Origin
Tim Hunter, a young boy from London was approached by four men of great mystical power, the Trenchcoat Brigade, and told that he had the potential to become the greatest magician of all time. Of course, he was a little unsure at first, and before he made his decision whether or not he would accept the world of magic, they were each to show him part of the history of magic, let him see what world he could be a part of. So the Phantom Stranger took him through the history of magic, John Constantine took him to meet practitioners of magic in the present including Zatanna, Doctor Occult (as Rose) tours him through the Faerie and various other dimensions (including Hell, The Dreaming, Gemworld and Skartaris) and Mister E shows him the future all the way up to the end of time where E tries to kill Tim who is saved, ironically, by Death. Although the illusion of a choice was proposed initially, since he was shown magic, Tim never really had a choice at all and so began his journey to become The Merlin.
Creation
Created in 1990 by Neil Gaiman and John Bolton, Tim Hunter first appeared in the prestige-format four-issue miniseries The Books of Magic. Each issue was by a different artist and took on a different area of the magic in the DCU but ironically, the character would be brought back to comics in 1993 as part of the Vertigo imprint and most of his DCU ties would be cut and he was left to explore a different world with new allies and enemies (although the occasional cameo from characters met in the original miniseries would still occur). It should also be noted that Tim Hunter predates his oft-compared novel counterpart Harry Potter by seven years (although The White School Tim attended for a few years only came about in 2000, after the fourth Harry Potter book…all of which, up to that point, revolved around the idea of Harry attending the magic school Hogwartz).
Character Evolution
Following the initial Books of Magic miniseries, Tim is next seen in the series, Mister E, which details the man’s journey back to his own time. His next big role was in the Children’s Crusade which had an Arcana Annual, a one-shot dedicated to Tim Hunter’s role in the story. From that point he has appeared in several different titles for a cameo here and there but for the most part he has been limited to a number of volumes with The Books of Magic title or variants thereof. The first of these, as well as the longest, began publication in 1994 under the Vertigo imprint. It was written by John Ney Rieber (#1-50) and Peter Gross (#51-75) all with consultation from Neil Gaiman and ran for six years and seventy-five issues, along with three annuals. After the title’s conclusion, it was not long before Tim Hunter returned to the comic book world in 2001, this time in a five issue miniseries, The Names of Magic by Dylan Horrocks, which actually served as a bridge to the ongoing title, Hunter: The Age of Magic which ran for twenty-five issues before being canceled in 2003. The latest Books of Magic series, Books of Magick: Life During Wartime was written by Si Spencer with some co-plotting by Neil Gaiman and took place in multiple worlds, although he was the original Tim Hunter, the rest of the cast were mainly alternate versions of supporting characters from his earlier tales.
In terms of personality, Tim starts off as a fairly sensitive if critical kid, and eventually becomes kind of a jerk, the reasons for which are revealed in the plot as being related to his role as an Opener and the tattoos he got to protect Molly. Writer John Ney Rieber describes Tim as “someone I spent years learning not to be.”
Parentage
Tim’s parentage has been a matter of some confusion and ambiguity. He grows up with two human parents, Bill and Mary Hunter. Mary is killed in a car crash. Then after Tim is introduced to the world of magic, a centuries-old human who could turn into a hawk, Tamlin, tells him that he is Tim’s father. Soon after, Titania, Queen of Faerie, tells him she is Tim’s mother. Bill Hunter admits that he does not think he is Tim’s biological father. Auberon, King of Faerie, later tells Tim that he does not have any Faerie blood, seeming to rule Titania out as his mother. Then we learn that Titania was originally human, before becoming Queen, so she can be his mother after all. And she did have a child with Tamlin, who because it was human had to be taken away. The midwife, Bridey, a Faerie Brownie, takes the baby and considers whether to give it to a mysterious woman named Gran, who lives on Earth but seems to be a fairy, or a human couple, or someone else. It is widely assumed but not proven that this baby is Tim. Bridey then presumably gave the baby to Mary.
Two facts later come out about Mary: her skull was seen to have fangs, showing she was not human, and she wore a magic Glamour Stone around her neck. Anyone who wore this stone would have an illusion cast on them that made them look like Mary. Since no one would wear an illusion that makes them look like themselves, presumably Mary wore it to cover up her fairy appearance. Some think Mary was Bridey herself, but Bridey didn’t have fangs. Regardless, based on this chain of events, Tim seems to be the son of the humans Titania and Tamlin, and was then given to a fairy in disguise who called herself Mary, and a human named Bill, to be raised.
One difficulty here is that when Bill was dating Mary, before they were married, she was pregnant. Presumably the Glamour Stone could have made her look pregnant, but this creates various problems of timing. Possibly other magic was involved.
One final complication is that when a dream of Tamlin meets Titania at the Inn Between Worlds, he says she didn’t hold a candle to his “true loveâ¦the mother of my child.” Then Tim asks about his “mum,” by which he seems to be referring to Mary, and Tamlin says, “Your mother was the love of my lifeâand you were the love of hers.” However, as a dream version of Tamlin, it is hard to know whether this is just what Tim dreamed of hearing.
In the Names of Magic, Merlin explains to Tim that due to the power and nature of their shared magic, Tim has many histories, each of which was told slightly differently, just as myths are told differently each time. In this way, Tim is always the son of Tamlin, but he is also simultaneously the son of Titania and the son of a human woman named Mary.
Major Story Arcs
Youth
Bill Hunter marries a woman named Mary in January, 1981. Regardless of the exact situation with Tim’s parentage as described above, they come to have a son named Tim Hunter.
As an Opener, whenever the infant or child Tim went through a challenging emotional experience, rather than process that emotion, Tim would use his magic to create an entire alternate universe with a new Tim in it who embodied that emotion. In this way, he slowly lost slivers of himself to these other universes, but he didn’t know it was happening.
He also created various beings in his own universe, thinking they were just imaginary friends and not realizing they had become true living beings. These creatures were mostly fun, and hid his glasses when he wanted, or turned him invisible when he didn’t want a gross lunch.
His parents took him to Auntie Blodwyn’s at Brighton Beach. He and his friend Jimmy Morehead would play around the boardwalk. His dad and auntie would tell them crazy stories about cannibal pirates, but his mom would reassure them that they were just stories. They meet a weird fisherman named Skinner who is trying to catch a Muddle-Mullah.
His life with his parents was happy. Jimmy was a good friend, but other kids would sometimes refuse to play with him unless Jimmy made them.
However, on February 17, 1988, Bill and Mary are driving in a car, and Bill crashes it, killing her and injuring his arm so badly it was amputated. Bill becomes so despondent over his role in his wife’s death that he becomes a barely functioning alcoholic who sits in front of the TV all day and largely ignores Tim.
Books of Magic limited series
The Trenchcoat Brigade of John Constantine, Phantom Stranger, Mr. E, and Dr. Occult know that the 12-year-old Tim “has the potential to become the most powerful human adept of this age.” They decide to help him learn about magic.
The Phantom Stranger shows him the origins of the universe, including the rebellion of the angels against God and their fall to Hell, the fall of Atlantis, the origins of human civilization, and Merlin, whose “conduit for power” is similar to Tim’s. They also see the Dark Ages’ vilification of witches and several near-modern sorcerers, including the original Dr. Fate, Zatara, and Sargon.
