View source for Timothy Hunter

{{other people||Tim Hunter (disambiguation)}}
{{Infobox comics character <!--Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics-->
|image = Tim Hunter from Bindings Cover.jpg
|imagesize = <!-- numeral only, defaults to 250 -->
|converted = y
|caption = Timothy Hunter, from the cover of the ''Bindings'' trade paperback.
|character_name = Timothy Hunter
|real_name = Timothy Hunter
|publisher = [[DC Comics]] <br> [[Vertigo Comics]]
|debut = ''[[The Books of Magic]]'' #1 (January 1990)
|creators = [[Neil Gaiman]] <br> [[John Bolton (illustrator)|John Bolton]]
|species = <!-- optional -->
|homeworld = <!-- optional -->
|alliances = [[Justice League Dark]]
|partners = <!-- optional -->
|supports = 
|aliases = The Merlin, Tamar son of Tamlin, The Opener, Señor Asscoaite 
|powers = Powerful [[Sorcerer (person)|sorcerer]], HR Extraordinaire 
|cat = 
|hero = 
|villain = 
|sortkey = Hunter, Timothy
}}

'''Timothy Hunter''' is a fictional character, a [[comic book]] [[Sorcerer (person)|sorcerer]] published by [[DC Comics]]. He first appeared in ''[[The Books of Magic]]'' #1 (January 1990), and was created by [[Neil Gaiman]] and [[John Bolton (illustrator)|John Bolton]].

==Publication history==
Tim Hunter was created by writer [[Neil Gaiman]] when [[DC Comics]] asked him to come up with a four issue [[Prestige format|prestige-format]] series "about our magic characters".<ref>{{Citation | title = Neil Gaimon Interview, Stardust | year = 2007 | url = http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_12696.html | access-date = 2008-04-28 | url-status=dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080327090837/http://www.moviesonline.ca/movienews_12696.html | archive-date = 2008-03-27}}</ref> Drawing on a childhood spent working his way through the children's section in his local library and a childhood love of magic and fantasy stories<ref name=BoM>{{Citation | last = Gaiman | first = Neil | title = The Books of Magic | publisher = DC Comics | year = 1993 | isbn = 1-56389-082-8}}</ref> such as [[T. H. White]]'s ''[[The Once and Future King]]'',<ref name="GaimanInt" /> Gaiman created a character reminiscent of [[The Once and Future King#Plot summary|Wart]] except that instead of being destined to be King, Tim Hunter's destiny was to become the world's greatest magician.<ref name="JNRint">{{Citation | title = Interview with John Ney Rieber | date = 1 December 1995 | url = http://www.seriejournalen.dk/tegneserie_indhold.asp?ID=15 | access-date = 2008-04-28 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080620095158/http://www.seriejournalen.dk/tegneserie_indhold.asp?ID=15 | archive-date = 20 June 2008}}</ref> Gaiman's story was structured to use different artists for each issue, and it was the artist for the first issue, [[John Bolton (illustrator)|John Bolton]], who designed Tim's appearance, basing him on his own son.<ref name="No75">{{Citation | last=Gross | first=Peter | title=The Books of Magic: The Closing - Inner Child | issue=#75 | date=August 2000 | publisher=DC Comics}}</ref> When ''The Books of Magic'' was initially released over 1990–91, it proved very popular and led [[Vertigo Comics]] executive editor [[Karen Berger]] to make it a regular ongoing series under editor [[Stuart Moore]].<ref name="JNRint" />

