Zenescope - Omnibusted #35: Call Of Wonderland

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Omnibuster.

Barring any recent expressions of madness (that is to say, anger, rather than insanity) on my part, you may also recall from Saturday's Time Drops post that I began reading this miniseries (only four issues, plus the bonus Wonderland Annual from 2012 that was previewed in this Volume, but I will be reviewing it on its own next week) and felt compelled to "read" the Lovecraft story from which it derived its name. I will review that in a Cover Charge post next Tuesday, but you'll also see me make comparisons or point out allusions to the work as I go along because Lovecraft plays a big role in this story.

Call Of Wonderland doesn't appear to have any graphical discrepancy between the ComiXology version and the scanned version (save some ad wierdness toward the end of the ComiXology edition and the absence of a Cover Gallery title page in the scan), but the general compilation effort seems low compared to Alice In Wonderland, The Dream Eater Saga, or the Grimm Fairy Tales scans/print editions.

Grimm Fairy Tales Presents:

Call Of Wonderland

In the aftermath of Escape From Wonderland and The Dream Eater Saga, a power vacuum has opened in Wonderland, and in between (or pre-dating?) her exchanges with the rest of the Bad Girls alliance (and one game of beach volleyball), the Queen of Spades has decided to rip off Sela and Belinda by disguising herself as mild-mannered librarian Regina Depas (because Latin and anagrams, as if her necklace and the boldening of her name didn't give it away). Her target? Victim of Anonymous Blonde Syndrome, Julia Sands (not to be confused with the late Warlock actor). Julia is a college student doing a paper on Lovecraft because his stories helped her "escape from reality" and she found his words "comforting." She also seems frighteningly enthusiastic about learning his innermost thoughts (and not just because of the hyper-expressive, uncanny valley art style).

Lovecraft wrote cosmic horror colored with (pardon the pun) racism of varying levels of subtlety and animosity. He was a proponent of genetic purity, racial segregation, and an early Hitler supporter. So I shudder to think what words of his Julia found so comforting, and how bad her childhood was that she reached such a conclusion about his writing. And that's how I felt before she started reading about Lovecraft spying on a pair of Dodgson loyalists (one of whom is named William, possibly the same William mentioned once in Call Of Cthulhu) who summon a giant, mutant frog monster from Wonderland. The writers (Dan Wickline, et al) do a good job of capturing Lovecraft's voice in diary form (minus the sometimes vehement racism, of course), and the story competently sets up the idea of will and artistry (whether it be drawn or written) having power over such creatures, leading into the return of a character I had thought would go forgotten (ironic, considering I've read a good chunk of Zenescope material before).

I tried to be non-spoilery, but the covers are kind of giving away that I'm talking about the Red Knight. Since his creation in the 2009 Wonderland Annual, he's apparently been traversing the Realm Of Dreams and Madness on a murder spree in search of a way to wake the Great Old Ones (more contradictory retconning to confirm the Keepers—the Innocent, Corruption, Love, Hate, and the Maker—brought the Jabberwocky to Wonderland as a baby, and that he defeated the White Knight—which could be an earlier incarnation of that character, considering the Queen of Spades needed to corrupt a new one, or a forgetful retcon by the authors) and end his own suffering by destroying everything because he can't return to the Nexus without turning back into Ben and dying.

Speaking of Ben, after Julia was attacked by Cthulhu tentacles in the library (not that one), she found a business card for a tattoo parlor called Anarchy Ink, which is owned and operated by Salome Gray...Ben's cousin!

We also get another diary flashback with Lovecraft trying to save a child from being mirrored by Dodgson, and the Red Knight makes several attempts on Julia's life because apparently there can be multiple Guardians and Julia is the bleached Sela of Wonderland who's keeping the Great Old Ones sealed away and she doesn't know it. Remember this detail for much, much later, because Zenescope doesn't.

Anyway, one of said attempts involves turning Salome's latest customer into a naked tentacle monster.

Seriously, though, the detail and action paneling at the beginning of this third part is impressive.

Removing an X to turn hentai into beer, though, Julia (which changed to Julie some time into the first part, I think) and Salome hit that point in a given story where the action must slow down for exposition, including a continuation of the diary flashback where we learn more about the effects of writing on Wonderland (it's the same language vs. dreams, right brain/left brain logic that Batman used to survive the "Perchance to Dream" episode of one of the best cartoons ever made, and I like it).

Back in the modern day, police procedural heroine trope Detective Emma Legrasse is investigating the murder of the aforementioned Anarchy Ink client-turned-Lovecraftian porn monster, Mai Lee. Why murder and not self-defense, you might ask if you haven't read Call Of Wonderland? Well, firstly, go read Call Of Wonderland. And secondly, the security camera footage apparently only shows Julie and Salome bludgeoning and beheading a nude Mai...in human form. If the camera didn't capture her transformed state, where's the footage of the two women floating and struggling in midair at the mercy of invisible tentacles? What did Wonderland replace that footage with? Or does the AV tech suck so badly at his job that he zipped to the assault and beheading with no thought for context?

