Villains Being Awesome: The Mad Hatter gets his payback.

[lego_joker]

Ah, Jervis Tetch. Generally regarded as little more than a third-stringer in the Batman mythos, with a nauseating appearance, a creepy personality, and an utterly stupid gimmick. Batman: The Animated Series is rightfully remembered for turning him into something more: a pitiful and sympathetic creature who was nevertheless just as creepy (perhaps even moreso) than his comics counterpart.

But once in a while, some story from the mainstream comics will rise to the challenge. Case in point: Detective Comics #841, in which the mastermind behind the BTAS version of Jervis, Paul Dini, sees if he can make lightning strike again.

The result? Well... it's not quite as memorable as the BTAS Hatter episodes (though that might be because the former sadly lacks Kevin Conroy and Roddy McDowall). Nevertheless, I regard it as one of the high points of Dini's hit-and-miss run on Detective, and the art from Dustin Nguyen doesn't hurt, either.

Warning: Spoilers for the issue's big twist ending, for those who haven't read it yet.

Jervis really gets to shine at the end - for most of this story, it turns out, he was a victim of his own mind-control tech. Tweedledee and Tweedledum were using him as a figurehead for the titular gang, committing various crimes with Lewis Carroll references painfully shoehorned in. But once Bruce frees him, all bets are off.



Do not mess with the Hatter. He might be half as tall as you, but get him ticked, and he will beat you black and blue with a giant oar.

Oh, and lest any of you decry this, saying that the Hatter should be all about intellect and mind control instead of being a bruiser... yeah, Dini's got you covered there, too.





And they all lived happily ever after.

Next time: I come up with a real golden oldie of a villains-being-awesome moment. Or maybe I finally get to the third part of "Children's card games are serious business". Or neither.

Happy October!

Comments

[crinos]

I personally remember his part in the secret six mini. Where the Secret Six are fighting (And losing to) the Doom patrol, up until the Point where the Hatter enters the fight, and basically KO's every single member with his psychic powers (including, IIRC, making Elastigirl eat Robotman and try and eat Beast Boy.)

Unfortunately, that's also the issue where Hatter gives himself a Hatgasm. Guess which event most people remember from that issue?

[mrstatham]

Yeah. I honestly couldn't decide if I liked Simone's characterisation much for him at all, somehow. There were some neat points, but the stuff like 'that's good hat' just seemed like it as being weirder and more gross for the sake of it, somehow.

[filthysize]

I seem to recall a tumblr post where a fan asked her about it and she vehemently denied that that's what Jervis was doing, and even seemed a bit repulsed by the idea. But since she never really explained what it was supposed to be instead, I really can't think of any other interpretation for that panel.

[mrstatham]

It's clear that the hats are meant to be an analogy for drug use - that much is pretty blatant, but.. Yeah. The nudity and the kind-of feel of those panels are CLEARLY meant to hint at weird and creepy sexual things; There is, after all, the stuff with Scandal where the Hatter goes off on a tangent about her butt, too, which is another aspect of Simone's take being more lecherous.

It's telling that, when she brought him back for the final issues of the first arc of the Secret Six ongoing, he was much more straightforward.

[thezmage]

Dini sure seemed to love the Carpenter.

[akodo_rokku]

I think we all loved the Carpenter. Supervillain Contractor!

[lego_joker]

Ironically, her debut appearance here suggests that the carpenter thing is no more than a gimmick that the Hatter/Dee and Dum thought up. Earlier on, Batman reads a police file on her, and makes no mention of her being an actual, licensed carpenter.

Of course, Dini established/retconned in exactly that later on...

[icon_uk]

Like Paul Gambi on costuming, or AIM going into technical support, or the Technician actually making the crazy ideas that villains come up with, I've always loved the notion that villains have folks who "Do" for them.

[espanolbot]

I also liked the Broker (I think that was his name), who acted as a real estate agent for the supervillain set in Gotham. He was the one who sold the abandoned fun fairs to the Joker, for example, and he'd hire the Carpenter to fix them up.

He was actually referenced in Arkham City, which isn't really surprising as it was also written by Dini and included a lot of characters from his Streets of Gotham run, including the Carpenter. The Broker and his contractors were also the people who actually got the Riddler's numerous puzzles build around AC, with Eddie designing and monitoring them as he physically couldn't prepare all of them prior to getting transfered to the prison.

[icon_uk]

In many ways the Carpenter and the Broker both seem to be more Astro City story type characters than Gotham (Though Gotham has as good a reason as any super-being populated city to have such people around).

Artisans and craftspeople who act without any trace of morality (since they MUST know they are funding/building/enabling deathtraps and the like) should be particularly despicable (Profiting by enabling the mentally ill or outright criminal to commit crimes up to and including murder), and yet they can also be fun.

[grazzt]

They should bring back the Eraser. He was one of the greatest supervillain concepts (eliminates evidence for criminals for a cut) with one of the stupidest costumes (a pencil). Nowadays, he'd fit in with the likes of the Broker and the Carpenter, or especially the Calculator (who also lost the costume sweepstakes).

[superfangirl1]

I hope she will makes a return soon in a bat-book.

[lego_joker]

Unlikely, unless Dini returns.

That's the price we pay for this new era of creator independence and disdain for the status quo. As soon as one team leaves, their creations get kicked to the curb by their successors to make room for those successors' creations.