Initially, the editors had a difficult time finding someone to write the series, with Tim Hunter proving a tricky character to get right. Although he already appeared in a mini-series, the character's main function had been to bear witness to the past, present and future of magic in the DC universe and so did not offer a writer much detail to work with. Karen Berger eventually settled on writer [[John Ney Rieber]] to continue Tim's story.<ref name="JNRint" /> Rieber expanded Tim's character using his own memories of being 14, later saying: "I don't believe that my soul is likely to be shuffled off to [[Purgatory]] after I die. What would be the point? I've been fourteen already". Rieber utilized his own teenage confusion and delight in writing Tim, while introducing his first girlfriend, [[Molly O'Reilly|Molly]], as a counterpoint. Molly was the opposite of Tim in nearly every way, someone "who'd already figured out the best thing you could possibly do with your life was live it".<ref name=After>{{Citation | last=Rieber | first=John Ney | publisher=Vertigo | title = Rites of Passage: Afterward | date= July 1998}}</ref>

While Rieber's personal connection to Tim gave the character a sense of realism, it also was a source of frustration for the writer. He later said: "I've found it difficult to like Tim now and then. Of course he gets on my nerves. He's a lot like someone I spent years learning not to be".<ref name=After /> This dislike led to a perceived decline in the quality of the book as Rieber wrote his final batch of issues, with the character of Tim often sidelined in the stories in favor of his girlfriend, Molly. This preference also affected Tim's character in other ways, as Rieber requested that Molly not be used in the book after his departure to allow him to develop his own projects using her, causing the in-story break up of the two young lovers that led to them not seeing each other for many years.<ref name="No53">{{Citation | last=Gross | first=Peter | title=The Books of Magic: The New School | issue=#53 | date=October 1998 | publisher=DC Comics}}</ref>

Rieber was replaced on the series by his main artist, [[Peter Gross (comics)|Peter Gross]], who decided that the character had been dominated by strong female characters and also had shown himself to be resistant to change and evolution, pulling away from other characters and situations that would require him to adapt. He resolved to concentrate on Tim's "boy time"<ref name=GrossInt>{{Citation | title = The Zen of Comics: Peter Gross | date= October 1999 | url = http://www.sequentialtart.com/archive/oct99/gross.shtml | access-date = 2 May 2008}}</ref> and introducing the concept of the boy magician using his magic subconsciously to protect himself, separating painful emotions off into alternate worlds and alternate Tims: the 25 issue run told the story of Tim regaining all of those disparate pieces of himself, leaving him whole and more rounded for the end of the series.<ref name="No75"/>

It had always been the intention to have a clean break in the series after Gross' first 25 issues to allow the character time to grow up, with Gross having some ideas about where he would take the character next.<ref name=GrossInt /> When the time came, however, DC opted to relaunch the series as ''[[Hunter: The Age of Magic]]'' with writer [[Dylan Horrocks]].<ref name="No75" /> Horrocks introduced the series with a five-issue miniseries, ''The Names of Magic'', that ended with the character learning his true heritage and names and enrolling in a school of magic: this allowed Horrocks to show a more mature version of Tim in the ongoing series, set after Tim's graduation from the school, and deal with real-life issues that had not been previously covered in ''The Books of Magic'', like bills and hangovers.<ref name="DylanInt">{{Citation | title = Wizard Of Hicksville: Horrocks Talks 'Hunter: Age of Magic' | last = Singh | first = Arune | date = August 6, 2002 | url = http://66.240.186.50/news/newsitem.cgi?id=1444 | access-date = 2 June 2008}}{{dead link | date=March 2018 | bot=InternetArchiveBot | fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>

Horrocks was initially attracted to the concept of the original series, seeing a great connection with the character of Tim and the ability to tell fantasy stories using realistic, real-life characters. In particular, he relished the opportunity to write about Tim's love life (eventually reintroducing the character of Molly to the book) and also to approach issues of morality: he used the stories to resolve for Tim the question that was asked about him at the start of Neil Gaiman's miniseries — would he be good or evil. It also took Tim into the opening stages of the magical conflict mentioned in Gaiman's series that he was to play such a pivotal role in.<ref name= DylanInt /> The series was cancelled after 25 issues, and Vertigo decided to relaunch again, this time bringing back a Tim Hunter in [[Si Spencer]]'s ''[[Books of Magick: Life During Wartime]]''.

