Joker's Asylum: The Mad Hatter (and why Jervis is a painfully misused character)

[thehefner]

Thanks to the new poster tags system, I know that this is my second non-Two-Face-Tuesday post at the DW scans_daily! I'm making this rare exception for JOKER'S ASYLUM: MAD HATTER, because once upon a time, Jervis Tetch was my second favorite Batman Rogue just under Harvey.

The reason for this was purely for the Animated Series' Jervis, who was delightful, whimsical, and could at any moment snap into a murderous rage and cut off your head before going back to teatime. Like Mr. Freeze, Jervis was a one-note character from the comics who became a more complex, human, and sympathetic figure in the series.

So imagine my disappointment when I delved into the proper BATMAN comics and saw what the Hatter was like there. At best, he was a shallow nothing of a character, an insane ALICE IN WONDERLAND cosplayer who mostly spoke in quotes. Which was all he might have been, if it weren't for Grant Morrison coming along with ARKHAM ASYLUM, because since then, Jervis has been the go-to pedophile of the DCU. Not much room there for character depth or sympathy, but too many writers keep going back to that take because it's so ~edgy~

So I was rather worried about JA:MH, but thankfully, Landry Walker (SUPERGIRL: ADVENTURES IN THE 8TH GRADE) understands a little something about whimsy and character depth while still being dark and unsettling in a much more interesting way than "he has a thing for little girls, ew, creepy." In fact, the pedophilia thing is blessedly ignored in favor of a character who's more the combination of comics!Jervis and animated!Jervis. As such, this might be the best take on Jervis in the comics that we've yet seen.

Also, fuck Johnny Depp. Just 'cause.




You can read the first five pages of the issue here at this CBR preview, and these next few pages pick up from there to give you a further taste.











He finally gets up the nerve to approach the girl, desperately hoping to find out if he's finally found his Alice... only to discover that her name is:





And thus, through the shattered looking glass, Jervis finally comes up with an ending for his book. "It's not the one I'd hoped for. But that's the way it goes with stories. They often take a life of their own. Sometimes, they write themselves, and no matter how hard you try to... assert control, the story goes where the story goes where the story goes."

And he drinks the tea.

I won't spoil where it goes from there, because I definitely want people to pick this issue up. You'll know it from this awesome cover by Bill Sienkiewicz:





Man, I wish he'd have done all the art, rather than just inking Kieth Giffen's pencils. I used to believe that Sienkiewicz' inks could improve any penciled artwork, but it doesn't really click with Giffen.

Reading this reminded me of why I used to love the character so much, and how I wish the comics version could be more like the animated version. Then again, upon revisiting the classic Hatter episodes, I fear he could kinda come off as a stalker, or even date rapist. Makes me wonder if the character's nature makes him just too easy to make creepy and skeezy.

And while I'm on the subject of Jervis, did anyone ever play the ADVENTURES OF BATMAN & ROBIN Sega Genesis game? Man, the Hatter's level was the best:

That's the kind of Jervis I'd love to see in the comics: a combination of ALICE, Toyman (another whimiscal character needlessly made into a predator of children in the 90's), and Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka.

... Wow, and for the second time: fuck Johnny Depp.



Suggested tag: char: mad hatter/jervis tetch, creator: keith giffen, creator: landry walker, creator: bill sienkiewicz

Comments

[lonewolf23k]

Yeah, I have to agree that this is a good take on Jarvis, building on his Animated series version and only turning up the Darkness meter a bit, showing how truly disturbed a man like Jarvis could be. This isn't just a man obsessed with a specific woman to stalker-ish levels. This is a man obsessed with an unrealistic ideal of a woman, the obsession now turned to truly destructive levels.

It also explains why a man with the technology at his disposal isn't a bigger threat: he knows he could rule all of Gotham, but his mind just isn't wired right to take advantage of his technology. He's a prisoner of his own Mind.

[halloweenjack]

I'm only acquainted with the character from his appearance in Secret Six, and I don't remember any pedophilia references in that, although with the general messed-up wackiness of that title, I may have overlooked it. Here, for some reason, he reminds me of Mike Dowden from Something*Positive, at least in the early years before he grew up (a little).

Also, are there any homages to Charles Nelson Reilly's character from the Sid & Marty Krofft show Lidsville? Because that dude used to spook the hell out of me as a kid, although I think I could handle it now. I think.

[icon_uk]

Let's just Put that to the test, shall we? :)

[halloweenjack]

It still cracks me up that the kid who played Eddie Munster is the normal one.

