Down the rabbit hole we go.
What They Say:
When a jealous scientist with a passion for Alice in Wonderland uses his mind control devices to have his dream girl for his own, Batman must intervene.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I’ll admit, the Mad Hatter character is not one that I have any particular fondness for. He’s one of the older villains of the rogues’ gallery, going back to 1948 when he first appeared, but I had long tired of the Alice in Wonderland aspect that gets brought into lots of other mediums when I finally ended up seeing this character. The character does luck out a bit here in a way as he’s played by Roddy McDowall – who voiced him in the Superman animated series as well – and that just gives him a bit more to like since McDowall was simply a delightful actor that knew how to chew scenery with characters like the Mad Hatter. With this character having about a half dozen or so appearances in the run, he’s one that just left me a bit cooler in general.
A lot of the dislike is that he really does just fall into that “terrible man” category who, when he can’t get what he wants, falls to violence. Jervis Tetch is a solid scientist that’s miserable working at Wayne Enterprises but he continues to do so as the woman he loves, Alice, works there. She’s all that he wants and he thinks he finally has a chance when she breaks up with her boyfriend, which allows him to show her how nice he is and “get in there” to try and win her over. Of course, that’s not how it works even in the best of situations and her relatively quick smoothing out of issues with her boyfriend has her back with him quickly. And that, of course, just sets him off. This was always a bad kind of origin and they really lean into the whole social outcast aspect of Tetch as we see him early on with his experiments. Its looks even worse from today’s perspective as the red flags are even more obvious than they might have been to some and you cringe a lot at how Tetch operates, especially since you essentially have Bruce enabling him in a way early on, oblivious to the implied concerns of others.
With Tetch’s skill here being a way to control mice that he’s reworked to control people as well, it does make him fairly dangerous when you get down to it. Working with this Mad Hatter persona, he deals with some criminals that try to accost him and Alice and that becomes Batman’s first encounter with the mind control element, which he’s able to figure out fairly quickly at least. His working research is always fun, especially as Alfred provides a little context along the way, and his knowledge as Bruce of things going on in his own company provides an avenue to work with. It’s engaging watching the seriousness of Batman here operating alongside the goofiness of Tetch as the Mad Hatter, especially in seeing him so pleased while knowing things are going to go so badly for him. And badly it does go, pushing him to full villain mode because life denied him what he believes he’s owed.
In Summary:
There are a lot of reasons for villains to be who they are and the ones Batman faces definitely have a range of motivations. The Mad Hatter, aka Jervis Tetch, just doesn’t get what he wants when it comes to romance in his life as he thinks if he just asks it’ll be his. So when it doesn’t, he goes fairly violent and controlling, resulting in some comical but serious action scenes combined with him manipulating the lives of others to get the girl he wants. Tetch comes across well thanks to Roddy McDowall giving him some amount of empathy through the performance while also embracing the goofy side when he thinks he’s finally closer to getting what he’s always wanted. Batman is kept to a smaller role overall, mostly serving as the ending action facilitator, but we get some good Bruce Wayne sequences that helps with the investigative side of it, which is always a plus.
Grade: B+