John Constantine takes him around the modern world. Deadman tells him that many modern cultists are trying to find him. Madame Xanadu gives Tim a reading, with much danger in the cards. She also gives him Yo-yo, an owl that was earlier made from his actual yo-yo. The Spectre saves Tim from a cultist assassin. The modern Dr. Fate tells them they must find a place for Tim to be safe. They go to Baron Winter‘s briefly and there meet Jason Blood. As they travel to San Francisco, they dodge multiple other attacks from the Cold Flame cult. They also meet Doctor 13 and Zatanna. Constantine leaves them to join the rest of the Brigade to defeat the Flame. Zatanna then introduces him to Tala, Tannarak, Felix Faust, and the Wizard. Then words gets out that the Brigade defeated the Cold Flame in their headquarters, but now a price is on Tim’s head. The other magicians all come after him and Zatanna, but Constantine stops them.
Dr. Occult takes him to Faerie, explaining the rules of that world. Occult sometimes turns to Rose, a woman there. Tim gains a Mundane Egg at the marketplace and sees the sleeping King Arthur. Tim is kidnapped by Baba Yaga, but escapes with the help of Yo-yo. The run into Titania, Queen of Faerie, who Tim will later learn may be his mother. She tricks him into taking a magic key, then tells Rose to show him other dimensions, such as Skartaris, Gemworld, Hell, and the Dreaming (and Dream). Returning to Titania, she tells Tim he must now stay with her due to accepting her key. However, he trades her the Mundane Egg for it and is free.
Mr. E takes him to the future, first to a battle 15 years in the future where he and others, including Eclipso, Captain Marvel, Spectre, Zatanna, Etrigan, and Tefe Holland fight a cataclysmic battle. The dying future Constantine tells him that the Tim of this time is the leader of the forces of evil. E explains that in another future, he is a Champion of Light, and in others he is not in the battle at all. He shows him futures where there is no more magic, and ones where magic runs wild. A future Dr. Fate warns him away from magic. They visit the end of the world and then the heat-death of the universe. The others in the Brigade, worrying that they’ve gone too far in time, send Yo-yo to find him. Tim meet some beings similar to Tarot card characters, the E tries to kill him. Yo-yo intervenes but is killed. They meet Destiny and Death of the Endless. Death sends E and Tim back separately. The Brigade gives Tim the choice of following magic or not, and Tim says no, based on all the warnings he has gotten from magicians. He immediately regrets his choice, and at home, he recreates Yo-yo, who flies off.
Children’s Crusade/Arcana Annual
Charles Rowland dreams of Tim as part of a series of images of events to come.
Tim daydreams about magic in school, but barely believes what happened to him. The school complains but his dad pushes back on them. Bill wants to connect but Tim won’t let him.
Tamlin kidnaps him and brings him to Faerie. He wants to learn if he has the right stuff to heal Faerie. He gives him a Stone of Opening, a knife, and boots, then leaves. Tim has to use magic to get back.
Marya is waiting for him. She has been living in Free Country, a magical land where kids don’t grow up. She’s been looking for him so he can use his magic to help Free Country. She uses a magic hopscotch board to take him there.
He finds the kids who had been looking for him, but they’re so busy talking to themselves that they ignore him, so he walks on. He meets a plant girl named Suzy and helps her. Then he meets the boy ghost detectives and later is captured by some kids who want him to open their gates to the world. It doesn’t work, and Tim returns to the world.
Books of Magic stand-alone series
Bindings (issues 1-4)
Now 13, Tim encounters Tamlin and a gnome, Kenny. They inspire him to try magic for the first time since re-making Yo-yo. He calms a snowstorm. The Amadan shows up and threatens Tim unless Tamlin comes back to Faerie with him, which he does. Tim learns Tamlin is his father.
Using the Stone of Opening and the Key to Worlds, Tim transports himself to Faerie to learn more. He finds himself in the Manticore‘s lair. The Manticore is trying to simplify the world by erasing mythical creatures, and real ones, from it. He is contributing to the decline of Faerie overall. They play a game, and Tim is bitten by the Manticore, but a unicorn he has been trying to protect kills the Manticore, restoring Faerie. Tim is now dying from the Manticore’s poison.
Tim visits Death of the Endless while in his coma. She’s nice, and they chat about how he feels about Tamlin being his dad. Meanwhile, Tamlin casts a spell, sacrificing himself to save Tim. Tim wakes back up and sees the dead Tamlin, as well as Titania. She says she is his mother, and that she hates him for Tamlin’s death. Tim goes back to Earth.
Summonings (issues 5-13)
Tim is back living a fairly poor-quality everyday life at home with his alcoholic dad. On his way to school he sees Molly, who has recently moved to London from Ireland. She is funny and energetic and independent, and likes him. He realizes today is the anniversary of his mom’s death, and visits her grave. He puts some seeds on her grave that he got from Death and contemplates what it means to be a parent.
Unknown to Tim, a corrupt future version of him, Sir Timothy Hunter, stalks him. He wants to kidnap Tim to cultivate him to be more likely to grow up to become Sir Timothy. Sir Timothy sold his memories to a demon, Barbatos, and is now his slave, believing the demon’s illusions that he is the one in control. However, Khara, a magical woman with Tim’s best interests at heart, stops Sir Timothy.
At school, Tim enjoys Molly’s presence, but he and the other boys are magnetically attracted to a new girl, Leah, who is blond and leggy and from California. Molly is not thrilled when Leah joins her and Tim on their walk home. It turns out that Leah is Tim’s new neighbor. It also turns out that Leah is a succubus, and is controlled by the man posing as her dad, Martyn, who is actually a Cold Flame cultist who wants to control Tim’s magic. Leah’s job is to seduce Tim.
In an effort to make Tim dependent on Martyn, the sorcerer magically burns Tim’s dad. Tim uses magic again to lift his dad out of the fire and protect himself from the flames. Martyn pretends he was sent by Constantine to protect Tim from the Cold Flame and offers to let Tim stay with him.
Molly comes by and comforts him first. They hug; this is the beginning of their long relationship. She explains that her family has a history of schizophrenia, which she believes gives them the ability to see and understand things others cannot. She understands what he’s going through. However, when he talks about wanting revenge, she tells him off, knowing about the cycle of violence from the Troubles in Ireland. However, Tim, in foreshadowing for what he’ll be like in their relationship in the future, tells her off and she runs away. Leah, hearing, is angry because she likes and respects Molly and now definitely does not respect Tim. She goes and invites Tim back to her house in a way that plays off his immature sexual desires.
Tim starts to partially fall for Leah while staying at Martyn’s. Sir Timothy kills Martyn as a rival for control of Tim. Tim learns how to control Martyn’s golem and makes him his own, named Happy. Tim becomes Leah’s new master, then sets her free. She goes back to California.
Tim apologizes to Molly, and they decide to go for ice cream, a perennial plan and ideal of their relationship. They meet Marya on the way. Marya is a friend of Molly’s from dance class, but also the girl that sent Tim to Free Country. They tease him, and Marya lets out both that Molly says Tim is Molly’s boyfriend, and also tells Molly that Tim is a magician.
