Harry Potter is coming to HBO, the bespectacled British wizard being introduced to a whole new generation fans. Harry Potter-mania swept the world through the late ’90s with the books to the release of the final movie in the series in 2011. Potter fandom is quite controversial nowadays, with many fans of the property swearing it off thanks to the accusations of transphobia against author J.K. Rowling. Potter fans were always some of the most devoted, leaving these fans without an important part of their childhood. However, there’s another young British wizard who happens to be the chosen one and he came from DC Comics.
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The publisher is best known for their superheroes, but those of us who have made love of DC a big part of our life (yes, I know I’m lame) know that was just the beginning. Over the years, DC has brought in fantasy settings, sci-fi futures, contemporary horror, Westerns, pirate drama, and everything else you can think of to create stories that fans loved. The late ’80s would see a new generation of British creators, themselves brought in because of the success of Alan Moore, take DC in new directions, leading to the creation of Tim Hunter. If you’re a Potter fan, you might have had people throw Tim at you as the one that Rowling copied her own wizard after, so you might have a little bit of ire towards him. However, Tim is a child of DC’s most fruitful era, with brilliant creators making him into a character that should be as popular as the other British kid with glasses.
Books of Magic‘s Tim Hunter Was Magically Saving the British Isles Years Before Potter
Neil Gaiman is a controversial figure in the comic industry right now, thanks to his own allegations of sexual misconduct. Gaiman became a superstar thanks to 1989-1996’s The Sandman, a comic that starred Dream of the Endless, his family of anthropomorphic representations of universal concepts, and everyone else in the universe (seriously). Gaiman worked in the Alan Moore of comic-writing; if you go back and read the original Moore Swamp Thing and the early issues of Gaiman’s The Sandman, you’ll see the similarities in how they write.
Gaiman quickly became massive and started doing other work at DC, leading into 1990-91’s Books of Magic. This four-issue miniseries, with artists John Bolton, Scott Hampton, Charles Vess, and Paul Johnson, introduced the world to Tim Hunter. He was a boy in London living with his father when he’s accosted by the Trenchcoat Brigade – John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger, Doctor Occult, and Mister E. The four magic-users tell him that he’s about to become the most powerful magic user on Earth, transforming his yo-yo into an owl, but that he’s also going to destroy the world. So, they take him through the history of magic, the group of them figuring out what to do about Tim’s future.
Books of Magic (Vol. 1) #1-4 is brilliant. It’s an amazing road map of magical DC in 1990, one that is still used by creators today. The four artists take readers through the history of DC magic, their brilliant imagery bringing Gaiman’s story and Tim to life. It’s hard to pick a favorite issue, because they are all fantastic. Tim was a normal British kid and that shone through in the way he reacted to the whole situation, giving the story a sense of realism that Potter’s own often lack. In the end, he decides to join the magical world, setting what could become an apocalypse into motion. Hunter would go dormant for a time, but the dawn of Vertigo Comics in 1993 would lead him back to the printed page.
Books of Magic (Vol. 2) dropped in 1994. Vertigo editor Karen Berger decided that writer John Ney Reiber could do the character justice and he was joined by Gary Amaro and Peter Gross on art, with Charles Vess giving readers covers. This was that golden age of Vertigo, when the books were the coolest comics in the world. They captured that alt-rock, goth underground of the ’90s and Books of Magic (Vol. 2) played into that strain of teenage rebellion, following an older Tim while he wrestled with his destiny, learning the truth behind his own birth and leading him inexorably towards his destiny.
Hunter became one of the poster boys of Vertigo over the book’s six year, 75-issue run. Gross would eventually take over as writer, taking Tim in new directions, exploring him coming into his own as a boy. It’s a great series; one of the best parts of Vertigo back then is the way the stories would be able to go from banal to terrifying or mind-blowing over the length of the page and this one had that in spades. Tim would end up going to a magic school in Hunter: The Age of Magic, which would lead into Books of Magic: Life During Wartime, telling the story of an adult Tim dealing with a magic war. He would join the DC Universe in the New 52 in Justice League Dark, but never came to much and would be rebooted in the Sandman Universe family of titles in a new volume of Books of Magic.
Over the course of the character’s almost forty years of existence, Tim basically blazed the path that Harry Potter would walk down in the future. However, because of his place in the Vertigo line, his adventures were always more mature than Harry’s, truly allowing them to grow with fans. DC is trying to re-establish themselves as a major part of pop culture and Tim Hunter could be an integral part of that. He scratches a certain itch, and is perfect for fans who don’t want to support Rowling.
DC Studios Shouldn’t Forget About Books of Magic
Tim Hunter is one of those characters that was a huge part of a certain era of DC Comics. He came during that that time when British creators were redefining what DC could be as a creative force, a perfect example of what the publisher could be in the modern day. An entire generation of readers grew up with him, much like the generation who grew up with Harry Potter, watching him grow and change in what was almost real time. The character was fantastic and he’s someone that DC Studios should remember.
With Harry Potter coming to HBO, a Tim Hunter series, one focused on him learning his destiny and being the most powerful magic user on the planet, could be an amazing idea. He gives lapsed Potter fans a new British wizard to enjoy and introduce to their children. DC has one of the greatest roster of characters ever and Tim Hunter is a great example of just how deep their bench is. They have their own Harry Potter and he’s more than ready for his time in the limelight.
Do you like Tim Hunter more than Harry Potter? Do you think the character can become a major part of pop culture or will he be looked at as an also-ran? Sound off in the comment section below.
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