Molly O'Reilly

Molly O'Reilly
Portion of a panel from The Books of Magic: Reckonings, showing Molly in an embrace with Tim Hunter
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics/Vertigo
First appearance	The Books of Magic #5: "The Hidden School" (DC Vertigo, 1997)
Created by	John Ney Rieber Peter Gross
In-story information
Abilities	Initially none, but ultimately gains a magical gem that makes her the protector of Faerie.

Molly O'Reilly is a fictional character created for the Vertigo comic-book series The Books of Magic by writer John Ney Rieber and artist Peter Gross. Although she was written out of the main series, she was brought back by popular demand in a limited series called The Books of Faerie: Molly's Story (which was to have led to her own series). This series was never produced, and Molly returned as a regular character partway through the short-lived Hunter: The Age of Magic series.

To capitalise on the success of The Books of Magic miniseries by Neil Gaiman, Vertigo turned the series into a monthly comic which would continue the story of teenaged magician Tim Hunter. Vertigo chose John Ney Rieber as writer for the series, which debuted with Arcana: The Books of Magic Annual #1 (part of the crossover series The Children's Crusade). Rieber expanded the character of Tim, using his own memories of teenage life to create a realistic picture of a young boy struggling to decide who he is going to be. As counterpoint to Tim's uncertainty Rieber created Molly O'Reilly (a young girl "who'd already figured out the best thing you could possibly do with your life was live it") to allow the series to explore the magical world and Tim's real life.

As the series progressed, Molly proved popular with readers. Rieber (who sometimes found the central character too close to his teenaged self for comfort) created Molly partly as wish-fulfillment: "Yes this is the perfect girlfriend, if you could have had a girlfriend like Molly at 13 oh my God". His artist for the series, Peter Gross, admitted that this sometimes caused Molly to eclipse Tim as the more-interesting character. This may have been particularly true during the extended Rites of Passage storyline which became Molly's swan song, with its focus on her enforced stay in Faerie ensuring that Tim was absent for entire issues of the comic.