Spinning Jemmy

Creation

Spinning Jemmy was created by writer John Ney Rieber and artist Peter Gross in The Books of Magic. She was first referenced as the Queen of Wounds in issue 46, first appeared in two forms known as the Queen of Wounds and what Tim later called Our Lady of Bad Eye Makeup in issue 48, and finally appeared as Spinning Jemmy in issue 49.

Major Story Arcs

The demon Mr. Vasuki tells Tim Hunter that the Queen of Wounds is organizing a war among angels and devils, and urges him to join her. Finally, Vasuki makes Tim swear allegiance to her in order to keep his father Bill (now a monster) from killing some nuns.

After being mysteriously referenced a number of times, the woman we assume is the Queen of Wounds finally appears.

She looks like a beautiful woman with lots of black stars radiating around her head and lots of eye make-up, and floats down with many black balloons attached to her wrists. She resurrects Cyril (Tim’s step-brother), who has been magically seduced by the idea of being a “super saint” of sorts, even if he actually acts like a villain, and was just killed by a mini magical creature. Reverend Slaggingham says that this version of her is the devil, because god’s balloons are white.

Meanwhile, a nun appears to Tim and his angel friend Araquel. She has white balloons. Vasuki, however, says this woman is the Queen of Wounds, to whom Tim has pledged loyalty. She goes up to Tim’s now-monster dad, who stabs her with a tentacle, but she is fine, and he is healed by touching her.

[It is unclear why Vasuki, who is clearly a demon, serves the Queen with the white balloons, who is theoretically an avatar of, or servant of, heaven.]

The nun-with-balloons version of the Queen of Wounds gives Tim a list and says he has seven days to accomplish it.

Just as Tim’s dad turns normal, Cyril shows up and turns him, Araquel, and Vasuki into chocolate. He says God gave him this power but Tim says it wasn’t God.

Tim then sees the woman with the black balloons and asks what it will take to revert everyone to normal. She doesn’t answer.

We next see Tim bringing a list to Awn the Blink. Presumably this is the list the Queen gave him. It tells him to build a trap to catch demons, and another to catch devils. Tim now begins to call the woman with the black balloons Our Lady of Bad Eye Makeup as well as Our Lady of the Cheap Cosmetics, and the woman with white balloons the Queen of Wounds and implies that he is essentially working for both of them by making these traps.

Awn builds the machine, and they put it into action. It successfully catches the warring angels and devils. Tim, curiously, says he did what was asked of him, but also says he cheated; it’s unclear what he means by this since it seems like the Queens wanted him to do this. Both the Queens are trapped by the machine as well.

Tim, angry, throws an ice cream cone at the Queen of Wounds. She smiles, and the two Queens turn into mist and join together, turning into a little girl, who calls herself Spinning Jemmy, of the Laughing Brigade of Chaos. Apparently, she organized this entire thing because she was bored and couldn’t find any new ways to play with the angels and demons, but mostly because she wanted to get an ice cream cone.

She says she “could do easy stuff like have two faces before [she] was born.”

Spinning Jemmy then floats away on a bunch of both black and white balloons.

Essentially, Spinning Jemmy is a chaos figure who embodies both light and dark, and has played out various scenarios with the beings of heaven and hell since the beginning of time, and in this case created a war that killed innumerable beings in order to get some ice cream.