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.<ref>{{Citation|last=Gaiman|first=Neil|title=Morning Catch Up|url=http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2004/06/morning-catch-up.asp|date=June 2006|access-date=2 June 2008}}</ref> 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.

Following the 2011 companywide DC reboot, Tim Hunter appeared in the non-Vertigo ''[[Justice League Dark]]'' title. His appearance in the mainstream DCU seems to only take into account the events of the original ''Books of Magic'' miniseries.

==Comparisons to Harry Potter==
{{see also|Harry Potter influences and analogues}}
Since the 1997 publication (and subsequent success) of the first book in [[J. K. Rowling|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".<ref name="Ansible">{{Citation | title=Ansible 153, April 2000 | last= Langford | first=Dave | date=April 2000 | url=http://news.ansible.co.uk/a153.html}}</ref>

A story in the ''[[Daily Mirror]]'' reported that Gaiman had accused Rowling of [[plagiarism]], and was repeated in the ''[[Daily Mail]]''. Gaiman has stressed, "This is ''not'' true, I never said this", and when asked, repeats his belief that Rowling had not read ''The Books of Magic'' and that the similarities most likely result from both being inspired by similar works, in particular those of [[T. H. White]].<ref name="GaimanInt">{{Citation | title=January Interview: Neil Gaiman | last= Richards | first=Linda | date=August 2001 | url=http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/gaiman.html}}</ref><ref name="Ansible" /> ''Hunter: Age of Magic'' author [[Dylan Horrocks]] has pointed out that neither Hunter nor Potter was truly an original idea, with another boy wizard preceding Hunter in comics, and they should be considered more as part of a [[genre]]:

{{blockquote|The superficial similarities are striking - but no more so than any number of other stories in the genre. As Gaiman has repeatedly said, he and Rowling were merely drinking from the same well. In fact, there was even a story in ''[[2000 AD (comics)|2000AD]]'' (called the ''[[Journal of Luke Kirby|Journals of Luke Kirby]]'') which came out a few years before ''The Books of Magic'', which was extremely similar to both the ''BoM'' and ''Harry Potter''. This is a genre - and Gaiman and Rowling are both playing with the conventions of the genre, to different ends.<ref>{{cite web | first=Arune | last=Singh | url=http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=1371 | title=Wizard of Hicksville: Horrocks talks 'Hunter: Age of Magic' | publisher=[[Comic Book Resources]] | date=August 6, 2002 | access-date=October 23, 2009}}</ref>}}

In the last issue of the ongoing (second) ''The Books of Magic'' series, writer/artist [[Peter Gross (comics)|Peter Gross]] played on the similarity to Potter, showing Tim's step brother Cyril putting on a glamor stone that made him look like Timothy. Cyril then walked through the wall between platforms 9 and 10 at a train station.

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/timhuntr.htm Timothy Hunter] at [[Don Markstein's Toonopedia]]. [https://archive.today/20240528074137/https://www.webcitation.org/6xQoJZ9bF?url=http://www.toonopedia.com/timhuntr.htm Archived] from the original on February 22, 2018.
* [http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/t/thunter.htm Timothy Hunter] at the International Catalogue of Superheroes
* {{comicbookdb|type=character|id=1042|title=Timothy Hunter}}
* [http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Timothy_Hunter_(New_Earth) Timothy Hunter] at the DC Comics Wikia

{{Zatanna}}
{{Justice League Dark}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Timothy}}
[[Category:Comics characters introduced in 1990]]
[[Category:DC Comics fantasy characters]]
[[Category:DC Comics characters who use magic]]
[[Category:Fictional characters who have made pacts with devils]]
[[Category:Fictional slaves]]
[[Category:The Books of Magic]]
[[Category:Characters created by Neil Gaiman]]
[[Category:End of the universe in fiction]]