Books of Magic is a 2018 comic book series published by DC Comics under the DC Vertigo imprint as part of the The Sandman Universe launch line. The series is written by Kat Howard with art by David Barnett and Tom Fowler, and is the third volume of The Books of Magic.
Timothy Hunter is destined to become the most powerful magician in the world, but currently he's a teenager trying to deal with teenage issues. Too bad nobody told the deadly supernatural forces about that.
The first issue was released October 24, 2018. The series ran for 23 issues, with the final issue released September 22, 2020.
Books of Magic (2018) provide examples of:
- Adaptational Jerkass: Tim in the original version was a good kid whose main flaws was passiveness and a tendency to get too caught up in himself and his own problems to notice what other people were going through, but who also had a bit of a Chronic Hero Syndrome syndrome going on and would always go out of his way to help those in need. This version is much more an antisocial and temperamental Jerk with a Heart of Gold with a disturbingly ruthless and violent streak towards people he doesn't like, and various people's concerns that he'll grow up to be a terrible, dark wizard seem a lot more justified. That said, he's still basically good. He's far less passive and his first impulse is still to help rather than harm, and he does try his best to take care of people in need.
- Adapted Out: Scores of characters from the preceding Books of Magic comics are omitted in this continuity, some of the more noticeably absent characters including Tim's biological father Tamlin, his stepmother Holly, his stepbrother Cyril, all of his previously established love interests and the demon Barbatos.
- Ascended Extra:
- Rose plays a larger role in this series, having taken on a sort of mentor role to Tim.
- In the original run, the Cold Flame cult were rather insignificant Starter Villains who were largely defeated off-screen by the Trenchcoat Brigade, and while they were occasionally referenced in the ongoing and kicked off the occasional plot point, Tim barely interacted with them. Post-New 52, the Cold Flame is a lot more active and powerful, and a constant threatening presence in Tim's life.
- Arc Symbol: Books. Books in this series are always a symbol of power and nearly always a source of magic. Most of Tim's lessons come from books.
- Broad Strokes: How the series seem to link to the original Gaiman-penned miniseries. It definitely still happened, as the events are briefly summarized in the first issue... and yet Tim does not recognize Rose when she shows up as his new school teacher, and Yo-Yo the owl is treated as if he was introduced here. This might have something to do with the reboots the DC Universe have gone through since the original miniseries, or there might be something else going on. Since the old ongoing series delved pretty hard into alternate timelines, it's possible we're just seeing another one of them.
- The Cameo: When Tim visits the Dreaming in issue #5, several familiar faces appear, including Eve and Matthew.
- Continuity Reboot: The series seems to ignore everything after Neil Gaiman's initial The Books of Magic mini-series.
- Counting Sheep: Inverted in issue three, where Tim magically summons sheep to count in order to stay awake, making it to one thousand by 7:00 in the morning and making the sheep disappear once they're no longer needed.
- Expy: Ellie is pretty much a toned-down, Race Lifted version of Molly O'Reilly, Tim's first love interest in the original Vertigo continuity.
- 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.
- Hot-Blooded: Tim has notably more of a temper here than in the original continuity. He's also far less patient and more prone to act without thinking.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Tim is barely a teen and is shown to be friends with the elderly Mad Hettie.
- Jedi Mind Trick: Tim uses magic on his father to make sure he doesn't worry when Tim goes off on a trip to find and rescue Ellie and his mother, and to make sure he doesn't freak out when odd magic stuff happens. It in fact works a little too well, as the father in later issues has become incapable of reacting to anything odd or unusual, and for a couple of issues he's totally blank and doesn't react to anything at all.
- 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.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: A lookalike of Obelix is shown letting Izzy borrow his mallet in issue 20.
- Magic Wand: Tim makes one out of a screwdriver. May or may not be an intentional Shout-Out to a certain Sonic Screwdriver.
- Missing Mom: A big driving motivation for Tim here is to find out exactly what happened to his mother.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Timothy Hunter's father William remains alive by the series' conclusion and his mother's absence is stated to be because she left, when in the original continuity the former was killed a little while after remarrying and the latter passed away when Tim was young.
- The Stool Pigeon: Tyler is of the "Petty Peter" variant. He really wants to see Tim get into hot water, to the point where seeing Tim do magic mainly provokes a "how can I use this to make sure Tim gets into trouble?" reaction.
- The X of Y: Not completely played straight; this incarnation is simply known as "Books of Magic," instead of the original version's "The Books of Magic."