Tim runs out of embarrassment, and accidentally freezes Tim. Khara and Nikki, who are magical and look out for Tim, tell him to get over it and accept the happiness that would come from Molly being his girlfriend and also her being OK with his magic. She also gives him money for ice cream, and takes his Stone of Opening in exchange, saying he’s not ready for it.
One of Marya’s friends from Free Country, Daniel, has turned evil due to his obsession with Marya. He attacks with new magical soot powers and Tim and Molly take him down. Tim tries to clean his soul but can’t, so Daniel takes him to Reverend Slaggingham, who gave him his new powers. They find Slaggingham in the sewers, but Tim’s ceation Awn the Blink already defeated him. Daniel leaves him there and Tim is led out by Awn the Blink, who explains to him how all his old imaginary friends are real. He finds Molly again. She continues to tease him, and he loves it. They finally get some ice cream, and hold hands, and Tim is fully in love. They almost kiss but are interrupted by Gwendolyn, who is trying to figure out how to return Auberon‘s soul.
Auberon is the King of Faerie, and husband of Titania, Tim’s mom. Gwendolyn helped take his soul along with Slaggingham. Then Titania herself shows up. Tim tries to get the soul out of the sphere it’s stuck in, but it falls and breaks. Auberon’s soul goes back in his body. He tells Tim that Tim doesn’t have any fairy blood, so Titania can’t be his mom, although Tamlin might be his dad.
Reckonings (issues 14-20) and Vertigo Rave
Tim visits the abandoned lot where he played as a child. At that time, he would have imaginary friends like many kids. Unlike them, he actually brought them to life. He meets the Narlsâtwig like creaturesâand the Wobblyâa being who gathers up useless things. Tim convinces it to recycle things instead of getting rid of them.
Gwendolyn, who used to be with Slaggingham but now lives with Tim as a sort of nanny since his dad has been in the hospital, has been a positive person around the house. Bill is healed by a doctor who is really a demon, a fact which will come back to haunt him later on. Tim prepares for his dad’s return by getting rid of his beer, chair, TV, and the car his mom died in. He wants his dad to avoid his old patterns. He goes back to the abandoned lot and gets the Wobbly to take the car. His dad is happy to be back, refreshed after his hospital stay, and happy about Gwendolyn being there. Tim and his dad’s relationship is now much better.
He brings Molly to the lot to see his imaginary friends come to life. She loves it. However, she gets separated when trying to go pee and is kidnapped and brought to hell by some demons that look like pink tyrannosaurs. They try to make her dumb, sexy, and pliable for Barbatos and Sir Timothy Hunter, who has been trying to recreate Molly with magic and can’t.
Tim, Happy the Golem, and his imaginary friend Tanger look for her, presumably using the Key to Worlds to get to Hell. Tim is separated from the others. He runs into NoOne, who tries to convince him he doesn’t know who he is. He comes to a Troll who runs a bridge, and has to read a story where the moral is basically don’t have ambition. In one of his biggest eruptions of magic so far, Tim destroys the bridge and magically creates a new one leading to Molly.
They kiss in their reunion, and their love affects Hell, destroying some of its evil and control. This is basically the height of their relationship, and a classic example of what it means to be an Opener, which is the kind of magician Tim is. He opens Hell to new ideas and ways of being through his expression of love.
They look for Tanger and Happy, and find them in an auditorium where Babratos had been trying to persuade other demons of his plan to debase humanity via the snack food Happy Crisps. He has been caught by Tanger, Happy, the angel Araquel, and the formerly-evil Sir Timothy Hunter, who has become good and turned into a dragon. However, Barbatos is able to take the magic storybook that both Tim and Molly had to read, and uses it to transport himself, Tim, Molly, and Sir Timothy to the storybook world.
They all partially believe the roles they play within the book’s story, with Barbatos manipulating them from behind the scenes. However, over time, Tim is able to learn to be himself, and looks for Molly. Tim takes control of the giant metal castle they’re all in, and turns it into a metal giant, which grabs and holds Barbatos. However, Sir Timothy and Molly are caught under the tower’s collapse. Sir Timothy saves them, and tells Molly who he is, and how he came to beâby selling memories to demons. He makes Molly promise to not let Tim talk to demons. She agrees. Sir Timothy dies creating a path out for Molly. Molly makes Tim promise not to talk to demons, but doesn’t say why. Tim and Molly return home.
Transformations (issues 21-25)
Tim turns himself into a cat so he can visit Molly, who has been grounded because they were gone so long, but his cat-thoughts start to take over his real thoughts. He finds Molly talking with Marya about what Sir Timothy told her. She’s concerned that she should break up with Tim because he could turn into Sir Timothy, but also doesn’t want to because he hasn’t done anything yet. Tim feels bad.
The sorceress Circe shows up and tells Molly she can help. She turns men into animals so they learn their lesson about toxicity. Molly doesn’t want her to do that to Tim. However, Circe realizes the nearby cat is Tim, and takes him back to her shop. She commits magical surgery on him and realizes he is surprisingly pure: he is the most human humans she’s ever seen, meaning he has no dark beast in him. However, he wants to protect Molly, so she tattoos him with two warding shapes, a scorpion that will sting him whenever he uses magic for a bad reason, and a moth, which he doesn’t know what it means.
Meanwhile, Tim’s dad is jogging and getting in shape, and starts going out with a woman he met earlier, Holly Ransome. Holly seems good for him, but her son Cyril is terribly self-absorbed. Bill is horrified when Tim shows up with the giant chest tattoo. He shoves Tim around.
However, Bill and Holly try to be nice for Tim’s 14th birthday and set up a nice party while he’s out doing errands for Gwendolyn. At the store, he sees a mini statue of Jimmy Morehead, his childhood friend. He was killed by Slaggingham. Tim buys it. On the way back, his creation In the No tells him Gwendolyn’s leaving. Everything he’s happy about is going badly.
Cyril, Holly’s son, runs off to the woods and is almost killed by a magical creature called the Margrave. It tries to convince him that everyone lives Tim more than him. Tim scares it off. When he gets home, he, his dad, and the Ransomes get in a big fight. Tim shows his dad his magic for the first time, turning furniture into marshmallows. He runs away, first to Brighton Beach where he would play as a kid. Death shows up and they chat, and he finds the Muddle-Mullah the fisherman was looking for when he was a kidâit’s a normal crab. He hives his statue of Jimmy to Death.
Molly gets sent off to Ireland, and then from there gets stuck in the realm of Faerie, where she becomes cursed so that everything she touches lights on fire, and starts a war on Titania.
Girl in the Box (issues 26-32)
Tim wanders homeless through London and passes out. He is collected by the Wobbly, that picks up things that have been thrown away. However, Kenny the Gnome takes Tim from the Wobbly. Tim dreams of his tattoos fighting each other. The scorpion is accidentally killed, and the moth returns to his arm. Kenny gives him the choice of any plane ticket he wants, and Tim chooses to go to San Francisco to stay with Zatanna. When he arrives in the US, he randomly finds Leah at the airport.
