Zenescope - Omnibusted #38: Madness Of Wonderland
a.k.a. The Festive Omnibuster.
Christmas Eve has found you, Ticketholders!
If that sounded creepy, it's because of the miniseries I'm reviewing today, so don't be mad. Or do; we all go a little mad sometimes. Now where did I put my mistletoe, eggnog, and gingerbread tea...?
For now, though, let's talk Trade. Zenescope has gotten to the point where the ComiXology version and digital offerings through...other means are identical, so with the exception of Grimm Fairy Tales, Myths & Legends, and probably a few upcoming new and sequel series, I'll most likely not include a comparison section unless I notice something glitchy about the ComiXology editions.
Madness Of Wonderland
Speaking of giving things away too quickly, we see right away that Emma had an abusive father (which is as much of an original origin story in horror fiction as my "just like my sarcasm" joke). We also see that she has a roommate named Shelly who may cease to matter because she's a tertiary cat-sitter in a Wonderland story, and that a mysterious box has been delivered to her apartment.
Her bossy new partner on the stabbing case is Detective Danko (a nod to Malibu Comics editor Dan Danko, who worked on several of their Lovecraft adaptations in the 90s and went on to write for Malcolm In the Middle). And because there aren't enough dark-haired tertiary female characters to do menial tasks alone in this story and we haven't seen the "I found something big I can't tell you about over the phone, so meet me tomorrow and we can blow this case wide-open" trope since every 90s spy thriller ever, there's also medical examiner Nicole Trujillo (a nod to Lovecraftian digital artist Alberto Trujillo). Tropes collide, and, well....
Nicole gets Shun Goku Satsu'd by someone who appears to be Johnny (there's a flash of white hair as whoever it is—again, the covers maybe give it away—slices and stabs her in a dark room) and we get another flashback elaborating on Legrasse's childhood (the man we assumed was her father in the first issue presumably took her in after killing her real father in front of her because he was a snitch...maybe) and are shown that she and Shelly might be more than roommates (so Shelly's definitely going to die, right?).
But there's no chance to butter your bread over Zenescope's bread and butter (by which I mean cheesecake), because Legrasse and Danko are quickly called in to investigate Nicole's murder, along with FBI profiler Debra Anders (who also has dark hair and is a triple-reference to Lovecraft-inspired creatives Anders Norén, Anders Lerche, and Anders Fager). As the Queen Of Spades (a.k.a. "Regina Depas") continues to position Legrasse, Anders, and Danko (who made Johnny’s murders—presumably Lewis and his doubly-intended mistress—"go away" when he was assigned to the case) against each other, the journal flashbacks continue to loosely adapt At the Mountains Of Madness from Lovecraft's point of view. Here, Dodgson's deranged associate Jacob Hall holds Lovecraft at gunpoint as he explores an Antarctic Ice excavation site where the preserved remains (or are they?) of several Deep Ones and other ancient cosmic species were discovered and much of the crew had been slain or driven mad.
While Anders confronts Danko about Legrasse's victim history (after several vague recontextualizations in previous issues, we now learn that the man who kept her captive killed her father and tortured her and her family because he was an insane, role-playing sadist...and that maybe Johnny Liddle was there, too‽), the journal flashbacks follow Hall, Lovecraft, and an awkward, nerdy type named Danforth as they descend into an ancient, excavated cavern populated by the Shoggoth (the shapeshifting slaves of the Deep/Old Ones from At the Mountains Of Madness, here depicted as sludge monsters) and engraved with alien writing. They engage in some social drama, almost die, and then come back up, and that's it.
In more "interesting," modern events, Anonymous Blonde Syndrome gives way to Anonymous Dark Syndrome as Anders (we know it's her only because Nicole is already dead, Spades is too powerful and intelligent, and Shelly isn't in law enforcement) gets slaughtered by Johnny (or is it?) in her hot tub and Shelly (we know it's her only because Mr. Whiskers is there) is abducted by Danko (who is drawn in this portion of the issue to bear a striking resemblance to Jacob Hall, so maybe he found his own path to pseudo-immortality like Dodgson did?).
The final issue uses their similar likenesses to facilitate transitions between present day events and the journal flashbacks, and while Danko did bargain with Dodgson to keep Johnny out of trouble in exchange for his sister getting The Wonderland Cure (trading mental health for physical health, via the Allen mirror), nothing so interesting as my speculation is ever addressed.
In the journal flashbacks, Lovecraft and an injured Danforth escape the Antarctic Ice factory (yeah; turns out it was an ice-production factory, not a geological excavation company), re-trapping the pursuing Shoggoth and abandoning Jacob Hall to an unknown fate.