[crinos]

Yeah, I liked him in Secret Six, because it demonstrated that, properly motivated, Jervis was an ace telepath who was able to down the entire Doom Patrol pretty much single handedly.

Oh, but nobody ever remembers THAT. They just remember what happens later in the issue, when he gives himself a hatgasm. *fumes*.

[thehefner]

As I said below, I really should reread SECRET SIX, because all I remember is the hat-fucking just ruining the whole thing for me. But then, maybe I'm remembering it wrong and it wasn't hat-fucking.

Either way, I do wish there would be a way to lessen the skeezy creepiness of Hatter depictions.

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah, the pedophilia thing came from Morrison's Arkham Asylum graphic novel back in '88. He encounter's Jarvis through a looking glass, and during his monologue he says:

"Ah yes, the apparent disorder of the universe is simply a HIGHER order, an IMPLICATE order order beyond our comprehension. That's why children...INTEREST me. They're all MAD, you see, but in each of them is an implicate adult, order out of chaos. Or is it the other way around?

"To know them is to know myself. Little girls, especially. Little BLONDE girls. Little shameless bitches! Oh God. God help us all!"

I really recommend it, it's a very interesting, albeit VERY fucked-up take on Batman and his rogues gallery.

[icon_uk]

Ah, BTAS Mad Hatter, one of Roddy McDowell's best performances. You could ache for the lost and lonely guy and a moment later be horrified when he snaps. Marvellous stuff... and who can forget the last line in "Perchance to Dream"

Batman: Why? Why did you do it?
Dr. Jervis Tetch: You, of all people, have the gall to ask me that? You ruined my life! I was willing to give you whatever life you wanted, just to keep you out of mine!

There's a scene in his performance as the Bookworm in the 60's Batman show which has him going from meek, if arrogant, badguy, to psychotic about to beat his moll to death with a book in a fit of anger, and for about the only time in that shows history, you got the feeling that this was a guy who WOULD do something that violent.

[thehefner]

That's one of my all-time favorite B:TAS moments. The way his voice is cracking between desperation and sudden fury, and the fact that he's crying as he's saying it... something about it is both moving and disturbing and powerful, especially after what Bruce himself just went through. It's like Jervis was having the catharsis for Bruce without realizing it.

I actually felt that way about Gorshin all the time.

[brandiweed.livejournal.com]

McDowall could play crazy with a good deal of conviction. There's a relatively obscure 1966 satirical film called Lord Love a Duck in which he's terrific, if too old by a couple of DECADES to play a high school student. (Scary thing is, he's nearly 40 and looks convincingly like a *college* student!)

[jlroberson]

>>Wow, and for the second time: fuck Johnny Depp

I think Tim Burton wants to be first in line for that. Sad how Depp has become such a schtickmeister.

But then, I've been mad at him ever since FROM HELL, where the whole part was rewritten just so he could be the star, when the real Abberline, Robbie Coltrane, was relegated to his sidekick.

[thehefner]

Is that was happened??

God, look, I don't have enough confidence in the Hughes Brothers to really think they understood the material, but the very thought of Coltrane in the Abberline role... gad, what a missed opportunity!

[punishermax]

Tim Burton has become a patrody of himself at this point. It's fukcing sad cause Ed Wood oewns hard but instead of makiung actual, GOOD films Tim has to sit in dark rooms jerking off to the idea of how he can cram Johnny Depp into his next Hot Topic Ad, I mean movie.


I fucking hate Tim Burton and the fact that because his fucking Alice movie made 4 trillion dollars we're going to get a stupid as hell EDGY AND DARK Snow White remake.

[big_daddy_d]

Honestly, I do feel like Mad Hatter is a bit..under the radar but when used properly, he can be very interesting.

[mullon]

Cool, Jervis is in a Fight Club.

[kagome654]

Bill Sienkiewicz? Hey, alright. Sold.

I love all the little details, like the conspicuous '10% off' sign at the grocery store. Poor Jervis, it's a shame that strong stories with him seem so few and far between.

[thehefner]

The problem is that so few writers can really understand whimsy, nor write madness well. And even fewer can do both.

[superfangirl1]

I was thinking to myself while reading this,have the mad hatter always been this short?

Thought he was more taller? :)

[thehefner]

While I prefer a taller Hatter because it makes him more of his own character rather than just looking exactly like Tenniel's drawings, the fact is that he was that short in his very first appearances, so it's canon. I believe that he got taller around the point that he became the mustached (later Impostor) Hatter, and regular Jervis was taller for a time in the 70's through the early 90's, until Loeb and Sale brought back the dwarf Hatter.

