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The Books of Magic #7
The Books of Magic, Volume 7: Death After Death
Since learning that he would become a wizard of infinite power, young Tim Hunter has been cursed with a life of loss and death. Tired of the misery that has become his adolescence, the fourteen year-old mage releases all of his magic unto the universe. But as a war between Heaven and Hell erupts over the newly released power, Tim learns that his impulsive action may lead to the end of all Creation. Now the completely powerless sorcerer must find a way to outmaneuver and manipulate an assortment of angels, demons, and deities in order to regain his magic or watch as all of existence ceases to be.
232 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 2001
374 people want to read
About the author
John Ney Rieber
306 books23 followersJohn Ney Rieber is an American comic book writer. He has written for the comics The Books of Magic, Captain America, G.I. Joe and Tomb Raider.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 16, 2012
And finally we come to the last book in the Books of Magic trade paperback series, book 7: “Death After Death”.
When the book opens (issue #42 of the series), Tim is trying to decide what to do with his life. Living in San Fransisco with Zatanna, he feels directionless. Magic is doing him no good when all it seems to do is push those who matter most to him further away. Molly has left him and gone home to England. His father is getting married to Holly, the woman he met on the way home from the hospital after being burned by Martyn way back when. For Tim it just doesn’t seem like anyone needs him anymore.
Then he runs into the angel Araquel and together they try to get Timothy back home to England where something very big is about to go down, something like the apocalypse.
It seems the angels in Heaven are trying very hard to turn Earth into another Heaven, but the Devil has other ideas and he uses Tim’s father as his weapon, turning him into a huge ravenous beast that tears through town killing angels left and right. Tim and Araquel have to figure out a way to stop the angels from destroying the world, but do it without killing them.
For everything that’s come before in this series, “Death After Death” is by far the most exciting and grandest scaled story yet. The sight of the angels, by the dozens, flying about London while Tim and his allies are rushing here and there trying to stop the massacre all had a great cinematic quality to it and the story literally flew by in no time at all.
Tim must learn to deal with and fix this problem on his own, though, because earlier in the story during he and Araquel’s journey home, Tim gave up his magic, coming to understand that the magic didn’t belong to him in the first place, but to the world, and all he’d done was use it to get what he wanted. So he let it go, and the boy who returns to London is now just a regular, powerless boy, yet he’s still caught up in these amazing situations and simply wants no part of it. He just wants to be a 14-year-old boy whose biggest concerns are school and acne.
But that’s not Tim Hunter’s lot in life, as he learns, and when it comes down to it, Tim realizes he is up to the challenge.
Writer John Ney Rieber said from the beginning that he wanted the story of Tim Hunter to be about a boy, and his problems would be those of any adolescent. I’ve always thought he’s done a great job during this series of expressing that hope as well as he can, given the situations in which Tim finds himself, and “Death After Death” is no exception. The character has always felt a little too intelligent for my tastes, as a 14-year-old character, but his inner struggles and the simple things he wants in life all ring very true.
This book marks the end of Rieber’s run on the series and I say if you’re gonna end a book after 4 years, what better way than this? With the end of this book, it truly feels as if Rieber has said everything he had to on the subject of Tim Hunter.
The art this time is provided not just by Peter Gross (no Snejbjerg this time), but also by Jill Thomspon, Richard Case and Temujin. Thompson’s is the only name I was already familiar with while the other two merely finished Gross’s layout work. Aside from Tim’s changing hair style and length, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary or particularly bad in the art. Layout were pretty easy to follow, but there were a few times I read some word balloons out of order.
It’s hard to believe I’ve just spent over a week reading 50 straight issues of THE BOOKS OF MAGIC, a series that was, I admit, one of my least favorite among the Vertigo titles when I first discovered them over a decade and a half ago. But I think reading them like this, collected, where you don’t have to read them 24 pages month by month, this is definitely the way to do it. The story makes so much more sense when you don’t have 30 days between installments, especially when the story is as insane and surreal as this one got at times.
These collected books have made me re-evaluate my opinion of Tim Hunter and his saga, and this final volume even moreso. I don’t know if I want to read the last 1/3 of the series, since it was done under a different writer and I’m afraid some of what made these stories so good might be missing. Then again, the Gross issues might be even better. Who’s to say?
For what it’s worth, this is a very good series to get hold of if you can find it. I might even recommend BUYING it if you see the trades available somewhere. Given how old they are, you probably won’t, but I got mine from the library, which had the entire run. Either way, however you can get it, if you see it available, I strongly recommend it. Good stuff.
When the book opens (issue #42 of the series), Tim is trying to decide what to do with his life. Living in San Fransisco with Zatanna, he feels directionless. Magic is doing him no good when all it seems to do is push those who matter most to him further away. Molly has left him and gone home to England. His father is getting married to Holly, the woman he met on the way home from the hospital after being burned by Martyn way back when. For Tim it just doesn’t seem like anyone needs him anymore.
Then he runs into the angel Araquel and together they try to get Timothy back home to England where something very big is about to go down, something like the apocalypse.
It seems the angels in Heaven are trying very hard to turn Earth into another Heaven, but the Devil has other ideas and he uses Tim’s father as his weapon, turning him into a huge ravenous beast that tears through town killing angels left and right. Tim and Araquel have to figure out a way to stop the angels from destroying the world, but do it without killing them.
For everything that’s come before in this series, “Death After Death” is by far the most exciting and grandest scaled story yet. The sight of the angels, by the dozens, flying about London while Tim and his allies are rushing here and there trying to stop the massacre all had a great cinematic quality to it and the story literally flew by in no time at all.
