GFT Retrospective #110: Wonderland #2

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Retrospective Ticketmaster.

The first thing you'll probably notice about this review is the banner (or thumbnail, if you want to get all social media preview about it). I can understand how it's kind of misleading if this is the first of my GFT Retrospective posts you're reading, and you go in expecting a full Trade review rather than the single issue you're actually getting. On the other hand, context and history are important, so maybe I'm being pedantic for no reason? I've been reminded recently that I tend to do that. I've also been listening to anti-grifter essay videos on YouTube lately, which has made me sensitive to moments where I seem self-contradictory or misleading (a big one being the Chucky Razor Blade Debacle Of 2021—original and retraction—but I'm mostly referring to how the message I arrive at by this post's end could be seen as counter to what I expressed in my review of the Wonderland Annual, and I hope I've done a better job of defending the dissonance here because I've always been a "pick the middle even though it's hard because the hard thing to do is the right thing" rhetorician. A naive idealist. A "to make the business better, you have to spend money to make money" marketer with no significant capital and no established business. A human being with a moral code and a history of tame but self-destructive vices. And it pains me to realize that the new low bar for decent human beings is set to "not a completely shameless piece of shit." But I digress because I have a review intro to get through.

The second thing you'll probably notice is that the mini art on the credits page is back. I am still of the mind that reviewing consistent art is repetitive and pointless, so check it out for yourselves.

And finally, Wonderland issues so far seem to have a three-location structure

between the town where moving truly is the greatest terror,

Wonderland, and the new Liddle house (where ditto), so I think I'll keep using those Superfriends memes for now.

Wonderland #2

We begin with Sheriff Sands (so...maybe Julie's father or older brother?) of Dansbury (so the writers forgot the Cheshire County reference from the previous issue and the town is now named after a park in Pennsylvania?) receiving a domestic violence call to Sammy's house, where he finds the opening scene from the original Halloween with Sammy Daniels the former ghost cosplayer in the Michael Meyers role and wearing a dumpy, oversized hat instead of a clown costume. Then the issue turns into Invasion Of the Body Snatchers when Sands touches the hat and is infected by Johnny Liddle's madness (something that was foreshadowed—and probably caused—by Calie's hallucination of her omnipresent brother in the last issue).

As the town with two names is slowly consumed by the ghost of Johnny, we learn that the Jabberwocky's store of power was not simple energy or strength as we understand it, but a stockpile of uncorrupted (and naked) people he had been hoarding like a treeful of acorns (Jabberwock Deez Nutz, if you will, because it's low-hanging fruit, and I must stop now before my readers get two teste with me). The Queen Of Spades uses her powers to turn them all into her own army of card soldiers (legally distinct Anti-Venom approximations with Spade theming that look disturbingly cool and intimidating).

Life on the run is starting to (always did?) wear on Violet, with recurring, "scream and sweat yourself awake" nightmares and a nasty case of cabin fever, putting a Wonderland twist on the "overprotective mom vs. independent daughter" dynamic that culminates in a heated exchange of unmeant words and Violet being taken by the Hatter Collective as the issue ends. The dialogue here is emotional and realistic, even though it's predicated on Calie having still not told Violet that Wonderland kidnapped her as a baby and Johnny may still be targeting her a Stephen King number of years later (because nineteen) to turn her into that new Hatter design we saw in the Annual and will see on some of the covers for future issues.

Oh, and I don't think I've mentioned it before, but it's been mentioned a couple of times in the Wonderland material that the events of the trilogy (and some of the Tales) began when Calie was nineteen. In the span of a few years, Calie endured her mother's suicide, her uncle turning her into a naked sushi bar, her boyfriend being mutated into a parasite-infested lizard monster, her grandfather using her as a literal key in an interdimensional conquest plot, her perception of reality being ripped to pieces on a temporally regular basis, a living madness dimension trying to kill her in her sleep (and when she's awake), losing her mother a second time, and her brother killing their adulterous father, kidnapping her boyfriend and daughter, and fighting her to the death twice before unwittingly hanging himself. Violet is now also nineteen. Which means that Calie has been talking to herself and Violet has been present for, and aware of, Calie's behavior (if not also having her own scream-awake nightmares on the regular) for the past nineteen years...and they've never talked about it before‽

Like, I get the whole, "magic of writing" thing where it's boring to read about every minor incident and detail of a character's life (especially a nineteen year period of the same psychological thriller bullshit happening on repeat), so the author has literal creative license to just skip whatever they want for the sake of a theoretically good story. I also understand on a personal level the inclination to want to avoid mentioning one's own time of prolonged madness or doing a deep exploration of the why behind it because it can be hard to function on a daily basis or acknowledge your current worth while the abyss stares back at you. But as I suggested in my review of the Annual, waiting until the thing you dread most is breathing down your neck before you do something about it is just as bad of a coping mechanism as thinking about it every waking moment until it paralyzes you. And here, as real as it may feel relative to the context of the story being told, it also verges on being the worst-written kind of manufactured tension.

Share your burdens and be not afraid of judgment lest you allow your darkness the power to define you, and as always, Stay Tuned and please remember to Become A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read so I don't have to wear any strange hats at work, 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.

Here again is the release calendar for the rest of 2025, presented for your benefit, as well as my SMART-ness and sanity:

• 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)

Ticketmaster,

Out.