Davis Duvall

Creation

Davis Duvall was created by writer/penciler Peter Gross in The Books of Magic issue 53, in 1998.

Major Story Arcs

Davis Duvall goes to the exclusive Bardsey school. He is the leader of a group of other wealthy and aristocratic gay boys. He is always in the know and likes to see bullies get what’s coming to them.

After Tim Hunter is ignored by a group of boys outside his new school, Bardsey, due to pressure from Tim’s step-brother Cyril, Davis gives Time some advice to take things slowly and in the proper way, which is how Bardsey does everything. Thankful that someone talked to him, Tim asks if he can walk in with Davis, but Davis brushes him off in an obvious manner.

Tim continues to get picked on, and talks with Mr. Currie as a refuge. Davis later comes up to Tim and tells him that everyone thinks Currie is a “fairy” and thus Tim is too—meaning that they are gay lovers. Tim, thinking Davis means “a magical creature from Faerie,” says he may be half a fairy.

Davis, also misunderstanding, thinks this means Tim is in fact gay, and explains that he didn’t walk with Tim earlier because the rest of the school kids would have picked on Tim for that reason. Now, he invites Tim to hang out with the other gay kids at school. He also warns Tim that people believe Currie killed Mr. Gavin, whom Currie replaced.

The other boys at school continue to bully Tim, and a group is about to beat him behind a wall when Gavin and the other gay boys take pictures of them and threaten to blackmail them. The bullies run off. Gavin explains that the students are either middle class kids whose families want them to get connections, like the bullies, or upperclass kids whose families are hiding them away. Gavin’s father, for instance, is very wealthy.

When Tim and Currie find the dead Mr. Gavin (whose body Cyril had been hiding), the enlist the help of Davis and his friends to spirit the body away.

As part of a class assignment, Davis wrote a paper where there was another world where “everyone switches places with everyone else.” It is called “Walk a Mile in My Shoes World.”

Soon Tim is no longer actually going to classes, but instead is practicing magic with Currie. He remains friends with Davis, who he sees now and then.

After Cyril’s mother Holly—Tim’s step-mother—dies in a car accident, Davis and the other boys come to the funeral. He also lets Tim know that Bardsey discovered that Tim’s family was behind on their payments, and that Tim and Cyril would soon be expelled.

Much later, after Tim has become the new Master of the Wild Hunt, he returns to Bardsey to find Cyril (who is now hiding underneath the school). Davis sees Tim as he and the Hunt rush into the school. He is excited as always to see Tim take the jerks of the world to task.

Other Versions

In one alternate reality created by Tim, several Books of Magic characters act as members of a Teen Titans-esque team called the Mystic Youth. Davis is here a shape-changer, similar to Beast Boy. The issue awkwardly refers to Davis's sexual orientation as a gay teen as his "confused sexuality." They are all killed by Tim's alternate-reality self, The Other.