William Allen is the King of Hearts in Zenescope's Wonderland, but the name that probably sticks with people is the Suicide King. There's a sad story behind that title, and it s…

William Allen is the King of Hearts in Zenescope's Wonderland, but the name that probably sticks with people is the Suicide King. There's a sad story behind that title, and it starts with a little boy looking for his friends. William knew Julia and Bethany before they became the Queen of Hearts. When the sisters went missing during a game of hide-and-seek, he found a clue near the mirror in his father's laboratory. He tried to get help, went back, and ended up falling through himself. The connection between those three existed before Wonderland turned any of them into royal figures. What happens to William is particularly cruel. He is given extraordinary regenerative abilities along with a compulsion to harm himself. His body can recover incredibly quickly, but that recovery is part of what keeps the nightmare going. It's a horrible use of a power that, in another comic, would usually be presented as an advantage. That is something worth stopping on with this character. Healing is normally the thing that lets someone survive an enemy, recover and keep going. Here, being able to recover doesn't resolve the thing that is hurting him. The title makes a very dark joke out of his situation, but the origin gives you a child underneath it. His mother, Elizabeth Allen, is another important connection. She becomes the Red Queen, who should be kept separate from the Queen of Hearts. These names are easy to run together when you're talking quickly about Wonderland, but Elizabeth is William's mother. Julia and Bethany are the sisters he knew before they all ended up there. By Escape from Wonderland, William and Elizabeth can help Calie by pointing her toward the Jabberwocky's lair as she searches for Violet. That matters because William has a role beyond being another disturbing figure Calie encounters. Someone who has been changed and hurt by this place can still help another person trying to get through it. His position around the Hearts court also needs that context. Being called its King doesn't make him interchangeable with the Queen or mean he shares every one of her motives. The personal history comes first: the missing friends, the mirror, what Wonderland did to him, and the connection to his mother. There's enough horror in the premise without reducing him to the title. William Allen is still the person who went looking for Julia and Bethany, and remembering that makes the character much harder to dismiss as just another grotesque Wonderland joke.