They drive with several other girls to Leah’s modeling agency. On the way, Leah kisses him to make some random guys driving by jealous. He liked it, but it also makes him think of Molly, and how much he misses her. Leah is protective of him going out with Molly, and likes Molly too. The gods Cupid and Psyche, who in the modern world have reimagined themselves as “gangstas” of love, attack the modeling agency. Tim defeats them.
They go to find Zatanna, but she’s not home. Leah is starting to be jealous of Molly. They decide to go camping in the desert. They find a dying mermaid. Tim is freaked out by her nudity and Leah realizes he’s still a virgin. They find some water to revivify the mermaid. Tim is freaked out more by her teeth and worries she wants their blood, but Leah explains that she’s the only blood-thing around. Now she just starves herself. Tim feels bad.
Leah turns herself so she looks like Molly. She comes out of the tent into Tim’s sleeping bag and starts kissing him. She truly likes him. Tim realizes it’s Leah, however, and is mad at herâand at himself, because he doesn’t know what he would have done if she did it with her own face. They kiss again. It starts raining in the desert, because of his Opener powers, just like when he and Molly kissed and it changed Hell.
The mermaid is better now. She asks what his Other has taught him; this is the first time the term has been used. Now and later with Molly, it seems like it is referring to a romantic companion. For instance, he is soon asked if he waits to have sex in order to do it with his Other. The mermaid, the Keeper of Tides, is an elemental, and her power concerns Leah. The Keeper brings them to her dimension in a magic Tower. Tim is floating in the middle of an ocean. Various mermaids interrogate him about who he is, and his level of self-knowledge. They tease him about his sexual immaturity and fear about consummating it with Leah.
Leah is forced to watch alongside the Keeper. The Keeper says she is trying to help Tim learn about himself, and that a Storm is coming. She is dying and needs a new Keeper to take her place. Leah takes over the role of Keeper, sacrificing herself to live forever in the Tower, in order to save Tim due to her love for him.
Tim is next forced to face a merman, Aegaeon, who wants Tim to be more manly. He forces Tim to admit that he is too passive and afraid of himself. He helps Tim save the local area, which was losing its special natural qualities. Tim shows back up in reality, and waits for Leah, who never comes.
The Burning Girl (issues 33-41 and annual 1)
Tim continues to explore the American West. He runs into a Native American magical being who is the ghost of everything that has died in the area, and who oversees a town of cowboy ghosts nearby. Tim tries to convince the ghosts to care about anything besides themselves, which is the condition necessary for them to stop being ghosts, but can’t.
Tim is knocked out after chasing after a hawk, and his hand falls on the Key to Worlds. He travels to Skept‘s island. She is a ghost, daughter of a dead god, Thaumas. She had once been tricked by Tamlin into thinking her liked her. Then she used her father’s Stone of Opening, which was the source of his power, to kill her father. Upon realizing Tamlin wasn’t coming back, she killed herself, and Tamlin took the Stone. This is the Stone Tamlin later gives Tim. Tim doesn’t know all this, but he feels bad for her and helps her ghost come to peace with itself.
He makes a boat to go to the mainland, but he keeps wrecking it and having to magically start again. Huon the Small, the original king of Faerie, appears in his boat one time. He says he and Tim don’t have choices, they do what they must, and takes Tim’s Key to Worlds. Huon uses the key to dispel the fog around them, saying that it released him from his prison but Tim is back in his ownâmeaning Faerie, where he is continually stuck. They are now on the mainland and he gives the Key back.
Huon says that when a realm’s appearances become too different from its reality, then it must be Leveled, and says Tim must help with that for Faerie. Faerie originally rented its land from Hell, paying for it in fairy souls. This deal is called the Tiend. Faerie has forgotten its origin and must be Leveled. A fog envelops all of Faerie, and everyone ends up talking to themselves about who they are.
This includes Molly, who has continued to try to burn Faerie down due to Titania’s curse. Along the way, she has had a semi-affair with Taik, son of Auberon and Titania, who was turned into a horse and had his soul sent to Hell as part of the Tiend. There, he was possessed by the demon Abaddon, who tries to kill Molly, but fails. Taik is saved in the process.
Huon seems to want Tim to use his powers as an Opener to recreate the world, but then Yarrow, a Flitling friend of Molly’s, uses lessons she learned from Molly to become the Leveler and she recreates Faerie herself.
Huon sends Tim back home, and Titania and Auberon, thankful for her role in helping Faerie, as well as saving their son Taik, send her back too. They can’t take away her curse, so from now on she must levitate above the ground or be destroyed if she touches it, and must eat Faerie food from a magic bag they give her.
Tim and Molly both reappear in front of a casino in Minnesota. They are both happy to see each other, but at the same time have some guilt or other distractions. Tim kissed Leah, Molly was romantically interested in Taik, and Tim is so wrapped up in everything he doesn’t even notice Molly is floating. In the casino, Tala and Tannarak are tied up in a romantic argument that involves Tannarak’s desire to escape his immortality. Molly has to deal with the reality that she can’t eat or drink any more. Zatanna tries to help Tala, and Molly listens to Tannarak’s problems. Tim overhears her talking about her floating, but doesn’t catch the part about the food.
Zatanna drives them back toward her home in San Francisco. She is happy to have both of them move in with her permanently, but wants them to call their parents first. The kids are not excited about that prospect given their most recent history with them. They find a baby at a rest stop, and get involved with a group of feral kids that were left out of a cult. Tim gets mad at Zatanna because she thinks these kids need to be saved from their parents, whereas he thinks she is paying too much mind to what his and Molly’s parents think. Tim uses his magic to put the blood on a knife that one of the kids was hurt with “where it belonged,” which seems to mean all over the hands of those responsible for the kids. Tim’s always somewhat-jerky nature becomes more and more prominent for a long time from this point on.
Tim and Molly stay at Zatanna’s, where she teaches him magic. However, he is so interested in learning magic that he ignores Molly, and she decides to go home. He still hasn’t noticed she can’t eat real food, including their beloved ice cream. A group of gargoyles, whose job it is to collect secrets, are concerned that if Molly, who they say is his Other, leaves him, then Tim will go nuts and destroy the whole coast.
After giving Tim a lecture on misdirection, Zatanna palms Molly a magic note that will allow her to go home. Tim and Molly go up on the roof, and one of the gargoyles tells Molly about how Tim kissed Leah, and kept it a secret, and contrasts that with how Molly told Tim about Taik. Tim desperately wants Molly to stay now that he knows what’s going on, but she uses Zatanna’s note to teleport home.
Death After Death (issues 42-50 and annual 2)
Presumably sometime around this time in the second annual, Tim meets Tiger, a girl who is running away from home. Tim says he is also running away. Tiger has been sexually abused by her father. She is too hurt to want help, but Tim helps anyway. They end up at a strip club, where Tiger plans to work. However, it is really a magical trap controlled by the Minotaur. Tim and Tiger defeat it. They talk about their shared cycle of abuse and neglect. Tim believes it is possible to break the cycle: “Hurting can’t be all you know. Unless it’s all you want to know.”