The bulk of the issue is a well-composed, dramatically lit shootout between Legrasse and Danko (which also takes place in the Antarctic Ice factory for unknown and unexplored reasons) where she emerges victorious, rescues (and kisses) Shelly, and then...comes to the realization that her childhood trauma and idolatry of Johnny Liddle (because he rescued her and probably turned the psycho into a crimson pincushion off-page) created a disassociated identity of him in her mind and she's been going around in Hatter cosplay, killing people. Like I said, the covers give away the twist, and it isn't even a particularly good or original twist at that. So we have a Rule 63 Mad Hatter now; so what?
I liked Legrasse as a character in Call Of Wonderland. Again, "quirky, know-it-all female serial killer expert cop on the rise" wasn't particularly novel for the 2010s, nor any decade prior or since, but her banter was fun there, and we got a bit more of that magic here when Anders first arrived in the story. But having everything in Wonderland (and Wonderland) tie back to the Liddles in some way and turning a compelling female character into just another psychologically tortured soul-cum-mediocre fanservice supervillain is a shit-ass idea.
No wonder (finally, a pun!) the teased Shadow Over Wonderland miniseries never came to be.
Christmas Eve Stocking Stuffer!
Cover Charge #12: The Shadow Over Innsmouth
I had completely forgotten that little stinger at the end of Madness Of Wonderland since I first read it those many years ago. My opinion of the miniseries, and of Hatter Emma as a character, is just as unfavorable as I remember so far.
I also remember the disappointment of finding out that, after the original Wonderland series dropped as a trilogy, and the Tales Volumes (and consequently, the prequel narrative following Allen and Dodgson) were compiled as a trilogy, the original Annuals came in threes, and Alice's narrative became a trilogy (the second part of which I'm reviewing next week), the announced conclusion to what I'm calling the "Trilogy Of Wonderland" (not to be confused with the Wonderland Trilogy) didn't exist. I've reached out to Zenescope for comment on several questions I've had throughout this Retrospective journey, including those about canceled projects like Shadow Over Wonderland, but to no avail, so I can't confirm or speculate with any degree of accuracy as to why it didn't come to be.
However, given my newly acquired acquaintance with Lovecraft's works, I can speculate that the journal flashbacks in the canceled series (if not its present setting) would have been a loose adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth novella, based on the previous miniseries' titles and journal flashbacks. So, in place of a preview summary or bonus story (Madness has a sneak preview of Down the Rabbit Hole, which I will talk about in full next week, along with subjecting myself anew to Carroll's source texts, so pray for my soul regarding the latter), I've decided to stuff your internet stockings with a review of The Shadow Over Innsmouth, and then wrap things up (puns!) with my own rapid-fire crack at what a Shadow Over Wonderland miniseries might have looked like.
The title, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, refers as much to a reputational stigma (for "queer" behavior, pagan religious practices, and of course, genetic impurity, because Lovecraft) of a particular region as it does to any ominous, cosmic threat looming overhead.
In place of the usual, Lovecraftian Unexplainium prose (because readers presumably knew what "Cyclopean" and other 'crafted terms meant by now), but still told in first-person, we get an account of Arkham resident Robert Olmstead (the only "normally" named character here—though he goes unnamed outside of annotated editions of the story—as we see such esoteric monikers as Zadoc and Obed, not counting the apostrophe-laden names of the Deep Ones) as he travels New England to study its history, leading him to the disreputable coastal town of the story's title, where he learns of the Innsmouth residents' long-standing pact with, and worship of, the Deep Ones. When the townsfolk (and the Deep Ones themselves) learn of what he knows, The Shadow Over Innsmouth becomes a more standard, "all against one in a small town" horror narrative akin to something like Invasion Of the Body Snatchers, The Wicker Man, a Romero zombie narrative, or even a lone gunman western (minus the guns). The abundant descriptiveness here is reserved for "the Innsmouth look" (the fishy, dead-eyed face and body structure of the locals' appearance) and the layout of the town motel (the Gillman House, which is a level of punnery I had forgotten Lovecraft was capable of, and it pleasantly surprised me), the latter of which saps the tension and urgency from the chase sequences in which it appears (though this could just be the delivery of the LibriVox recording, and the story is so good otherwise that I won't hold the medium against the content in this case). So what (besides Cthulhu and his ancient spawn) is the Shadow Over Innsmouth?
