Read Up On Comics @ The Thought Ballon - Detective Comics 510 / 1982

SYNOPSIS

The mayoral election race in Gotham is on its last lap, and it looks like a tight race. However, councilman Arthur Reeves is in good spirits, in spite of actually trailing his opponent, business Hamilton Hill, in the late polls, and this is because only a day ago he has been offered a decisive boost out of the blue by someone wishing to remain anonymous - in the form of what he is told to be photographic proof revealing Batman's secret identity...

As one of the highlights of the mayoral election race, Reeves and Hill clash in an open air public debate during which Reeves' agenda of Batman-bashing is seemingly dealt quite a blow as Batman foils a robbery taking place right beside the rally.

However, Reeves is not really worried that much as he thinks of his new trump card in the form of the photos he was given...

Meanwhile, Lucius Fox is working late at the Wayne Foundation and dumbfounded by seeing the display on his computer screen all of a sudden turn into the graphic of a top hat. But before he can think of a reasonable explanation he is knocked out by an explosion...

Seconds later, an intruder declaring his intention to take over Wall Street enters the room: Jervis Tetch - the Mad Hatter!

As Bruce Wayne goes over the problems he is currently facing with Poison Ivy having control over the board of the Wayne Foundation by means of a hypnotic spell, he is informed by Commissioner Gordon of the disappearance of Lucius Fox. The only clue seems to be a calling card of "Head Hunters Inc.", and as Wayne rings up the number given, the Mad Hatter is quick to the point and demands a ransom of 2 Mio Dollars for Fox.

Wayne agrees to pay but immediately visits a couple of shops which he deducts must have sold components to build the explosive device found near Fox's computer. In doing so, he also learns that the Mad Hatter had bought equipment for bio-feedback applications.

The result of these shopping trips by the Mad Hatter is an alpha-wave bio-feedback machine which is able to copy the memory and thus all knowledge and expertise from a human brain and store it in a computer - and then erase all that data in its original source, reducing that indivdiual to a vegetable - in this case, Lucius Fox.

However, just as the Mad Hatter is about to start his apparatus the Batman arrives on the scene. Unable to reach the Mad Hatter and prevent him from flipping the switch, the Darknight Detective offers himself up in exchange for his executive assistant.

The Mad Hatter naturally accepts and, to the horror of Fox, operates his machine on Batman - which seems to be doing its terrible deed successfully, wiping out the Batman's mind. However, as the Hatter releases the straps from what he presumes to be a now willingless shell the Batman lashes out at him - and foils his plans once again...

In the epilogue, it is revealed that Batman used a rubberized non-conductive headpeace that fit neatly underneath his cowl, averting all ill effects from the Mad Hatter's machine (which he had expected based upon his findings regarding Jervis Tetch's string of purchases). He found the Mad Hatter because he had rented a closed down restaurant called - nomen est omen - "The Top Hat".

And the Gotham Gazette runs the headline REEVES TO BATMAN: "I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND I CAN PROVE IT!" -- to be continued in Batman #344...

REVIEW & ANALYSIS

DC Comics knew very well what kind of first class comic book penciller they had been able to recruit from Marvel as the editor-in-chief at the House of Ideas, Jim Shooter, had fallen out with Gene Colan and virtually driven him - together with many others - away. Colan had been on long runs of Daredevil (arguably Marvel's most Batman-like character) and received critical acclaim for his superb work on the classic Tomb of Dracula where his moody and shadowy style made the pages come alive.

No surprise, therefore, that Dick Giordano asked Colan to draw the Batman both in his own title and in Detective Comics - and Colan's vision of the Darknight Detective was, appropriately, "a very mysterious figure of the night" (Klaehn, 2010), and his art on the Batman is dynamic and captivating and an excellent visual narration of the storyline.

It creates a highly realistic yet at the same time mysterious atmosphere, and it draws the reader in, such as this panel showing the Batman seemingly subjected to the terrible effects of the Mad Hatter's bio-feedback machine. In short: some of the best comic book artwork you can come across. The only letdown is - it could have been even better.

At least those who knew his art from his Marvel days and, above all, Tomb of Dracula knew that it could have been even more intense, even moodier, even more cinematographic, even darker. The reason for this artifical lid on Colan's art was DC's policy of requiring all artwork to be within the limits of a pre-defined house style, which in this case meant that the inking in most panels was far too light. Gone were most of the dark and looming shadows (which no doubt were there in Colan's pencilled pages) and which Tom Palmer had inked to perfection over at Marvel - gone in spite of the fact that they would have fitted the Batman so very well.

