The Books of Magic

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Gaiman, Neil (April 19, 2008). "Fair Use and Other Things". Neil Gaiman Journal . Retrieved June 3, 2008. Death: A Winter's Tale • Fear of Falling • How They Met Themselves • The Castle • The Flowers of Romance • The Wheel Cursed with Awesome: Molly grows a garden (a "real garden", as in, "tomato orchard", not "pleasure garden") while in Faerie, and Titania gets miffed about this for no good reason, so she puts an enchantment on the garden. When Molly eats one of the fruits, she gets cursed and is constantly on fire without burning. Molly is pissed, of course, but she puts the curse to good use by burning everything that stands in her way on her march to the Titania's palace.

So Timothy Hunter gets a Christmas Carol(ish) experience when DC's top mystics pay him a visit and seemingly give him a choice as to whether or not he wants to be a part of their world. In 2012, Timothy Hunter and the Books of Magic make a return in The New 52 series Justice League Dark where a reluctant Tim, having given up his magic, is reunited with John Constantine and Madame Xanadu to stop an old nemesis of Constantine's from getting his hands on the books.

The Everyman: Tim is sort of introduced as this in the original miniseries, being mainly a normal young boy who is taken on a grand tour of the magical parts of the DC universe. The ongoing series slowly has him grow out of this trope as he becomes both more powerful, more savvy and more strongly characterized. By the time of Names of Magic he's abandoned the trope entirely. In Book 1: The Invisible Labyrinth, Tim takes a trip into the magical past with the Phantom Stranger and learns the history of magic(at least how it relates to the Vertigo universe) . Rieber, John Ney; Carlton, Bronwyn (June 1998). The Books of Faerie. Titan Books. ISBN 1-56389-401-7. 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. Also Mr. Lily, though Tim eventually learns to resist it. 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.

Yes. And the first issue came out in late 1990, so I don't want to hear anything from the Hogwarts groupies about this being a rip-off of Harry Potter. Irvine, Alex (2008). "The Books of Magic". In Dougall, Alastair (ed.). The Vertigo Encyclopedia. New York: Dorling Kindersley. pp.38–41. ISBN 978-0-7566-4122-1. OCLC 213309015.Yarrow: Can this truly be your bedchamber? Never have I seen so small a space so remarkably disarrayed!

Douglas, Edward (October 23, 2006). "Exclusive: The Creators of Stardust". SuperheroHype.com . Retrieved June 3, 2008. Since the 1997 publication (and subsequent success) of the first book in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, fans of The Books of Magic have noted some similarities between the two protagonists: both are normal, bespectacled teenage boys who have lost their mothers, and discover that they are destined to become powerful magicians while gaining an owl as a pet. The similarity was noted by a journalist from The Scotsman newspaper, who asked Gaiman if he thought Rowling was aware of his 1990 comic, to which Gaiman replied that he "wasn't the first writer to create a young magician with potential, nor was Rowling the first to send one to school". [11] Obviously Evil: Mister E is set up for this in his first appearance in the four-parter, what with his suggestion they murder Tim out of pure pragmatism, and his misogynistic comments further cement this (he was literally raised to believe that women are the source of all evil). Omni Glot: Tim eventually develops the ability to understand, speak and even read any language. He describes himself as "a walking Babel fish".With the creator of Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling, being publicly transphobic, many fans of the beloved franchise are looking for other media that can fill the gap left by Harry Potter. Tim Hunter and the Books of Magic series are a wonderful way to continue enjoying the story of a young boy on a quest to learn magic, and his place in the world, without the painful connections to such a harmful and polarizing creator. a b c d e "The Zen of Comics: Peter Gross". Sequentialtart.com. October 1999 . Retrieved May 2, 2008. 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. Jerkass: Tyler, so far, doesn't seem to have many redeeming qualities. You could say he's like the Draco Malfoy to Tim's Harry Potter, even though Tyler himself is a Muggle. Winter's Edge #2". DC/Vertigo. January 1999. Archived from the original on January 27, 2008 . Retrieved November 27, 2008.

This series distanced itself from the previous iterations of the character and marketed itself towards a more adult audience, with the variation on the title's spelling intended as a signifier of that distance. [10] Although the story featured Tim Hunter coping with a magical war, it was set on a world populated by alternate versions of Zatanna and John Constantine, though ultimately it implied that the John Constantine and Tim Hunter of that series had originated in the "standard" Vertigo universe. Las fuerzas de la oscuridad siempre están entre nosotros, niño. Y la luz siempre pide a gritos la venganza." Wizards' War: The last issue of the original mini briefly depicts a Bad Future where Tim went evil and sparked off a war involving pretty much every magic-user in the setting. Cowardly Lion: Yarrow the Flitling is timid and meek, and knows it... but when push comes to shove she'll rise to the occasion, surprising even herself with her courage and wit. Happily Adopted: Tim, after he finds out that he's not William Hunter's biological son, and may not even have been the son of Mary Hunter, mopes a bit about it, but in the end decides that William and Mary raised him and took care of him, and never once called him a "changeling." William, upon confronted with Tim's parentage, admits that Mary was already pregnant when he married her, and he never knew whether Tim was biologically his or not — but he never thought it mattered one way or the other.Genki Girl: Izzy seems to be a rather amoral version; she's cheerful and energetic, and tends to act on her impulses with little to no thought about whether it's right or wrong. It is up to Tim to choose his destiny. Great power comes at great cost and it may be more than he is willing to pay. The Books of Magic could be seen as a failed Harry Potter, but it's perhaps more accurate to view it a dry run for superheroes taking over movie theaters, TV screens, and bookshelves around the world. What was most prescient about the miniseries was the way it combined YA fantasy-adventure and superheroes, two of the most popular genres of the following decades. Harry Potter is essentially a superhero—an adolescent power fantasy functions much the same way whether you're handed a wand or bitten by a radioactive spider. Similarly, superheroes fit well into fantasy-adventure. In Gaiman’s comics, plenty of unspeakable dark forces like Voldemort pop up, as do King Arthur and Merlin. The Books of Magic makes The Lord of the Rings, The Avengers, Harry Potter, and even Twilight all look like entries in the same broad genre of tween-superhero fantasy, in which someone insignificant gets mighty powers, fights the forces of evil, and ultimately triumphs. The concept was later expanded upon by other Vertigo authors, first in a 75-issue series by John Ney Rieber and Peter Gross, and later in a series that became part of The Sandman Universe.