Back in the main series, Tim, in his anger about Molly, sits on top of a bridge. A girl shows up to talk him out of jumping, but Tim just makes her girlfriend disappear out of spite, then brings her back. He uses magic to see that his family seems to be going happily along without him, and then wrecks the area, tearing up buildings and bridges. Khara comes up to reprimand him. He points out that none of this is real, it’s a virtual world he created so it doesn’t matter what he does there. She says it says something about how he treats others. They reappear in normal Brighton. She notices the moth tattoo on his arm, and explains that it’s a symbol of fluttering away from reality and others. Circe created it to protect Molly by keeping Tim from caring about her or anyone else. It’s responsible for his jerkiness and her leaving. She gives him back his Stone of Opening and he uses it to Open himself, removing the tattoo and feeling reconnected to the world. He can see that Molly is happy on her own. He has feelings again. Khara, however, is worried, because she thinks Molly was his bridge to reality.
Back at home, it turns out a fairy Changeling has taken over Tim’s life with his family, and they don’t realize he’s been replaced. The Wobbly has coordinated the Changeling-Tim’s insertion into Tim’s life. One bonus is that Bill is now comfortable with Tim’s magic. They now live in Holly’s fancy house. Cyril is still quite unhappy about Tim, since he takes away from his own attention, but Changeling-Tim remarks on how Holly has made Bill so happy he doesn’t even notice the anniversary of Mary’s death.
The seeds Tim planted on his mother’s grave have sprouted. Anyone who eats their berries can relive Mary’s memories. Gwendolyn collects the fruit and makes it into jam for Tim to have later.
Tim still lays on the beach, experiencing the lives of a multitude of peopleâtheir emotions, their desires. Araquel shows up and removes the Stone of Opening, releasing him from the visions. He explains that there is a war in heaven between the angels and demons, and they both want Tim on their side. Araquel saves him from some attacking angels, and Tim teleports them to the Dark Tower to escape them. They are attacked by beings who were also Openers, but who failed in their role. One Opens Tim, so that he is tempted by his power. However, he sees that anyone with power uses it for control. He Opens himself and his magic up, releasing it into the world, giving it up.
Back in reality, Bill is marrying Holly. The wedding is interrupted when Tim’s released magic comes flying back to Changeling-Tim. The Wobbly shows up to back him up.
Tim and Araquel get out of the Tower and get Charon to give them a ride from the land of the dead in an old plane. He takes the plane’s bag of peanuts and they land outside the wedding’s church. They confront the Changeling, who rebels against the Wobbly and destroys it. Tim gives the Changeling the peanuts, which destroy him as something from the land of the dead. The magic leaves the Changeling’s body and goes all over.
The wedding ends successfully, but there is some weirdness. One guest is Mr. Vasuki, the demon who healed Bill (who has since also regrown his amputated arm). Vasuki explains that the war of the heavens is being manipulated by the Queen of Wounds. The family has a happy wedding reception, with even Araquel being accepted in the bunny hop dance. Tim and Bill reconcile. Bill explains that while the Changeling was really nice and easy to get along with, he was too easy to get along with, and Bill welcomes back Tim’s abrasiveness and criticism.
However, that night things change. Vasuki turns Bill into a monster who crawls out of his wedding bed. Other angels give Cyril magic powers and tell him he is a saint and to use his powers to save the world as he sees fit. To the self-obsessed Cyril, that means dealing with Bill and Tim. When his mom is too freaked out to care, he turns her into a chocolate statue, then accidentally blows up the building, and dies.
Tim and Araquel try to save Bill and stop the various angels causing havoc. They find Vasuki, who says they want the Opener to recreate the world as a new heaven or hell, depending on the side. They don’t know he doesn’t have his powers.
A woman who Tim later calls Our Lady of Bad Eye Makeup, floating along on black balloons, resurrects Cyril. Reverend Slaggingham, who has been working with Circe to stop the war, says she is the Devil, and another woman, who looks like a nun with white balloons, is God.
The nun with white balloons, who Vasuki claims is the Queen of Wounds, and that Tim is her slave, turns Bill normal again. She gives Tim a list and says he has 7 days to make it happen. There are definitely mixed messages about which woman, if either, is actually good.
Cyril shows up and turns Araquel and the newly-human Bill into chocolate. Tim calls up to the woman with the black balloons and asks what it would take to return everything to normal.
Tim and Circe go to his house and get Awn the Blink to make a machine that can entrap all the angels and devils. Seemingly, this is what the two women have asked him to do, each to entrap the slaves of the other. Circe mentions Molly, and Tim says she left, which surprises Circe, which in turn is surprising because it was Circe’s tattoo that kept Tim from connecting to people and made Molly leave. Tim says this kind of dumb move on her part is because she’s not human and doesn’t understand humans.
The machine that Awn builds, using Slaggingham’s body, captures all the angels and devils. Araquel’s chocolate statue is broken just beforehand, but Bill returns to normal. Tim throws an ice cream at the Queen of Wounds, and then she and Our Lady of Bad Eye Makeup merge, turning into a young girl, Spinning Jemmy of the Laughing Brigade of Chaos. She is glad to get the ice cream and says she created the whole war just for fun. Then she disappears.
Holly and Cyril go to get therapy in the US. Tim starts noting how Holly is not actually the greatest person, and cares too much about what other people think. Up until now Holly and Bill’s relationship seemed pretty positive, but from now on it starts to crack. Tim finds the magic box that Leah used to be held captive in, randomly on the ground in the airport parking lot. Leah intentionally imprisons him in it for what feels like many decades to Tim. He confronts his fears and the pain he has caused to others, and how he never really listened to other people’s needs, turning into an old man. Finally Leah shows up in the box, returns him to his normal age, and lets him out, saying that he needs to come to terms with the fact that his magic is him.
Bardsey Boys (issues 51-55)
Tim visits Mary‘s grave, and somewhat inexplicably Titania shows up and offers him his Mundane Egg back. Tim doesn’t want it, and it breaks, releasing its power into the world. Angry, Titania leaves, and a lightning bolts strikes Mary’s grave, releasing her skeleton all over. He doesn’t notice that her skull has fangs, but does notice her necklace, and takes it. It is a Glamour Stone, and makes anyone who wears it look like her.
Bill and Holly decide that both Tim and Cyril should go to Bardsey, a fancy prep school. Tim hates it, but Cyril loves it. Tim goes to see Molly at her house, but she’s left for Ireland because her curse was too hard to deal with in London. Her brothers beat him up a bit but then some of Tim’s childhood creations, little green army men, the Lighthearted Brigade, attack the brothers. Tim wipes them out with magic (surprisingly, since he gave up his magic). Tim realizes he should have tried to use his magic to help Molly with the curse.
Cyril has found a dead body, and keeps it in the caves under the school. Ever since being resurrected, he is obsessed with being the King of the Dead. He gets other kids to do what he wants by letting them see the body, and has the other kids bully Tim. The only kid that is nice to Tim is Davis Duvall.
