GFT Retrospective #118: Wonderland #10

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Retrospective Ticketmaster.

Also, I'm feeling wonderful and festive because I finally have a young, male co-worker with a work ethic and common sense (which I thought might as well be a unicorn made of genie farts because they don't exist in whatever passes for reality in 2025, except now they're more like a black pearl infused with platinum: extremely rare, but possible in reality, and one got hired at my store, so I'm happy and hopeful that he works out on his own).

Also, but with the puns, I feel wonderful and festive right now because today's issue of the Wonderland Ongoing series up for review is perfect for this time of year (the most wonderful time, some would say) and for the other content I'm reviewing this month. Much like several of the X-Men multi-parters, and certain arcs of the Rascal Does Not Dream franchise, it is a time travel story.

Now let's get into the review before I have to summon a farting genie, an angel, or a group of time ghosts to remind me what will happen if I talk too much about the plot too soon.

Wonderland #10

To begin at the beginning, as all stories should regardless of whether or not time travel is involved (and to avoid me saying "First of all" for the millionth time, and we all know what the Wonderland books have to say about beginnings, so I'm not going there again, either), I have some words about the cover and the preview text (hence why I put the issue #9 preview page here and not just the cover). It's busy, but I like the Mike Krome and Ula Moś cover. It's jammed with referential imagery and a little foreshadowing, and everyone's basically on-model. Where I take issue (more puns!) is with the final statement in the preview copy: "Featuring the long-awaited rebirth of the Cheshire Cat!" It's "technically correct" deceptive fan-bait of the kind that the comics industry has been engaging in for a century at this point, in that the Cheshire Cat is sort of a character in this issue (relegated to his usual sidekick role once again). But there's no promised rebirth; Cheshire is just here, albeit in a different enough role (he's good now, morally!) for it to qualify as a rebirth of identity or purpose, like reincarnation, but the promise is that we will see his rebirth, which we do not (at least, not here, and not yet).

So, with the Hollywood arc having ended in a blaze of morning glory last time, what did Zenescope do for their big, tenth issue of Wonderland? Something pretty damned cool and thought-provoking, actually, if not entirely original.

Having discovered the discarded sands of Father Time's hourglass (after the Red Knight killed him in Call Of Wonderland, according to an Editor's Note, because I don't think he was named in that series and Wonderland's sense of time and clarity of writing are what they are), a future Violet (wearing her Hatter costume as we have seen it on many covers and in dream sequences so far) and Cheshire have gotten permission to travel back in time and prevent Alice from being sacrificed to Wonderland (and thereby preventing the events of the franchise so far), which involves Cheshire slaughtering and eating Pappy Dodgson, so already there are points in the issue's favor.

As a result, things play out less like A Christmas Carol or It's A Wonderful Life (heh; Carol, Wonderful...), and more like Flashpoint (or rather, the shitty Flash movie that was going to be called Flashpoint before the DCEU—and more importantly, the world at large—imploded under the weight of circumstance and its own dark realism, where the moral of the story was to let bad things happen to good people because the alternative could be worse than the status quo). See, without Dodgson doing his semi-annual child sacrifice thing, the Liddle-Caroll Family do have a happy life for awhile...until we are reminded that without Alice committing suicide and without Dodgson (or Lewis, who remained faithful in the new timeline and died of cancer) there to keep Uncle Drake's Acrobatic impulses in check, he...well...becomes the reason Johnny is the one to commit suicide in this "happier" timeline, Alice gets committed after murdering Drake with a piece of mirror (fitting), and Calie becomes a delinquent before falling into Wonderland, where the Jabberwocky corrupts her into the Dark Queen we last saw imagery of in the 2012 Wonderland Annual.

Putting my cynical hat back on for a minute, Zenescope could have just as easily advertised that this issue featured the long-awaited rebirth of the Jabberwocky, considering that he, like Cheshire, is also technically back from the dead suddenly in a time travel story. I should be sorry that this review features the rebirth of me torturing and pulverizing the dead horse known as Comic McLieFace, but I'm not because I can be more petty than a racecar driver named Richard. Which, I guess, makes me a Dick. An ascerbic, obsessive, unapologetic Dick who only has one comic book pun in his arsenal, because I also take issue (that's the one!) with the interior art. I do kind of like Francesco di Pastena's expressive, uncanny valley style. But there are two colorists (the more complimentary style of Francesca Zambon, and the flatter, simpler style of Ben Sawyer), which makes the work of one line artist look like the work of two, in a bad way (not that di Pastena drawing Dark Queen Calie with two different designs in the same issue helped with the visual consistency).

Another gripe I have is with the repeated inclusion of "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns (that creepy poem about John Cena annoying people on the stairs that I referenced in my review of Identity last year). What is it about Wonderland titles having characters take comfort from nightmarish or socially questionable literature‽

Getting back to positivity because I took Michael Jordan's advice, in addition to the story being both heartfelt and unabashedly disturbing (I especially like the slow reveal of how and why things went wrong—despite the "dejected time traveling heroes decide to give up and leave right before the source of critical information arrives" trope—and the clear and immediate establishment of the nature of Violet and Cheshire's relationship), issue #10 also has its share of pop culture references (Violet's Supernatural-inspired rambling of nerdcore pseudonyms, the "here's Johnny!" nod to the Hatter's Shining homage covers, and of course, the poetry). The final panel even includes some poetry about the butterfly effect that Raven Gregory composed for the issue (I can't confirm this on such short notice, aside from Google having never heard of it before, with or without the pluralization typo).

Anyway, Violet and Cheshire (following some dialogue and paneling that really makes their relationship clear) ultimately decide that the only event they need to stop now is their own actions, so they talk themselves out of the beginning of the issue with one last journey through time, and the two Violets shrink off into the sunset, returning to their possible future(s?) where Calie is in charge of Wonderland as the White Queen. We also get a panel suggesting that little Alice saw the four time travelers as she was being led away to her necessary doom, adding to the emotional punch of the issue.

With no further cause to complain or praise without repeating myself like a time loop, I thought I'd close out this post with some words on the Dark Queen. It's a name that has been used in comics before (Jean Grey's brief turn in the Hellfire Club comes to mind immediately because of my recent holiday viewing), and Calie's Wonderland appearances as the Dark Queen have been limited to the 2012 Annual (where the form went unnamed) and this issue. Calie would not be the last, however, as some years later, a new, older Dark Queen (inspired in appearance by Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, but with a Zenescope flair to her design) would be introduced as an event-level threat for the massive Age Of Darkness and Realm War storylines. She had no connection to Calie or Wonderland, and can best be described as a gender-swapped amalgamation of Lord Zedd and Thanos in a Love After World Domination cosplay. But I will get to those events...in time, so stay punned and 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 can keep myself on the right track and get one step closer to my year-end goal, 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 (including tomorrow's TBT '25 push of a couple of average comedies).

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

• 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

Ticketmaster,

Out Of Time,

On the Road To 10k.