We don't know because the only eyewitness to these crime-coded acts of self-defense is a blood-spattered cat with dark fur subtly accented in a shade of purple. No, as of the Dream Eater Saga One-Shot, Cheshire is still dead. But Zenescope knows what they're doing, and my shaky Future Knowledge knows that they know what they're doing.

Meanwhile, Julie and Salome are having a shared nightmare (another element the Cthulhu story lent this series) of the Red Knight killing them and releasing the Great Old Ones. A decent plot device to force an odd couple of strangers in a horror movie to work together so the story can move forward, I guess, and their next stop will be the house where Lovecraft escaped from Dodgson, assuming they can survive being hunted by Mai's tattoos, which have transformed into the dogs from Resident Evil 5 and the Afterlife movie.

While they manage to escape thanks to Salome's convenient skill with an axe (more foreshadowing of what some of the series' covers have spoiled about her fate in Wonderland's future), and get some breathing room so they can once more provide a framing device for flashbacks into Lovecraft's journal, Legrasse is back at the police station, where the new evidence clerk (it's the Queen of Spades, and there's no effort made to keep that a surprise this time, not that it was particularly well concealed in Part One) releases the cat into her custody and provides a lead on the whereabouts of our two heroines/suspects.

As for that journal flashback, Dodgson....

Yes, Newman; we know! No one cares! Anyway, Dodgson is pushing the idea that Lovecraft should use his writing to constrict the flow of madness from Wonderland while also making sacrifices to the Allen mirror to prolong his own life so he can keep writing. It's unsettlingly cool writing that we don't know for sure how much of this is truth and how much is a new flavor of the same lie that Dodgson has been telling for centuries, and it makes him a compelling villain again. Less cool and more unsettling is this miniseries' efforts to turn racial purist, segregationist, and Nazi sympathizer H.P. Lovecraft into a selfless, messianic figure destined to halt a cosmic apocalypse.

Oh, and Julie Sands is his great-granddaughter, which is why she's the current Guardian Seal of R'lyeh, as chosen by the Keepers. But we figure that out before she does because she and Salome just happened to be reading the journal while standing near the Allen mirror.

So, the unlikely duo find themselves on a beach in Wonderland (as you do), caught between the Red Knight and an avatar of Cthulhu. Using their respective legacies (Salome with art, and Julie with the written word), they manage to depower their opponents and Escape From Wonderland just as Legrasse and her partner arrive. Unfortunately, the Queen of Spades isn't done with them yet, and she pulls Salome and Julie back into Wonderland as the story ends on a cliffhanger.

I will talk about where this goes in a moment, but first, I had already written my Teogonia and I Know What You Did Last Summer (2021) reviews (with "cake or death" references in each) before I even began reading Call Of Wonderland. So imagine my surprise when I got to the end of this issue, and saw the Red Knight making the aforementioned Eddie Izzard routine into a They Live! reference.

Like, I did not plan this. I did not read ahead and retroactively change those reviews so this week would have a common thread. Nor is my memory so good that I recalled Call Of Wonderland making this reference over a decade after my first read. It's just one of life's mad little wonders that break through on occasion, and I celebrate it. With cake.

I did, however, skim through the upcoming Wonderland material to confirm what my reading order should be, because as I mentioned up top, the Call Of Wonderland TPB has a preview of the 2012 Wonderland Annual despite the final issue saying it would be continued in the Madness Of Wonderland miniseries. So just like my Time Drops posts as of late, I will include a Wonderland Winter release calendar here for my SMART-ness and sanity:

• September 24: GFT Retrospective #108: 2012 Wonderland Annual
• October 1: GFT Retrospective #109: Wonderland #1
• October 8: GFT Retrospective #110: Wonderland #2
• October 15: GFT Retrospective #111: Wonderland #3
• October 22: GFT Retrospective #112: Wonderland #4
• October 29: GFT Retrospective #113: Wonderland #5
• November 5: Zenescope - Omnibusted #36: Wonderland Volume One (with One-Shot and Annual)
• November 12: GFT Retrospective #114: Wonderland #6
• November 19: GFT Retrospective #115: Wonderland #7
• November 26: GFT Retrospective #116: Wonderland #8
• December 3: GFT Retrospective #117: Wonderland #9
• December 10: GFT Retrospective #118: Wonderland #10
• December 17: Zenescope - Omnibusted #37: Wonderland Volume Two
• December 24: Zenescope - Omnibusted #38: Madness Of Wonderland
• December 31: Zenescope - Omnibusted #39: Down the Rabbit Hole (plus annual address)

And that's where I think I'll stop with the Wonderland content, as the new year will begin with Neverland and Jungle Book reviews. But that's a long way off, so for now, you should just Stay Tuned and please remember to answer the Call by Becoming A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about because words have power, help out my ad revenue as you read so I have armor if the bubble pops, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my wonderful content.

Omnibuster,

Hanging Up,

Out Of Cake.