Books of Magic:LDWT

[jadegiant77]

Does this book take place now or in a possible future? Just what the hell is it about, anyways?

[dancj]

That's a tricky question. It's definitely out of continuity, but I don't think it's in the future. In the first TPB, there's a huge magical war going on. Tim Hunter is a big focus of the war, but he's hidden himself off in a fictional non-wartorn world of his own making where there is no magic.

The TPB is very good, but it's obviously playing a very long term game. As the comic is being cancelled it's probably not worth trying it now - sadly

[FanboyStranger]

Actually, it may not even be out of continuity as everyone assumed when it started.

SPOILERS:









The background for the story began when Tim Hunter (essentially the same as he was at the end of Hunter: The Age of Magic-- dumped and bored) was approached by a John Constantine to fix a world where Tim was worshipped as god, or, more appropriately, the God. So, Tim and John run this elaborate scheme to eliminate the Fairy Queen of this dimension, who, in truth, is an alternate Tim Hunter. However, that dimension/world became 'cancerous', and Tim, upon regaining his full awareness after splitting himself into four 'books' (of magick, naturally)-- his friends Molly, Dog, Cat, and himself-- eliminates the world before its sickness can spread throughout the mulitiverse. The payoff for this was in issue #12, not as long as I had expected for that particular story to unfold. Now, on his way back to what I assume to be the standard 'Vertigo' DCU, Tim has to eliminate the world he created to hide from his alternate Fairy Queen self in the first place, a world to have been without magic, but now filled with people who worship him as "God" again. And, of course, this world creates its own defense system in the form of Jackie Constantine, a teenage female Constantine who stands to save her world through bluster and bullshit.

I didn't enjoy this book for the first few issues, but I had a sense that something bigger was going on. By the "Tumbling Dice" fill-ins by Duncan Fregredo, LDWT became one of the books I looked forward to most each month. It's a shame that next issue is the last, but I hold out hope that Spenser may return to the character in minis or something as technically this last is just wrapping up the loose ends from the war, and there's no point in having the subtitle Life During Wartime if the war's already over.

[Timulty]

Agreed, it was one of my favorites over the last year. I kinda of feel that Vertigo is thinning down some. I used to purchase Vertigo exclusively but find myself purchasing more Wildstorm(Top 10, Planetary, Albion...yes, I said ALBION, and Desolation Jones) and regular DCU nowadays. Titles such as Batman/Superman are much better reading then some of the Vertigo...Yes, I mean Swamp Thing and Losers.