GFT Retrospective #84: The Dream Eater Saga #4 (Wonderland One-Shot)

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. the Ticketmaster

So far in these Dream Eater and Myths & Legends reviews, I have included reprints of content relevant to each issue’s focus property (like I did with The Piper One-Shot and Britney's M&L Volume). But if the reprint content is dense enough (Samantha already got her own character-focused post, plus some appearances in Myths & Legends, and Baba Yaga has had her introductory issue, a Halloween appearance, a Tales From Wonderland appearance, appearances throughout Volume Eight, and the entire Sinbad Crossover trilogy, not to mention Myths & Legends and her focus in this very event series), I will simply include a link if you wish to catch up.

Such is the case with Wonderland, which gets the One-Shot treatment here, after a trilogy of miniseries, another trilogy of Tales Volumes, and three years of Annuals because threes coming in threes is so three that it deserves to have won one.

Don't at me for being weird, Ticketholders; this is Wonderland I'm talking about here. Weirdness is how you keep the sanity from driving you mad. Now have some tea and please Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment and a smile at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can continue to make cents, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my dreamy content.

The Dream Eater Saga #4

Wonderland One-Shot

As hinted at in the Myths & Legends crossover last week (and just looking at the chosen A Cover by Planet Hulk and Witchblade cover artist Keu Cha, which I think is a callback to a Tales From Wonderland cover), this is a Cheshire Cat issue.

Cheshire here is an...interesting character. If you recall from previous Wonderland titles, he was the result of Henry Allen sending a normal housecat through the mirror portal in his basement. After being wounded and defeated by Calie Liddle in Beyond Wonderland, Cheshire was forced to revert to his original form in Tales From Wonderland until he could take enough lives to regain his power, at which time he was adopted by a young woman named Lina, whom he would exploit for murder victims and bring with him to Wonderland as his queen. In Escape From Wonderland, Calie would once again defeat Cheshire, trapping him in the Jabberwocky's cave with a ceiling collapse that also killed Lina.

Jumping forward to this issue, Cheshire is now gaunt and skeletal-looking after being trapped for two years of publication time (which is seventeen years in-Universe, and given the nature of time in Wonderland, could be more or less time for him), his paws bloodied from trying to climb and claw his way out of the cave so he can take revenge on the Liddles.

What makes this revenge motive, and this evolution of Cheshire as an overall character interesting (with a heavy, elliptical pause of qualification) is that he expresses love for Lina here. That's right; the insane, corrupted murder-cat, who used Lina's grievances as a kill list and twisted her into a Hellraiser-level piercing fetishist, loves her.

And coincidentally (or because of the time-space-transcending nature of the Dream Eater?), Cheshire is at last able to break through from Wonderland to the Nexus just as a certain, ominous comet goes streaking by overhead.

Meanwhile, presumably in Arizona because that's where the last issue said a school would be attacked by a wild animal, we catch up with Calie, who is making breakfast for Violet while hallucinating and holding an inner dialogue fueled by anxiety and Wonderland PTSD.

If you've been following along with the series and my reviews, you know my feelings on psychological horror that wastes time by faking out the audience and is therefore bullshit. But you also know my feelings about what happens when the Wonderland series' writing uses things I don't like, in a new way, to show character progression. The pages with Calie and Violet early on in this issue are full of tense, surreal psychology that combine real-world parental worries with the "it's the anniversary of that time an insane dream dimension tried to kill you and corrupt your daughter, so you can't keep hiding the horrifying truth from her anymore" context of Zenescope's most and least coherent Grimm Universe franchise, giving powerful (if a bit heavy on the tell side of the "show, don't tell" equation) insight into the toll that Wonderland has taken, and will continue to take, on Calie Liddle.

Unfortunately for the Liddle women, we know they are still trapped in a horror movie for three reasons: first and most obvious is that Cheshire has followed Violet to school; second is that Violet's seat in first period English is right by the big picture window so she can see the killer staring at her and vanishing between panels like she's Laurie Strode in Halloween (the first one, not the Rob Zombie one or the one from 2018 that replaces Halloween II); and third is the horror movie trope that said English class is studying H.P. Lovecraft.

Except we might as well throw Friday the 13th Part III in there for the awesome panel and splash page of Cheshire smashing through the window and into the classroom where he proceeds to dismember everyone who doesn't have plot armor, and reference Hollow Man because Cheshire also does some of that while invisible, including an entire police force (because if The Library is good for anything, it's as a reminder that emergency responders in the Grimm Universe are not equipped to deal with magic, giant carnivores, or any combination thereof).

Also, he bisects a legally distinct Mary Jane facsimile wearing a tight-fitting MILK shirt. Unimportant, but I felt like mentioning it...for some reason.

What is important is that, meanwhile, Calie is shopping to drown out the suicidal voice in her head when Violet calls her about Cheshire, and gives the worried mom voice in her head plenty to say in response. For lack of a less punny choice of words, a verbal game of cat and mouse ensues, with the Cat adding much dialogue and scenery to his usual diet of human flesh and souls.

With Calie on her way to the rescue and Violet huddled at the mercy of the Cheshire Cat, we are soon reminded that this is a Dream Eater Saga issue as much as it is a part of the ongoing Wonderland narrative, when the being itself shows up to absolutely manhandle the big Cat and devour him.

The art and paneling (drawn by Novo Malgapo and Marco Cosentino, and colored by Vinicius Andrade) are near perfect quality work, particularly with the sensational gore and explosive action scenes, though there's one panel where thru could have depicted the characters with more expressive faces. The character writing and dialogue that accompany it are peak as well.

See how the dialogue and expressions don't match‽

I think I was disappointed the first time I read through this that Calie and Violet didn't have more involvement in the Saga, but now I get that they have their own problems to deal with later. See, the Dream Eater notes that Calie and Violet "reek of Wonderland," but it can tell they are still human and it makes no effort to pursue them, instead reconstituting and resurrecting Cheshire's victims as the Liddles flee, with Calie promising to tell Violet everything and the issue calling this "The Beginning" (which you may recall is an ending reborn so it can later end with a new ending that begins something else, because Wonderland).

Perhaps it causes confusion by also promising to continue in the Neverland One-Shot (with respect to The Dream Eater Saga), but I like that this issue is more about setting up future miniseries and a Wonderland ongoing series than drawing Calie and Violet into a Creation-level, reality-ending event when they're just a couple of savvy, barely resilient, normal humans who have yet to fully wrap their minds around Wonderland ruining their lives.

Strong contender for the best Dream Eater issue and the best Wonderland issue so far.

Now that you've had your tea and realized I'm not entirely crazy, please Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment and a smile at the bottom of this post, help out my ad revenue as you read so I can continue to make cents, and follow me on Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest Grimm news on my dreamy content.

Ticketmaster,

Fading Out With A Grin.