Thomas Currie is one of Tim and Cyril’s teachers. He is from one of the worlds Tim created as a child, but they don’t know that. His goal is to protect Tim from the Other. The Other is a Tim from another world the real Tim created. The Other has been going from world to world, killing the other Tims and absorbing their power, thus destroying their worlds. The Other wants to be the only Tim. Thomas is concerned that since the real Tim is not very trained, and does not have his magic, that he will be killed by the Other. Thomas sees Tim as his god, since he is his creator, and so he must help him. However, he is concerned that his god is not actually very good.
Thomas reveals who he is and starts training Tim. He teaches him the Sightâthe ability to see magic. They realize that Cyril is spreading rumors about both of them because he doesn’t like that Currie pays attention to Tim more than him. They track where Cyril goes after school, and find the dead body. Tim, Thomas, and Davis Duvall get rid of the body.
Training to Fight the Other (issues 56-61 and Books of Faerie: Molly’s Story)
Tim and Cyril make a deal: Tim won’t tell what Cyril did, and Cyril won’t tell that Tim and Thomas are no longer at school, and are training all the time to fight the Other.
Molly comes home from Ireland and finds all of Tim’s childhood creations in her house. She agrees to protect them. They are scared of Tim because he destroyed the little green army men.
The Other finally shows up in the real world, having destroyed all the others. He goes to Molly’s house and harasses her, but she and the creations stop him with Happy. The Other can’t affect Happy without Tim knowing. Molly thinks the Other is the real Tim, and thinks he has talked with demons, so she writes Tim a note explaining everything that Sir Timothy told her, and says she will never speak to him again.
Bill, Holly, and Cyril drive past the Other, and are so shocked to see Tim when they think he would be at school that they crash the car. Holly is killed, and Bill and Cyril are badly injured. This is the second time Bill has killed a wife in a car crash. At the funeral, Davis tells Tim that Holly wasn’t paying the tuition, and he and Cyril are going to be expelled.
Around this time in the limited series Books of Faerie: Molly’s Story, Molly sees Tim walking down the road. She hides so that he doesn’t see her. She thinks about how she had waited her whole life for someone to talk to her the way he did. At that time, she realizes that she’s over him.
Tim and Thomas train in Tim’s old house, which Thomas hides from magicians using magic. Thomas builds a machine to vacuum up all of Tim’s old magic. He explains that Tim can’t really give up his magic, he can only hide it from himself.
Bill formally adopts Cyril since he has no other family. Bill learns that the tuition is missing, and that Tim hasn’t been going to class, and they get an eviction notice for Holly’s house. Seemingly she cared so much about what others thought, she was living beyond her means. Bill decides that even if he did a poor job as a dad to Tim, he’ll do better with Cyril. He avoids going back to drinking, until his new arm falls offâhe lost lost belief in the world and couldn’t sustain it. He starts to drink again. Tim finds him and brings him to the hospital, but they think he’s insane because of his babbling about his arm, so they commit him.
Tim realizes he was just trying to run away from his problems again when he focused on training instead of helping his dad cope with Holly’s death.
Thomas tells Tim the Other is in the real world. Tim isn’t trained well enough to fight him. He reads Molly’s letter, and fears the Other will hurt her. Tim tries to take back his power anyway, but it doesn’t fully work. Meanwhile, Thomas uses magic to get Bill to jump out the window and seemingly kill himself. Then, when Thomas tells Tim that Bill is dead, the emotional pain is enough for Tim to create a new decoy-Tim, similar to how he created worlds as a child. The plan is that now the real Tim can hide until he is ready to fight the Other. They put all of Tim’s magic in a soda bottle and hide it in Mary’s grave. Tim can, however, still use magic like anyone else who has learned magicâhe just can’t use an Opener’s powers.
Cyril has discovered that he can’t go back to Bardsey, so he breaks into Tim’s old house and watches Thomas and Tim. He takes a different Glamour Stone, which Thomas had been using.
The Other kills the decoy-Tim and Currie. He believes he is the only remaining Tim.
Living as Mary Hunter (issues 62-70)
Tim and Cyril meet up and travel away together. Tim feels some level of responsibility for him even though they hate each other. However, Cyril gets his foot stuck in a train track when a train is bearing down. He asks Tim to help, and Tim just watches.
Cyril manages to get his foot out on his own. Now he knows Tim would rather that he was dead. They separate.
Tim goes to Brighton, figuring he can stay with Auntie Blodwyn. Some criminals see him first, one of whom knows a little magic and recognizes who he is. They bring him to their boss, who is secretly the Faerie Robin Goodfellow. Tim manages to get away without any problems.
A magical storm runs across the realms, caused by the Other. It weakens the barriers between the different dimensions. Tim puts on his mother’s Glamour Stone and looks like a teenage version of her. He calls himself Mary. He finds several others wandering around: Joh, a girl who works at the Inn Between Worlds, Julie the Dancing Bear and her friend Rosehip the Flitling, Brother Hugh, a monk who has been stuck in Hell, and Henry Lywood, a dead boy. Tim uses the Sight to guide them away from the lands of the dead. Coming to a cliff, they are only able to cross through the help of Henry’s rocket pack, but he dies in the process.
Continuing on, “Mary” and the others find some coffins with children in them. Their ghosts, the Day family, are all stuck in this location until their mother accepts that she loves them. The group stays at their house. Tim and Joh are becoming good friendsâone of the most real, dependable friendships he has had. Brother Hugh tries to go to heaven using the power of one of the children, but fails, although the children are freed. Julie the Dancing Bear rips apart Brother Hugh for what he did, revealing that he was made of the maggots of souls in Hell. Julie and Rosehip decide to stay with Mama Day until her time is done, and “Mary” and Joh go to the Inn Between Worlds. Joh gets “Mary” a job there working for its owner, Accasbel.
Meanwhile, Barbatos the demon finds the maggots from Brother Hugh, and sells them. Then he buys a lordship in Hell. This is his first appearance in the in-universe chronology; his previous appearances were his future trime-traveling self. He eventually meets the Other, learns about Tim, and slowly goes about trying to get his power. Cyril helps him find Tim’s bottle of stored-up magic.
The Inn Between Worlds is one of four Free Houses that serve everyone and are safe for all travelers. “Mary” and Joh do basic work around the Inn and become increasingly close. “Mary” goes out to do the wash one day, and turns back into Tim to go swimming. He runs into Tamlin, alive! Loving the opportunity to somehow spend time with his dad, Tim and Tamlin go to the Inn. Joh serves them and clearly recognizes Tim, who she has never seen before. Tim eventually realizes that Tamlin is actually a dream temporarily come real. Titania shows up at the Inn, looking for her subjects, who are not allowed to leave Faerie. According to the rules, Titania can come in, but loses her status as Queen while she’s there. “Mary” hides out in the back so Titania won’t see her. While there, Joh tells “Mary” that she has a big crush on Tim, whom she had seen a photo of earlier, when Thomas Currie stayed at the Inn Between. The dream-Tamlin and Titania argue and Titania is kicked out.
The Inn is raucus with many happy travelers, and Tim gets drunk. He shows Joh that he’s really Mary, but she gets mad at him for not telling him sooner.
A stagecoach of the dead drives by, and Tim sees Holly in it. They apologize to each other. Tamlin finally fades away, and tells Tim he was a good son. Tim and Joh also make up. Tim feels more at home than he has any time before.
