A Thousand Deaths of Timothy Hunter last edited by Thor_Ul on 10/27/23 08:31PM View full history

    General Notes

    The world seen in Mark Millar's part of the story, "The New Mystic Youth #612: Who Is Tim Hunter?", was originally seen in Doom Patrol #53. However, while Grant Morrison--former comic writing mentor to Millar--wrote his Doom Patrol story as a parody of Marvel characters (specifically the Fantastic Four), Mark parodied DC characters (specifically the Teen Titans).

    Summary

    Whenever Tim Hunter, as a youth, went through an emotionally challenging situation, he magically split off the emotion he should have felt, and created a new universe with it. That universe was mostly like the real one, but with some differences based on the emotional situation.

    One day, one of the Tim Hunters in those worlds runs into a small demon, Barbatos. Barbatos refuses to talk with him and disappeares after only briefly describing the fact that there are other Tims. Now this Tim, who eventually becomes known as the Other, now becomes interested in the world of magic. He wants to learn how to visit the other Tims, and learns enough magic to travel to another one of the original Tim's universes.

    He finds a world where the local Tim Hunter accidentally froze time (as the real Tim did in issue 9), but can't figure out how to turn it back on again. He has gone insane due to lack of people to talk to.

    The Other watches him for a long time, but can't cast his original traveling spell again either. He ransacks the magic shops of the world and learns how to turn time back on. He turns it on, but the local Tim freaks out and gets hit by a truck and dies. When he does, that Tim's magic, and the entire reality, flows into the Other. He is now twice as powerful as before, and can no return to his original world. When he does, he finds that it is gone too; it disappeared after he left just as the previous Tim's did when he died.

    With nothing else to do, he visits another world. He avoids the local Tim, but in the vein of many other Tims, he takes advantage of a woman (for instance, the previous Tim was having sex with the time-frozen Molly). The Other slips a magical mickey into the Punk Waitress's drink and sleeps with her. However, a wild-looking fairy shows up and stops them. The Punk Waitress, realizing Tim just raped her runs off. The new creature turns out to be a version of Tim who embraces his fairy background. The Other, however, defeats him and absorbs his universe too. The Other now begins a quest to visit and kill the rest of the Tims. He wants to find out which is the real one.

    He goes through hundreds of worlds, and finds a box that allows him to bring some creatures with him. He starts to go insane.

    Another world is like a parody of the Teen Titans. The local Tim becomes Sparky, the sidekick to Hellblazer, aka John Constantine. Then he joins the Mystic Youth, a group of heroes whose identities are based on those of the real Tim's various friends and acquaintances. The Other shows up and kills them as well.

    The Other now believes he is the real Tim, and is collecting the parts of himself that he lost long ago.

    In another world, he pretends to be the local Tim to get Tanger and Crimple on his side; he is weakened from being stabbed by the last Tim he met. Then they all attack the local Tim and Molly, who for once seem to have an actually positive relationship. The local Tim and Molly fight back better than most; Molly breaks the Other's arm. Tanger and Crimple comment on how this can't be real fun for the Other to do, because he's playing all on his own. This seems to get to the Other. He defeats them all and absorbs the world, like the others.

    He has now absorbed more than a thousand worlds. His mind continues to devolve into madness, as he launches into yet another world, soon finding the real one. Story continues in The Books of Magic 61.

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