Spoilers for Zenescope’s Wonderland through #42.

Spoilers for Zenescope’s Wonderland through #42. Something I want to talk about in this last stretch of Wonderland is the Hatter’s dual nature. There’s the person wearing the hat, and then there’s everything that comes with being the Hatter. By the time Violet is fighting that inside herself, those two things are pulling in very different directions. Issue #42 makes that really clear. Violet is surrounded by Hatter figures who keep pushing her to give up what remains of herself. Johnny is there, but the pressure comes from more than one presence. She’s dealing with a history that wants her to become its next chapter. That’s how I’m reading it, anyway. Wonderland keeps giving people these recognizable identities, and then the person has to live with what that identity demands. How much of you survives becoming the Hatter? Can you use that power without letting it decide who you are? The part where Violet cuts up the hat is a great way of putting that conflict on the page. She’s facing her uncle Johnny, she has the scissors, and she goes after the thing all these versions of the Hatter have in common. The damage carries through the figures around her. The hat ties the scene together even while the people wearing it are different. To me, that makes her refusal more interesting than simply beating one enemy. She’s fighting the assumption that this is what she has to become. Her family history is being used against her, including her relationship with her mother, and she has to make a choice while all of that is pressing on her. It also complicates something I’ve been wondering about: can there only be one Hatter at a time? A succession of people carrying the identity would be one thing. Several Hatter presences existing together inside Violet is another. Those are different questions, and #42 makes me hesitant to turn the first idea into a hard rule. I’m interested in the Hatter as a recurring role, but I don’t want to flatten Johnny, Violet, and every other version into one interchangeable character. The person matters. Their history matters. Their resistance matters. That’s what gives the hat-cutting scene its weight for me. Violet is trying to keep a say in who Violet gets to be.