A stranger named Drunk, really the god Bacchus, comes to the Inn to make a special brew for Accasbel. “Mary” becomes his assistant. After a lengthy effort, it is done. Accasbel sends “Mary” and Joh off to do an errand, knowing that the Wild Hunt is coming to the tavern. They never fail to kill their quarry. He knows the Inn will be destroyed, as it has in many cycles before. However, “Mary” offers to do the errand herself, and Joh returns to the Inn. The Hunt shows up and destroys the entire Inn and everyone in it except Joh (and Accasbel and Bacchus, as it later turns out) while looking for Tim.
On his errand, Tim runs into Barbatos, who offers to sell him the power to defeat the Other in return for a memoryâthe deal he has been warned about for so long. Tim realizes that this is the young Barbatos who has never met him. He gleefully yells at him enough that Barbatos runs off, telling him to take the Other’s memories instead.
Tim returns to the Inn and finds it destroyed. He rescues Joh from the wreckage and the camp in the wilderness. They kiss, then sleep together. Tim thinks that he always thought his first time would have been with someone else (Molly).
The Hunter (issues 71-75)
Tim, making yet another massive mistake with the women in his life, leaves Joh alone without a note. He runs into Auberon, who is himself in the guise of Alpanu Lasas, a member of the Wild Hunt. He has Tim’s Glamour Stone, and again makes Tim wonder why his mother wore it. He thinks perhaps Tamlin gave it to her, again making a connection between Mary and Tamlin, who may or may not have actually had a relationship. “Alpanu” keeps the Glamour Stone. Tim uses the Sight to find the Hunt. He challenges the Lord of the Hunt; if he wins, he becomes the new Lord. Tim gets to choose the challenge, so he picks an Earth trivia game. Tim wins and gains the helmet of the Lord of the Hunt. “Alpanu” gives back the Glamour Stone.
“Alpanu” trains Tim to use the Helmetâit gives him incredible sensory awareness. He discovers that one of the members of the Hunt is Cupid, who he met long ago in Leah’s modeling agency. Learning that he can only use the power of the Helmet if he gives it fresh blood, Tim finally breaks down and kills a deer. He chooses the Other as the next target of the Hunt.
They track down Cyril first, to find Tim’s magic. He’s using Currie‘s Glamour Stone to hide himself, but it doesn’t fool the Helmet. Cyril used a cauldron he got from Barbatos to bring Holly back alive, but she’s basically a zombieâand worse, Cyril seems to be using her for sexual favors. Tim pushes Cyril into the cauldron, seemingly killing him and returning Holly to the dead, which she is grateful for. However, Cyril is really only faking, using the Glamour Stone to look dead.
Next they chase after Barbatos, who is in Hell. He and his assistant Hauptman try to drive away in his ice cream truck, but are caught. They tie Barbatos to a cross, and threaten him in order to get the power necessary to beat the Other, but Barbatos insists he can’t change the price, he must get a memory in return for that power. Tim accepts, as he was seemingly fated to do.
Tim wants to defeat the Other on his own, so he asks “Alpanu” to challenge him for the Lordship of the Hunt. She (Auberon) kisses him and says no. Cupid then challenges him to a contest of Love, and Tim immediately gives up, knowing how terrible he is at love.
Tim sends Molly a letter saying that he is making a deal with Barbatos, but he is hopefully doing it in a way that will work. He says he has learned that running away from a problem is its own problem. He says that he’s not doing this because he’s a monster, but because he’s not. Then he asks her not to look for him.
Tim uses the Glamour Stone to look like Molly, and breaks into the Other’s mansion. The Other realizes that she’s not Molly. Tim pulls out the bottle of magic and says he brought it for him. The Other drinks it, and can’t handle it. He collapses. Barbatos breaks in.
Tim uses his magic using the Other as a gateway, closing the borders between the realms again. He consummates his deal with Barbatos, giving him the memory of how he created the Other, thus destroying him. However, Tim also does two other things with his magic as he does so: he secretly attaches his soul to the memory, and he creates one more new alternate universe, in which they now all exist instead of the real one.
Tim is reunited with all his missing memories and emotions that were lost when he created all the alternate universes as a child. He did in fact need his Other to make him complete. He realizes how badly he treated Molly, Leah, and Joh. Now, between the removal of his moth tattoo and the regaining of his memories and emotions from childhood, he finally has no more excuses about acting like a jerk. He should finally be a good person.
He passes out, however, from the strain of the memory he lost to Barbatos, and when he wakes up, Barbatos is there, ready to start manipulating him. Really this happens because his soul has slipped out of him. Tim’s body now seems to be totally zoned out, and does whatever Barbatos suggests.
40 years in the future, we now learn, Barbatos, who has been stuck in the giant metal hand all this time, is finally released by some workers from the Dreaming. He tries to return to Hell but finds out that he is now considered a joke for losing the Opener. He travels across Hell on his own, gaining a reputation as a healer. He is caught and put on trial for doing good deeds. The judges say he has been possessed by a human. Tim’s soul, brought inside him with his memory, is increasingly controlling him. He goes back in time to stop his younger self from taking the memory from Tim, but Tim completely takes control of his body, and reshapes it into Tim’s normal body. He notes that the Tim that Barbatos took with him after taking his memory was a soulless husk, and is the body that eventually grew up to become Sir Timothy. But since Tim created a new universe for them to live in, they never hurt anyone real.
Tim now stands alone, in a new body created from a demon’s body, with all his memories and emotions intact, in the present time.
Names of Magic, Hunter: The Age of Magic, and Books of Magick: Life During Wartime
In these further, shorter series, Tim continues to grow up and learn magic in a more formal way.
Justice League Dark
See Alternate Versions, below.
Powers & Abilities
Tim is a magician, and in particular the kind known as an Opener. This metaphor has been interpreted in various ways, but it perhaps best be understood as meaning an opening of possibilities. His power is the same that was accessed by Merlin, and the power itself is sometimes referred to as “the Myrddin.” There seems to only be one Opener at a time, and it seems that when one dies, another is born.
Tim describes being an Opener this way: “I’m a door to the source of magic. To the place where it all comes from. I’m the only person in the world who can touch magic that’s still alive and fresh and strong. Everyone else is waiting for miracles. But I am one.”
Thomas Currie describes Openers this way: “Openers create worlds, and they do so in ignorance and terror and pain. Into each era an Opener is bornâ¦a being of great magical potential and near infinite possibility.”
Tim spent most of his Books of Magic career using magic mostly intuitively, although he did have training here and there, for instance with Zatanna and Thomas Currie.
Tim’s power is incredibly massive in extent. As Currie described above, when Tim was a child, and went through a difficult emotional experience, he would subconsciously create a new universe that was somehow inspired by that emotion. That emotion, or sliver of himself, became embedded in that world in the form of another Tim. If an Opener creates too many worlds like this, they can become a shell of a human. The only way they can become whole is if they find their Other.
In this way, Tim created more than a thousand universes. Each Tim in these universes also had the potential to be a massively powerful magician. The Other, one of these Tims, absorbed the power of all of the other Tims and their entire universes, and was a much more technically skilled magician than the real Tim. However, when the real Tim gave his magic to the Other, the Other was overwhelmed by his power. This shows that not only did Tim have the capacity to create a thousand universes each replete with massive power, but that that combined amount of power was notably less than that of the real Tim’s.
