Timothy Hunter

Timothy Hunter
Timothy Hunter, from the cover of the Bindings trade paperback.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	The Books of Magic vol. 1 #1 (January 1990)
Created by	Neil Gaiman (writer) John Bolton (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Timothy Hunter
Supporting character of	Justice League Dark
Notable aliases	The Merlin, Tamar son of Tamlin, The Opener
Abilities	Powerful sorcerer

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

Tim Hunter was created by writer Neil Gaiman when DC Comics asked him to come up with a four issue prestige-format series "about our magic characters". 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 such as T. H. White's The Once and Future King, Gaiman created a character reminiscent of Wart except that instead of being destined to be King, Tim Hunter's destiny was to become the world's greatest magician. Gaiman's story was structured to use different artists for each issue, and it was the artist for the first issue, John Bolton, who designed Tim's appearance, basing him on his own son. When The Books of Magic was initially released over 1990–91, it proved very popular and led Vertigo Executive Editor Karen Berger to make it a regular ongoing series under editor Stuart Moore.

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, who expanded Tim's character using his own memories of being fourteen, 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 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."