Gerry Conway's principal storyline comes across as a clean "done in one" encounter with an old Batman foe in the person of the original Mad Hatter. Always a squeaky character, Conway reveals this to be the original Mad Hatter from way back, and now Batman is up against Tetch's beyond state of the art mind-controlling technology, and somehow all of this bio-feedback and alpha-waves makes sense even if you know it's only comic book science. Having Bruce Wayne do some detective work rather than in the guise of his alter ego is a nice touch, and the fact that Lucius Fox is the actual victim of the Mad Hatter broadens the implications of Conway's storytelling. Batman foils Tetch's plans by using the limitations of his mind-erasing machine's conductivity (which seems pretty much in line with actual real world physics), and the Mad Hatter looks set for yet another prolonged stay at a mental institution.

The real strong point of Conway's storytelling, however, is how he weaves two major subplots into the overall plot. First, we have the Damocles sword hanging over the Wayne Foundation in the form of Poison Ivy's hypnotic influence on the board of directors (including Bruce Wayne), placed there by Conway in a story arc preceding Detective Comics #510. The members of the board know that she plans to transfer the foundation's funds to her own accounts but can do nothing because they cannot talk about it due to the hypnotic spell. And secondly we have the looming threat of councilman and majoral candidate Reeves being in possession of information regarding the true identity of Batman and his announcement to make this information public.

Both subplots provide an overall threat to Batman which is truly formidable, but he cannot devote himself entirely to this task as he is constantly challenged by other events as well, such as the Mad Hatter highjacking Lucius Fox in this issue. This makes for interesting reading on multiple levels and connects episodic events such as the encounter with the Mad Hatter and weaves them into a much larger picture. As a result, everything gets just that much more interesting and, in a way, more realistic and down to earth, in spite of all the fantastic elements involved in a Batman story.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED READING - interesting story with complex subplot background, excellent artwork

FACTS & FIGURES

The Mad Hatter featured in this issue is the original villain, a skilled neuroscientific researcher named Jervis Tetch, who was introduced in Batman #49 with an abundance of references to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

Gene Colan left his longtime employer Marvel in 1981 over a series of disputes with editor-in-chief Jim Shooter and turned to DC. His first Batman work appeared in Batman #340 (October 1981), and the "Head-Hunt by a Mad Hatter" was his first artwork to appear in Detective Comics. Unfortunately, Colan soon had to acknowledge that working for DC would not allow him to exploit the full potential of his artistic talents:

"I enjoyed drawing Batman, but my experience working for the company and the editor on the book left something to be desired. (...) DC was way too controlling... and no artistic freedom. (...) Marvel was like working for family, DC like working for the principal." (Gene Colan, in Klaehn, 2010)

The artistic partnership with writer Gerry Conway, on the other hand, was a fruitful one from Conway's perspective:

"I had three favorite artists that I worked with in my career and they would be Ross Andru (...) Jose Garcia-Lopez (...) and Gene Colan. Because we had two really good runs together on Daredevil in the early 70's and on Batman in the early 80's (...) in terms of a continuing relationship, those were the guys I think I did some of my best work with, and who interpreted that work." (Gerry Conway, in Daudt)

Following a first hint in Detective Comics #509 and Batman #343, DC instituted a regular plot and storyline cross-over from Detective Comics into Batman as of Detective Comics #510. This procedure effectively created a fortnightly Batman book, with Detective on sale on the second Wednesday of a month and Batman on the fourth. Whilst this running in parallel did not ultimately require readers to buy both books (there would usually be a brief recap of the events in the preceding issue of the other title), reading only one of the two titles could make the storyline become slightly "jumpy" at times. Overall, however, DC did a good job in this not overly easy project.

"Head-Hunt by a Mad Hatter" was reprinted in 2011 in the collected edition Gene Colan - Tales of the Batman Vol 1.

THE REVAMP OF A C LIST GOLDEN AGE VILLAIN

MAD HATTER

IDENTITY - Jervis Tetch
FIRST APPEARANCE - Batman #49 (October 1948)
STATUS - marginal but "classic touch" villain

Mad Hatter, 1982

Mad Hatter, 1948

A fair number of Batman rogues which today are labelled as or appear to be "classic old time villains" actually dropped off the radar after their often brief (and sometimes not very impressive) first introduction and only truly became part of the Batman mythology after being rediscovered by authors (and readers) more than twenty or thirty years later.

