GFT Retrospective #61: The Redemption

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Retrospective Ticketmaster

Queen Of Hearts vs. Mad Hatter may have been the last of the Tales From Wonderland, but it isn't the last Tales From Wonderland content. Like previous Zenescope collections, the third and final Volume of Tales From Wonderland features a short story, spread out over its individual issues to keep completionists invested so they don't skip out on a One-Shot they aren't interested in. Usually, the short would be included in its entirety at the end of the Trade or Omnibus compilation, and I don't know if the physical trade does this, but the Comixology (now integrated into Amazon and the Kindle app) edition keeps the parts separated, like it was too much trouble to do some minor rearranging in the compilation process and they just slammed the single issues together in verbatim order. Not a deal-breaker, but it wouldn't have been my choice, either.

Hopefully, Just the Ticket and the GFT Retrospective are your choice, so please keep the wonder and redemption coming as you remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, comment at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my content.

TFW Short Story #3: The Redemption

At the end of the White Knight issue, Part One sees everyone's "favorite" scumbag pappy, Charles Dodgson, simping over a purple dress that belonged to a woman he does not name (and based on The Arrangement short from Volume Two and the color of the dress, it's easy to infer that it belonged to Belinda), before he forcibly removes his own face with a shotgun...and then regenerates. That's basically it for Part One: make the audience feel bad for psychological terrorist and pan-generational child murderer Charles Dodgson because Belinda left him and Wonderland won't let him die. But the art quality in the Redemption short is pretty peak for this era of Zenescope, and I love the effect of Dodgson's narration boxes stitching themselves back together as Wonderland heals him from the shotgun blast. Just genius.

Part Two was included as a B-story at the end of the Red Rose issue, and gets considerably meatier with its storytelling. But as usual, that involves so many attempts to have the Wonderland franchise make chronological sense that it just makes the timeline even worse.

As Dodgson looks back on the cursed life he leads to circumvent his incurable, fatal illness, we learn about his courtship and marriage to Monica Carden (the woman next to him in the photo from the beginning of Return to Wonderland, who also helped him send Alice down the rabbit hole in the Alice Tale, and who is the real owner of this particular purple dress, making some chronological sense for once and finally--maybe?--making Dodgson a genuinely sympathetic character), that Dodgson had a daughter named Rebecca who got taken by Wonderland, and that Fenton (the Dark One’s slimy, perverted, Civil War deserter sidekick) is so rich and/or powerful that he can do Sela's "I can have any job the plot requires" thing, here shown running a pawn shop with a "No Checks, No Refunds, No Whining" policy when Dodgson goes to sell the Allen mirror. Also, Dodgson says that his marriage to Monica was the first time he ever told the "we have to feed children to Wonderland to keep it from bleeding into Earth" lie, which is hard to believe, considering that he's been alive for two centuries. But I guess if Elizabeth Bathory can get away with stalking, kidnapping, and killing six hundred women in the time it takes to visibly age, Dodgson can sacrifice one child a year for two hundred years without having to make up a story.

Whatever the case, Part Two ends with the Jabberwocky shoving its terrifying face through Dodgson's TV like he's an NPC from a Zelda CDi cutscene.

Part Three wraps things up, included as a B-story in Queen Of Hearts vs. Mad Hatter. We're shown context for the first Mad Hatter Tale from Dodgson's point of view as he confronts Drake Liddle about physically abusing Johnny and pushes him into Wonderland through the Allen mirror, which made its own way there after Dodgson gave it back to Fenton in Part Two because its power set is broken by now and I like making unintended glass puns.

But Monica sees this and immediately "loses the will to live," landing her in the hospital where her soul is taken by the White Rabbit.

Suspecting the Jabberwocky is responsible, Dodgson gets the mirror back from Fenton and gives it to Lewis and Alice Liddle as a homecoming present. This makes Alice freak out even though she didn't go through a mirror as a child, which makes no sense unless she saw something in the mirror or can sense the twisted Dream Provenance energy coming from it, but that isn't really explained. From what I remember, there is an Alice In Wonderland miniseries and a Through the Looking Glass follow-up that elaborate on the Alice Tale, but just make even less sense out of everything. We'll get to those eventually, but for now, Dodgson returns from his...delegation quest...to find that Monica has died anyway because rabbits. News later reaches him that Alice has hung herself, and he and the Jabberwocky (who is talking to him through his own reflection in a few surreal, comical, and existentially disturbing panels that I love anyway) plan to talk to young Calie at Alice's funeral in RTW #6.

Dodgson is a hard character to like. He has some good lore behind him, but his ultimate turn to the dark side, his desperate, evil errand boy characterization, and the nothing manner of his death at the end of Escape From Wonderland makes him just another slimy, sold soul in the Dark One’s ongoing scheme to conquer the Nexus.

As for the Redemption short itself (despite there not being any long-lasting redemption going on), there's a lot to like here. The focus character notwithstanding, the story is easy enough to follow (especially for a Wonderland title), the art style is consistent between parts, making most characters easily identifiable, the editorial references are accurate, and the visuals are striking and memorable (everything with the Jabberwocky, and the gunshot and regeneration with the fractured internal monologue boxes come to mind). Hate the man, but love the content.

The next few weeks will be getting Omnibusted as I use that time to read, watch, and compose new content, so please give it and me some love by remembering to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, commenting at the bottom of this post, helping out my ad revenue as you read, and following me down the mad social media rabbit hole on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my content.

Also, Aliens review on Friday.

Ticketmaster,

Out.