted from the norm]], but still really slow. Mister E, who is able to fast-forward himself into the future to take a look at it, has a harder time going backwards. After traveling with Tim all the way to the end of time itself (just so he could murder Tim in private), he's stopped by Death and told he has to ''walk'' back to the past, one step at a time. Yeouch.

* [[Take That]]: The third annual featured a number of alternate realities that revolve around some version of Tim. One of them is a superheroic mash-up of the DC Universe with Vertigo. The Tim of this world is a Robin-esque character who served as the sidekick to John Constantine (in this world a Batman figure named "Hellblazer"), before changing his name and joining a [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]] analog called the Mystic Youth. The entire segment served as a pointed criticism of the dwindling quality of the ''New Teen Titans'', with Tim himself mentioning that the team was supposed to see years of brilliance becoming mediocrity with a slew of less-interesting members coming aboard. The clincher is that it was illustrated by famed Titans artist Phil Jimenez.

* [[Walking the Earth]]: Much of the series.

** Given the history of faeries? The human boy was probably taken back to Faerie to be a plaything until Titania and/or Auberon got bored with him - and god help him, after that.

** For the longest of times, there was no hint of what had become of Yoyo after the orginal miniseries. However, he returns in ''Names of Magic,'' with no real explanation as to where he's been. Tim claims he just shows up from time to time.

=== ''The Books of Faerie'' provides examples of: ===

* [[Baleful Polymorph]]: Almost a staple of the series.

* [[The Chessmaster]]: The Amadan.

* [[Compelling Voice]]: A variant with Bongsquall the troll; nobody can say "no" to him, no matter what he asks of them -- but the flipside is that ''he'' can't say "no" to anyone else either. He gets around this through [[Loophole Abuse]] and [[Exact Words]].

* [[Incredible Shrinking Man]]: Happens to Molly, as a result of falling into a magic pool.

* [[Master of Illusion]]: It's ''Faerie.'' You can count the number of characters who ''aren't'' this on one hand.

* [[Succession Crisis]]: Happens in ''Auberon's Tale,'' which takes place long in the past. When the old king dies, the child Auberon is named his successor, but he's not the only one with a claim to the throne.

 

=== '''Names Of Magic'' and ''Hunter -- The Age of Magic'' provides examples of: ===

* [[Batman Gambit]]: Has become one of Tim's trademarks in this series. Usually they work, too.

* [[Book Ends]]: One of the last scenes in the last issue of ''Hunter -- The Age of Magic'' is a callback to the very first issue of the ''Books of Magic'' mini-series, with Tim riding a skateboard and being interrupted by someone asking him if he believes in magic.

* [[The Bus Came Back]]: Yoyo the owl, who has not been seen since the first ''Books of Magic'' mini-series, returns as Tim's spirit guide in ''Names of Magic.'' In ''Hunter -- The Age of Magic'' he's become a prominent supporting character; now infused with the spirit of Merlin, so that Merlin, through the owl, can oversee Tim's magical development.

** Also, other people from Tim's past make returns, most notably Molly.

* [[The Comically Serious]]. Yoyo.

* [[Compelling Voice]]: Mr. Lily, though Tim eventually learns to resist it.

* [[Fish Out of Water]]: Happens to several people when they cross over into other worlds, but it's clearest with Iolanthe, who doesn't know much on how mortals operate when she decides to stay on Earth.

* [[I Know Your True Name]]: To be accepted into the White School, you have to present your true name. {{spoiler|Tim's true name turns out to be "Merlin."}}

* [[New Age Retro Hippie]]: Nick "Bearclaw" is introduced as one of these in ''Names of Magic.'' Learning that magic is real doesn't really change him much.

* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: Dr. Lily, whose ultimate goal is "the restoration of Paradise," to go back to the perfect world the way it was before evil existed, and he is willing to stoop to ''any'' level to see this goal through.

** On a related note, Francis Fabien believes he has found the DNA that makes people evil, and so he sets out to spread a DNA-altering virus created with the help of an angel's feather, in order to turn humanity completely good. Needless to say, it doesn't work out like that.

 

* [[Action Girl]]: Molly proves to be one, though an even straighter example can be found in Jaqueline "Jackie" Constantine, a teenage [[Distaff Counterpart]] to John Constantine.

'''Tim:''' 'Course not.... they just taste of fish for some reason. Don't ask me why.]] }}

* [[Adaptation Dye Job]]: Or Alternate Universe Dye Job, anyway; in this series Tim has black hair instead of the dark brown he ended up with in the regular continuity, Molly is a redhead and Zatanna is blonde. Constantine is the only one who looks more or less exactly like his regular-continuity counterpart.

* [[Crapsack World]]: Both the main worlds depicted in this series. One is a war-torn hellhole where [[Anyone Can Die]], the other is a place where dreams don't exist, and people go crazy when introduced to the concept of gods or magic.

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: While the original series is by no means light and fluffy, this is definitely darker and more violent.

* [[Infant Immortality]]: Averted ''so hard.'' Any child or infant that shows up in this series ''will'' die a gruesome death.

* [[Laser-Guided Amnesia]]: Tim has imposed this on himself in his created world. It doesn't last.

* [[Magick]]: The alternate spelling of the word "magic" was brought about by the fact that the original ''Books of Magic'' series was being adapted as a series of [[Young Adult]] novels, and DC wanted to distance this book, with much more adult content, from that series.

* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: Lampshaded by Edmund ("Ed") of Hebron and Molly.

'''Molly:''' Great -- we get the only non-sexist demon in this shithole. }}

 

[[Category:Vertigo Comics]]

[[Category:DC Comics Series]]