Tim also regularly created various beings to be his friends as a child, or to explain things he didn’t understand. Awn the Blink, the Wobbly, Tanger and Crimple, In-the-No, and the Queen of the Buggers are all examples of these beings.
Tim actually gave away his magic for a large portion of the first Books of Magic ongoing series. He gave it up in issue 44 and didn’t get it back until issue 75, although he did occasionally still manage to access it for various effects here and there anyway.
He can use his magic for a very wide range of effects, almost all of which were accomplished with almost no time or effort. Some examples of things Tim could do with his magic (all examples from the 1994 series) include:
⢠Creating a magical shadow-self that could lift his father and protect Tim from magical flames
⢠Taking over ownership of another magician’s golem, a feat which was said to be “impossible”
⢠Freezing time, and starting it again
⢠Protecting him and Molly from an attack of flame and soot by Daniel
⢠Using magical symbols to determine that Molly was taken to Hell
⢠Destroying a demon’s bridge and creating a new one that automatically leads to Molly
⢠Having the effects of his love with Molly affect a wide swath of Hell around them, creating fear among demons and destroying or altering some existing aspects of Hell and its denizens
⢠Shaping himself into a cat, something Circe, master of shape-changing, says he “shouldn’t be able to do” and even a simpler version of that change was something that took her a very long time to study, and he did it by impulse
⢠Wrapping Cupid up in gift wrap
⢠Creating a giant cloud of butterflies
⢠Instantly taking the guns away from a large group of ghost cowboys
⢠Undoes time multiple times after getting shipwrecked again and again in Faerie
⢠The gargoyles imply he could sink California into the ocean
⢠Using clairvoyance to see what’s going on at home
⢠Creating a kind of virtual reality in which he can wreck things without hurting the real world
⢠Teleporting himself and Araquel to the Dark Tower
⢠Closing the interdimensional gates across all the magical realms that the Other had opened
⢠Secretly hiding his soul in a memory without a demon detecting it
⢠Secretly creating an alternate universe for Sir Timothy and Barbatos, without them noticing they had been put in it
⢠Taking control of a demon’s mind and then reshaping its body to match his own body
Even after he gave up his Opener’s power, he was still sometimes able to access it, or to use other magic that he learned just like anyone else:
⢠He could use the Sight to see magic, or to track people, even the Wild Hunt, with greater ability than anyone Thomas Currie had ever seen
⢠He was able to destroy his creations, the Lighthearted Brigade
⢠He could make the bottles containing his journal disappear
Equipment
Stone of Opening: This stone essentially expands and allows easier access to his capacity as an Opener. Tamlin gave it to him, but he didn’t use it much and soon lost it to Khara. She gave it back much later and he used it to remove the tattoo he got from Circe, then to experience the lives of many people. Araquel cut it off him, and it fell into the water.
Mundane Egg: He gained this at a Faerie market. This egg has the capacity to create a new world. He accidentally destroyed it during an argument with Titania.
Key to Worlds: He was given this by Titania. It allows one to travel to other dimensions, as he did to Faerie, Hell, and Skept‘s world. Not seen after Huon the Small uses it unlock his access to the rest of Faerie and then gives it back to Tim.
Glamour Stone: This creates an illusion, making the wearer look like Mary Hunter. It is possible for the wearer to alter the illusion, and Tim eventually makes it make him look like a teen version of his mom.
Helmet of the Lord of the Hunt: Provides increased sensory awareness, both of the natural senses and metaphysical ones. It even lets you see the wind. Tim described it as a hundred times stronger than the Sight. Its power can only charged through fresh blood.
Other Versions
Some of the Tims listed here are classic “alternate versions” in the sense that they are from parallel universes or alternate timelines. But most are actually artificial constructions created by Tim within his own series of self-made universes.
Justice League Dark
The Tim in this story, from the main New 52 DC universe, is still someone introduced to magic by Constantine, Zatanna, and others. But he has given his power up. It turns out that he is the son of Jack Hunter, from another dimension, who is also very powerful. The Justice League Dark team sparks back Tim’s powers, after which he helps them in various battles in the main DC universe and an alternate dimension connected to it. Ultimately, he and his father decide to stay in the other dimension to help the people there acclimate to magic.
Sir Timothy Hunter
Sir Timothy is not really an “alternate universe” version of Tim, he is Tim’s real original body which has had its soul taken out, although Tim does then create a universe for him to live in. Over time he becomes the slave of Barbatos, then eventually becomes a dragon, and eventually becomes good before he dies.
Tims from Alternate Universes that Tim Created
The Other, a Tim he created in one of his other universes, becomes evil and wants to destroy all of Tim’s other universes so he can be the only one left. Killed by Tim and Barbatos.
The Tim from Thomas Currie‘s universe is happy. This universe is a “perfect” one, similar to a fantasy medieval era. Tim is a powerful magician, and all his different family members are alive and live together in harmony, as do all his creations. He notes that he thought Molly was his Other, but she was actually his Love; the other Tim is his Other. Killed by the Other.
One Tim accidentally froze time and couldn’t turn it back on. He went insane from having no one else to talk to, and did horrible things like (as it was implied) raping the time-frozen Molly of his world. Killed by the Other.
One Tim accepted his fairy heritage and took on a more fairy-like form, becoming a prince of Faerie. Killed by the Other.
One Tim is on a team that is a parody of the Teen Titans. He acts in the Nightwing role. He is known as Hellspawn, ward to Hellblazer, a billionaire mystic crime fighter. Upon learning that he is partly French, Hellblazer kicks him out, and Hellspawn joins the Mystic Youth along with various other characters who are versions of “real-life” Books of Magic characters. Killed by Moonchild (Leah) on behalf of the Other.
One Tim has a very happy relationship with Molly and seems pretty content and well-adjusted. Killed by the Other.
One Tim did not lose his mom, and did not take the path to magic. Killed by the Other.
One Tim ends up getting sold to a fairy who then has him executed in the Faerie market.
Mister E Alternate Timeline Versions
Soon after first meeting Tim in the Books of Magic limited series, Mr E continues to be obsessed with killing Tim in his own limited series. This starts off in the main DC universe/timeline, but then starts splitting off into alternate timelines.
A machine called the Panoptic, which uses Mr. E’s eyes, can see that there are many Tim Hunters, some magical, some not, some good, some evil, across the many timelines.
Traveling to these timelines, Mr. E meets some of these Tims. He kills one Tim who is trying to contain the Cold Flame, thus allowing the Cold Flame to escape.
One Tim goes to a magic shop and asks to learn real magic due to nightmares of Mr. E. He learns to shoot energy blasts and fly. The proprietor is secretly Zatanna. E attacks this Tim, but Tim fights him off. The Trenchcoat Brigade explain that this was their planâto scare Tim into learning magic. When originally written, this seemed to be the real Tim. However, when the main Books of Magic series came out a few years later, Tim said he had never done almost any magic except to create Yo-yo, so this must have been an alternate-timeline Tim.