[jlroberson]

Actually, why wish even that on Depp? UNfuck Johnny Depp, I say! Let him never get laid again.

Oh shit, right, he'll still have the drugs. Oh well.

[darkknightjrk]

"Then again, upon revisiting the classic Hatter episodes, I fear he could kinda come off as a stalker, or even date rapist. Makes me wonder if the character's nature makes him just too easy to make creepy and skeezy."

Yeah, considering the character that he's based off and the author that created that character, I wonder if sexual crimes, if not pedophilia, are kinda intrinsic to the character. Even in this issue he kinda has some psychological trappings of a sexual predator.

[psychopathicus_rex]

Actually, if you take a closer look at the book, the original Hatter isn't particularly interested in Alice at ALL, except for the fact that she's cluttering up his nice tea party. All he really does is drink tea, squabble with the March Hare, torment the Dormouse, ask riddles that have no answer, and sadly reflect on how his relationship with Time has gone downhill - when he talks to Alice at all, it's usually to make snide remarks about her intelligence.
It's natural, of course, to have a character based on him obsessed with Alice - after all, Jervis Tetch is certainly obsessed with the book as a whole, and Alice is kind of an important part of the book - but there are certainly lots of other directions he could go in. He could team up with the Riddler, he could get his hands on some sort of time manipulation device, he could do sinister things with tea - and that's just the literal elements; if you take into account all of the bizarre things that happen in 'Alice' and 'Through the Looking Glass', you get all sorts of interesting directions that the character could go in. In the Jeff Loeb take on him, for instance, he's first seen kidnapping runaways and forcing them to submit to an endless tea party - there's no sexual motive involved, there isn't even any profit or grand scheme involved; he's just trying to keep this tea party going forever. There's a reference to 'drugged tea', and an inference that he will do terrible things if you don't play along with his game, but that's about as far as things go. Hell, even his hat obsession can provide good story fodder - view the BtAS comic where he's holding Bruce Wayne hostage so that he can get his hands on Batman's cowl. Sure, it's a silly motive for kidnapping someone, but think for a minute - he is crazy enough that he is ready and willing to BLOW A MAN'S HEAD OFF if he doesn't get this worthless piece of cloth. That's a character with potential there.

darkknightjrk..

[steverodgers5]

"Then again, upon revisiting the classic Hatter episodes, I fear he could kinda come off as a stalker, or even date rapist. Makes me wonder if the character's nature makes him just too easy to make creepy and skeezy."

I think, it's not so much the characters nature from Alice In Wonderland, so much as the particular 'power' set they've given him that's led down this road. (Yeah I know he doesn't have any real powers as such, just mind controlling technology.) It's seeming to be a trend that comic characters with mind control powers/abilities are, when comics writers are trying to tap into the whole 'dark and edgy' vibe, turning them into would be rapists.

I've seen this with a lot of marvel characters, (Ringmaster, Purple man, Mandrill, Puppet Master..) so I guess DC's Mad Hatter was inevitably going to be given this treatment at some point. In the olden days, of Byrne and Clairmont it was mostly subtext. But I notice most modern writers can't resist spelling out all the perverted power plays that can come out of it. Probably trying to tap into the whole 'control fetish.' But then given how much bondage there is in comics I suppose it was inevitable. I think there's this perception that comic books as a relatively underground/fanboyish medium is more open to the insertion of these types of tropes.
But getting back to Hatter, I guess you could have a point, in that because the main protaganist of Alice in Wonderland is underage. Anyone obessed with her character lends itself to the whole pedo-obsession tendencies. Though I really don't see why his warped fantasies can't have him having older victims that he dresses up as little girls. Still skeevy, no doubt about that, but it might keep him at the level of the Marvel villains rather than sinking to an even lower level of depravity. (Not that there should be any type of scale in these types of horrid crimes..)

As for Arkham Asylum. It's been too many years since I read it, but the mad hatters diatribe didn't leap out at me probably beacuse everything else was so warped out in that book. But I personally think the most damage was done in the Robin mini-series. Where he was explicitly shown as using his technology to abduct schoolgirls to be sold into white slavery abroad. After that I began to think that maybe the character should just be killed off in some sort of Super-heroine retribution type thing. (Llike what happend with Puppet Master in the Ms Marvel series..)

[psychopathicus_rex]

I'm curious - what happens if you step off the edge of the chessboard/carpet thing? Do you fall?

[thehefner]

I think you lose a life (or maybe just half your health bar).