Well, the fictional town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts was a failing seaport, whose founder (later revealed to be the narrator's ancestor) sought to adopt the religious practices of a nearby island community (who were unnaturally prolific fishermen, and had somehow acquired vast amounts of eldritch jewelry—made of white gold, or possibly a 1930s understanding of platinum—by worshipping a being known as Dagon and mating with his Deep One kin to repopulate their underwater kingdoms). The story begins with a wraparound before getting into Olmstead's account, and this is where we get the bulk of Lovecraft's racist, fascist indulgence (the government, riled up by Olmstead's tale, use the homeland war of Prohibition as a cover to commit mass arrests, murders, bombings, erect concentration camps, torpedo and saturate the locations of the underwater cities, and otherwise attempt to depopulate Innsmouth). There is a mild subtext of Lovecraft's racial purity views running through the story as a whole, but in this beginning part, you can feel him get really, "Yes! Yesss! Kill them all!," and it's gross. Why I don't mind the complete story, and even dare to say I like it (aside from the more modern-ish, comfortable plot structure and the less clinical feel of Lovecraft's prose), is the ending. I understand that, from Lovecraft's point of view, conformity and heterogeneous culture and reproduction are meant to be the real sources of terror. But having watched X-Men recently, I find a kind of just irony in Lovecraft having his prejudicial main character learn, fear, and then embrace the inevitably of his own mixed heritage. And I mean, I wouldn't want to look like a fish, get lost in an all-consuming hive mind, or contribute to a possibly unsustainable, immortal consumer society, but who wouldn't want to learn that they're descended from an immortal, amphibious kingdom with an endless supply of fish and who can pull precious metals out of their asses? Some people just need to accept that their personal views were founded on decades of hate and lies in a world that is ever-changing, and that using new technologies to assert their antiquated asshole ways onto a greater number of people does not get them to their greatest potential. I don't think that reading The Shadow Over Innsmouth will do anything to change such people (the intended interpretation of the novella still exists, after all), but I like that an alternative, timeless interpretation has come of this work of "America's favorite racist."
Now, as promised, I'm going to try my hand at plotting out a potential Shadow Over Wonderland.
Anyway, when it comes to Wonderland, Zenescope loves recontextualizing canon events for extra lore, and they love having characters learn the same lesson multiple times. So my thought is this: have Legrasse undergo the same mental/temporal schism that Alice did. Her Hatter side is in Wonderland as we see her (him? Them?) at the end of Madness, but her sane half is still in the Nexus. She's aware of her crimes as "Johnny" and that she shot Danko, but out of self-preservation and using Shelly as a character alibi, Legrasse is able to return to active duty on the condition that she attends regular therapy sessions (her therapist happens to be "Sallie Corazón," a pseudonym used by the brainwashed Salome/Julie Queen Of Hearts, acting on behalf of the Queen Of Spades). A series of suspicious drownings (perpetrated by her darker half using puddles as reflective surfaces to pull the victims partway into Wonderland and hack off their faces) catches Legrasse's attention (because Spades again) and she goes back to reading later entries in Lovecraft's journal because something about the carvings in the victims' faces reminded her of the Innsmouth-inspired entries.
In flashback, Lovecraft takes a bus after fleeing from the Shoggoth and the growing threat of Jacob Hall, which leads him to Innsmouth where he befriends history student Robert Olmstead and they learn together that Innsmouth is a large-scale testing ground for Jacob Hall to experiment with Deep One genes as a source of power and immortality to rival Dodgson. Olmstead is ultimately captured by Hall's creations and turned into one himself, and Lovecraft is pushed to seek out Dodgson once more and accept his offer as a means of stopping one evil with the help of another. In an epilogue, we're shown that the "Prohibition" arrests and bombings were orchestrated by Dodgson.
In the present, a combination of the Hatter's mind games, Spades' machinations, and entries of Lovecraft's journal position Legrasse to confront her dark half (especially after finding that Shelly was one of the victims). The original Shadow Over Innsmouth story mentions that one of the fishy citizens of the town wore a tall, floppy hat, so I'm going to say that for the finale, a sane, determined Legrasse finds and puts on the Hatter hat, wherein she fights her way through a legion of the deformed souls of the previous Hatters and their victims, including the Daresbury Collective (possibly while wearing her own badass battle costume?) until she comes face-to-face with her other self. Zenescope miniseries often have anticlimactic or downer endings, so let's say she discovers that hurting her other self hurts her, too, and that rather than killing them both (and possibly unleashing a global wave of madness), it's "better" to make herself whole and let Wonderland have her, thus circling events back to the final panel of Madness, and flowing into Wonderland Ongoing Volume Three (which I will get to in due time, next year).
Merry Christmas, Stay Tuned, and please remember to Become A Ticketholder because Santa knows you haven't already, leave a comment by the chimney with care, 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 fa-la-la-la-ollow 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 review push of my 2022 Christmas review).
Omnibuster,
Out of Sight,
And to all,
A Good Night.
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