GFT Retrospective #28: Alice
Tales From Wonderland continues and confuses right now with a Retrospective look at the Tale Of Alice.
To say the Alice one-shot has a wonky sense of time would be a massive understatement of how confusing the mechanics of Wonderland are. To simply say that it doesn’t have to make sense because it’s Wonderland is to defeat the enjoyment of the progressive and mostly logical story that the writers have tried to craft on top of it (or through it, if the opportunity presents). To recognize the sense of the story and attempt to glean logic from all that supports and surrounds it is likewise an exercise in madness that may drive one down a rabbit hole or through a magic looking glass and on a path to becoming a nigh-indestructible, costumed murderer. I do not advocate this course of action, nor do I believe it to be a realistic outcome of insanity in the world. I only mean to draw symbolic allegories to the fate of characters in the series who have thus far attempted to force something about themselves or their world to be something that it cannot, in reason and reality, ever be.
That said, from what little sense I could make of this story, Alice has lost her parents to something undefined (but probably Wonderland related) and is living with her grandparents, one of whom is the all-knowing and financially all-powerful Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. “Pappy.” The period dress of Alice and her grandparents, as depicted in the photo from Return to Wonderland #0 and explained in a diary entry of Alice’s from the RTW Trade Paperback, is attributed to a costume fair, not an extreme case of Wonderland-based time travel weirdness.
The Dodgsons attempt to send Alice down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, but she somehow comes back. Pondering the unique case of Alice (since no other intended sacrifices ever returned from Wonderland before her), they put the looking glass in her room and she is sucked into the clutches of the green, Chinese dragon-looking thing, who seems to be a ruler of sorts in Wonderland. Alice, because children with questions, seemingly escapes from Wonderland by annoying the creature out of its mind.
Then there’s this whole part where Alice is growing up and meeting Lewis for the first time, but also still a little girl trapped on the other side of the looking glass in Wonderland. Even though Alice had already escaped from the rabbit hole and the mirror, Little Alice made a deal with the Chinese dragon thing that she would help it get into the sane world if it let her go back home. Except that it let her go back as the Alice who came out of the rabbit hole, while keeping her sanity trapped in Wonderland? Maybe? So Alice goes into the rabbit hole, comes out of the rabbit hole, goes into the mirror, then gets split in half so she can get trapped in the mirror and come out of the rabbit hole, after which she is trapped in the mirror, allowed to escape the mirror, and allowed to come out of the rabbit hole, all at the “same time?” So if there’s only Alice and her trapped sanity (who I’m guessing will turn out to be Lacie some indeterminate time later), where are all of the other Alices that were created by this god-awful time paradox loop scenario? If Alice stayed a girl in Wonderland while watching herself grow up, why is Lacie a grown woman when Calie meets her?
I had some other convoluted question regarding which Alices still existed at which points in the issue, but it’s late and attempting to start writing it made my head hurt, so since I should probably be asleep by two hours ago, I’ll just assume that it was all a dream and it doesn’t have to make sense because comic books and it’s Wonderland.
Tune in tomorrow because the bonus story is up next.
Ticketmaster,
out.
TFW #3: Alice
That said, from what little sense I could make of this story, Alice has lost her parents to something undefined (but probably Wonderland related) and is living with her grandparents, one of whom is the all-knowing and financially all-powerful Charles Dodgson, a.k.a. “Pappy.” The period dress of Alice and her grandparents, as depicted in the photo from Return to Wonderland #0 and explained in a diary entry of Alice’s from the RTW Trade Paperback, is attributed to a costume fair, not an extreme case of Wonderland-based time travel weirdness.
The Dodgsons attempt to send Alice down the rabbit hole to Wonderland, but she somehow comes back. Pondering the unique case of Alice (since no other intended sacrifices ever returned from Wonderland before her), they put the looking glass in her room and she is sucked into the clutches of the green, Chinese dragon-looking thing, who seems to be a ruler of sorts in Wonderland. Alice, because children with questions, seemingly escapes from Wonderland by annoying the creature out of its mind.
Then there’s this whole part where Alice is growing up and meeting Lewis for the first time, but also still a little girl trapped on the other side of the looking glass in Wonderland. Even though Alice had already escaped from the rabbit hole and the mirror, Little Alice made a deal with the Chinese dragon thing that she would help it get into the sane world if it let her go back home. Except that it let her go back as the Alice who came out of the rabbit hole, while keeping her sanity trapped in Wonderland? Maybe? So Alice goes into the rabbit hole, comes out of the rabbit hole, goes into the mirror, then gets split in half so she can get trapped in the mirror and come out of the rabbit hole, after which she is trapped in the mirror, allowed to escape the mirror, and allowed to come out of the rabbit hole, all at the “same time?” So if there’s only Alice and her trapped sanity (who I’m guessing will turn out to be Lacie some indeterminate time later), where are all of the other Alices that were created by this god-awful time paradox loop scenario? If Alice stayed a girl in Wonderland while watching herself grow up, why is Lacie a grown woman when Calie meets her?
I had some other convoluted question regarding which Alices still existed at which points in the issue, but it’s late and attempting to start writing it made my head hurt, so since I should probably be asleep by two hours ago, I’ll just assume that it was all a dream and it doesn’t have to make sense because comic books and it’s Wonderland.
Tune in tomorrow because the bonus story is up next.
Ticketmaster,
out.
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