I’ve started seeing a pattern in Zenescope’s Wonderland, especially in this later stretch of the ongoing series. The Hatter, the Butcher, the four Queens, the Cheshires, Tweedle…

I’ve started seeing a pattern in Zenescope’s Wonderland, especially in this later stretch of the ongoing series. The Hatter, the Butcher, the four Queens, the Cheshires, Tweedledee and Tweedledum. There’s often a recognizable role sitting there alongside the individual character. I’m now in #47, and seeing the Tweedles again brought it back up. This isn’t the first encounter, and I’ve seen some of these figures die. It makes me pay more attention to what’s returning: the same person, someone else carrying the name, or a familiar kind of horror showing up again? I’m using “archetype” pretty loosely here. I mean a pattern I’m noticing as I read, rather than a claim that Wonderland has one official system explaining every character. The differences matter. The Hatter can involve a person being overtaken by an identity and the presences attached to it. A Queen has a title and political power. The Cheshire material gives us a wider group, including a Lord Cheshire and a pride, rather than only one cat who keeps turning up. The Tweedles bring a paired identity into the picture. The Butcher makes me think about the connection between someone’s ordinary life and the monster they become. Then there’s the question of how many can exist at once. Multiple Cheshires have a much firmer basis than a simple rule that there can only ever be one Hatter. Several Hatter spirits can be present in Violet’s experience in #42, even if the question of who is carrying the role physically is different. And four Queens existing together obviously doesn’t mean four people are holding the exact same crown. So I want to keep three things separate as I go through this: who the individual is, what the name or role means, and whether the comic actually shows more than one at the same time. Seeing a familiar figure again raises a question. It doesn’t settle the explanation by itself. What interests me most is what happens when the person pushes against the role. Violet resisting the Hatter. Calie trying to make something better out of ruling Wonderland. Dark Cheshire standing beside the Liddles while other cats challenge what he has become. There’s room for people to act against what we’ve come to expect from the name. That’s the pattern I want to explore in these posts. The recognizable figures help Wonderland keep its identity, but the characters’ choices keep changing what those figures mean. I’ll go through the major ones individually below. Spoilers through #46, with only the Tweedles’ appearance in #47 mentioned. I haven’t finished the run yet, so this is where my reading stands right now.