Tim must learn to deal with and fix this problem on his own, though, because earlier in the story during he and Araquel’s journey home, Tim gave up his magic, coming to understand that the magic didn’t belong to him in the first place, but to the world, and all he’d done was use it to get what he wanted. So he let it go, and the boy who returns to London is now just a regular, powerless boy, yet he’s still caught up in these amazing situations and simply wants no part of it. He just wants to be a 14-year-old boy whose biggest concerns are school and acne.
But that’s not Tim Hunter’s lot in life, as he learns, and when it comes down to it, Tim realizes he is up to the challenge.
Writer John Ney Rieber said from the beginning that he wanted the story of Tim Hunter to be about a boy, and his problems would be those of any adolescent. I’ve always thought he’s done a great job during this series of expressing that hope as well as he can, given the situations in which Tim finds himself, and “Death After Death” is no exception. The character has always felt a little too intelligent for my tastes, as a 14-year-old character, but his inner struggles and the simple things he wants in life all ring very true.
This book marks the end of Rieber’s run on the series and I say if you’re gonna end a book after 4 years, what better way than this? With the end of this book, it truly feels as if Rieber has said everything he had to on the subject of Tim Hunter.
The art this time is provided not just by Peter Gross (no Snejbjerg this time), but also by Jill Thomspon, Richard Case and Temujin. Thompson’s is the only name I was already familiar with while the other two merely finished Gross’s layout work. Aside from Tim’s changing hair style and length, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary or particularly bad in the art. Layout were pretty easy to follow, but there were a few times I read some word balloons out of order.
It’s hard to believe I’ve just spent over a week reading 50 straight issues of THE BOOKS OF MAGIC, a series that was, I admit, one of my least favorite among the Vertigo titles when I first discovered them over a decade and a half ago. But I think reading them like this, collected, where you don’t have to read them 24 pages month by month, this is definitely the way to do it. The story makes so much more sense when you don’t have 30 days between installments, especially when the story is as insane and surreal as this one got at times.
These collected books have made me re-evaluate my opinion of Tim Hunter and his saga, and this final volume even moreso. I don’t know if I want to read the last 1/3 of the series, since it was done under a different writer and I’m afraid some of what made these stories so good might be missing. Then again, the Gross issues might be even better. Who’s to say?
For what it’s worth, this is a very good series to get hold of if you can find it. I might even recommend BUYING it if you see the trades available somewhere. Given how old they are, you probably won’t, but I got mine from the library, which had the entire run. Either way, however you can get it, if you see it available, I strongly recommend it. Good stuff.
February 17, 2022
The Bridge (#42). Tim's humanity has always been connected to Molly, and this story not only makes that clear once more, but also finally resolves the issue of that stupid tattoo and how it's been causing troubles ever since. A nice quiet but critical one-off [4+/5].
King of This (#43). What's going on in London? Reiber certainly doesn't handhold us in his storytelling, and as a result this is a neat mystery that reveals itself by the end [4+/5].
Slaves of Heaven (#44-49). Reiber at his worst was weird, meandering, and pointless, and this unfortunately trends in that directions. There's a war in heaven, but it's all fake. There are lots of consequences, but they're all reversed (but one). The only good thing about this plot is how many characters it brings back together, but there really doesn't seem to be a throughline here [3+/5].
The Box (#50). Ah, we get back one of Reiber's best characters for his finale, plus a final statement on what magic is. Worthwhile [4/5].
August 26, 2017
I give the series 3.5 stars, rounded to 4. It could've been better, I feel like certain parts could've been expanded upon - the storyline kind of jumps around a bit, certain plots I don't see the importance and the point of, but not bad.
February 17, 2009
I really wish Vertigo would publish the rest of the issues as trade paperbacks...
September 4, 2023
While I can't imagine myself writing a terse review of a book without context, something along the lines of a three word review that simply read "No, thank you." I understand the temptation after reading this.
Rieber has the best of intentions in these books, and they seem to resonate with people who love fantasty, but as someone who loves the overall Sandman/Hellblazer/Lucifer/etc Vertigo universe, this series started weak and just meandered endlessly until this volume where you're left with "Magic is real."
Yea, that's been the case for the entire series. In this volume an entire war for control of the world is faked by angels and demons. There are no consequences for any of the characters. It's just several issues of nothing. And while I hated reading it, I can't imagine writing it was much fun, either. What an enormous waste of time and energy.
The final issue tied back to an early issue but I was so exhausted by the last few volumes that it just inspired a shrug before I closed the book, curious to see if the next writer on the title could make this series interesting to me.
Rieber has the best of intentions in these books, and they seem to resonate with people who love fantasty, but as someone who loves the overall Sandman/Hellblazer/Lucifer/etc Vertigo universe, this series started weak and just meandered endlessly until this volume where you're left with "Magic is real."
Yea, that's been the case for the entire series. In this volume an entire war for control of the world is faked by angels and demons. There are no consequences for any of the characters. It's just several issues of nothing. And while I hated reading it, I can't imagine writing it was much fun, either. What an enormous waste of time and energy.
The final issue tied back to an early issue but I was so exhausted by the last few volumes that it just inspired a shrug before I closed the book, curious to see if the next writer on the title could make this series interesting to me.
February 20, 2023
This was a very cool series. Tim finds himself and finally understands his magic. I enjoyed this series; the ups and downs, crazy characters, events. The art was wonderful. I definitely recommend it.
June 25, 2016
What I liked most about this book, is the portrayal of Tim as an actual boy who is struggling with trying to find himself in a world where he is much more than he thinks he is.
The way it ends was a surprise, though a welcome one.
The way it ends was a surprise, though a welcome one.
February 24, 2010
Meh. This series petered out towards the end. I liked the series quite a bit up until The Girl in the Box.
March 24, 2013
I was disappointed by the whole arc of the story. It didn't have enough cohesion.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews