InsaneJournal

Bat-History: The Other Mad Hatter (Detective Comics #573)


This is the first in a short series of posts about one of my favorite Bat-villains, the Mad Hatter. But first, a short history of the character. (If beyond all hope, our LJ community comes back online, I'll repost there.)

The Mad Hatter most of us know and love (?) is a lonely wretch named Jervis Tetch, a short man with an uncommonly large head and a predilection for mind-controlling headgear. He first appeared in Batman #49 in 1948 as a little man obviously based on John Tenniel's illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. However, his subsequent appearances, from 1956 through the '70s, showed him as a tall, portly fellow with a handlebar mustache and an arsenal of trick hats (like Green Arrow's trick arrows, only he wears them on his head); it was this version of the Hatter that appeared on the '60s TV series.

It wasn't until 1983 that the Tenniel-inspired Hatter made another appearance, in which he claimed that the mustache-wearing Hatter was an impostor whom he "disposed of". (This was also the issue that introduced his affinity for electronics, but that's for another post.) However, in 1987, the mustachioed Hatter made another appearance (Detective Comics #573) in a story that didn't acknowledge "our" Hatter's existence. I assume the writer, Mike W. Barr, either wasn't aware of the '83 story or just chose to ignore it. In any case, this was the "other" Hatter's last appearance, and his existence hasn't so much as been mentioned since.

So anyway, here we go.



The cops who escort the Hatter turn out to be Batman and Robin (Jason Todd) in disguise. They drop him off.



...this can't end well.

So the Hatter goes on a crime spree based on, surprisingly enough, hats. He strikes a posh establishment where the idle rich swap tall tales called Liars' Club (where the patrons "talk through their hats" - *groan*), followed by the Gotham Sports Arena during a hockey match (because in hockey, a player scoring three goals in one game is called a "hat trick" - *groooooaaaaan*). Finally, Bruce comes up with a plan to catch the knave: he calls the Gotham Gazette to tell them he's going to run for the city council (he's "throwing his hat in the ring" - *HEADDESK*).











So then Bruce punches the shit out of the Hatter and Robin dies or something. I dunno, I never looked into the next issue to see how it was resolved.

So that's the end of that Hatter. Like I said, his existence hasn't been acknowledged since, and once "our" Hatter appeared in Knightfall, was cemented as the Hatter.

Next (if I get around to it), the introduction of the modern version of the Mad Hatter. See ya soon!