Just like the Scarecrow (who vanished from the ranks of Batman foes following his appearance in Detective Comics #73 in March 1943 and remained unseen for no less than twenty four years until DC Golden Age veterans Gardner Fox and Sheldon Moldoff reintroduced the "Master of Fear" in Batman #189 in February 1967) or Two-Face (who, following five appearances in the 1940s and early 1950s completely disappeared from the Batman universe between 1954 and 1971 until Dennis O'Neil brought him back in Batman #234), the Mad Hatter was originally one of many "revolving door" villains of the 1940s which really were the result of an editorial policy which assumed that readers wanted new villains most of the time (Duncan & Smith, 2013).

The chronology of the Mad Hatter's appearances is muddled by the fact that following his first bout with the Darknight Detective in Batman #47 (October 1948), the next appearance (in Detective Comics #230, April 1956) is by an unknown individual who, although claiming to be Jervis Tetch, is actually an impostor who then subsequently appears in a number of Batman stories before the return of the original Mad Hatter in Detective Comics #510.

Other than in Detective Comics #230 (April 1956), the impostor (who didn't look like the original at all) appeared in Batman #161 (February 1964) before once again going into storage from where he emerged again for the "Batman murder trial" arc running through Batman #291-294 (September-December 1977) as well as taking center stage in Batman #297 (March 1978) where he even claims to have gone straight - which turns out to be yet another lie.

This meant that Gerry Conway couldn't just revert to the original and far more interesting villain without some kind of explanation, as both he and editorial had to assume that there were readers out there who actually still remembered the gaudy 2.0 version depicted in 1977/78. But what could be expected of readers was seemingly not necessarily what applied to DC staff.

All is revealed in Detective Comics #510 as Gerry Conway brings back the "original" Mad Hatter -
and just in case you're wondering, both impostor and imposter are correct spellings, although most dictionaries will lean towards the first, which is also more common both in the US and the UK

Only five years later, neither writer Gerry Conway nor editor Dick Giordano were still on board the Batman books, but how Mike W. Barr and Dennis O'Neill (both seasoned DC contributors who now held these positions) still managed to bring back the impostor Mad Hatter in Detective Comics #573 (April 1987) will most likely forever remain a mystery.

There can be no question, however, that it was done for no evident good reason, as the character was presented to readers and addressed by Batman as Tetch - in the end only confusing matters even further.

But at least from here on the fake Mad Hatter did not reappear until Batman #700 (August 2010) where Grant Morrison, significantly, had him call himself Hatman.

ORIGIN

The first appearance of the Mad Hatter falls squarely into a period in Batman's publication history when villains would appear out of the blue, become the main focus of attention of both the Batman and the Police force, and then disappear behind iron bars forever (as far as Batman was concerned) just as quickly.

It was also a time when the "themed villain", committing themed crimes, was coming out in full force (a feature which would remain a fairly typical trait of many Batman stories right up until the late 1960s), and a vital part of this plot prop were the themed clues the rogues would leave for Batman to figure out, often pointing to their next crime.

The Mad Hatter's first appearance in Batman #49 (October 1948) - written by Bill Finger and drawn by Bob Kane and Lew Sayre Schwartz - fits that formula fairly well. Although his criminal capers weren't really following a distinctly themed pattern (first he attempts to steal a valuable trophy cup from the Gotham yacht club and then appears at Gotham's traditional horse show to rob the spectators of their valuables), he left a clue after his first theft in the form of a Derby hat (naturally pointing to an equestrian event) - which actually has Robin saying "this Mad Hatter character is trying to imitate the Joker and the Penguin by sending a clue in advance", to which the Batman drily replies "how can we ever teach these criminals they can't win?"

Batman #49 (October 1948)

The Mad Hatter's theme, not surprisingly, is his hat, in which he alternatively hides a gas pistol or chemicals which he can set alight to create an enormous smokescreen for his escape once Batman and Robin have him cornered. In a final encounter (set on the stage of a production of Alice in Wonderland), the Mad Hatter is brought down not the least thanks to Vicki Vale, who is also introduced in this issue of Batman (and actually receives far more plot and story time than the Mad Hatter) and blinds him when she takes a flash picture of Batman and the hatter fighting it out.

As for the identity, motives and reasons behind the Mad Hatter, readers of Batman #49 come away with a total blank.

References to Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) are both implicit and explicit, and he is clearly derived from Carroll's character, whose name is Hatta the Hatter. In the book, the Hatter takes part in the "mad tea-party" and is referred to as being "mad" by the Cheshire Cat.

Bill Finger's character also mimicks John Tenniel's famous illustrations from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, whilst probably also drawing on the common phrase "to be mad as a hatter", which actually predates Carroll's book and is of uncertain origin but which most likely arose from the fact that the use of mercury compounds in early 19th century hat making exposed hat makers to mercury poisoning, which caused neurologically driven mood swings and fits (still known as "Mad Hatter Disease").

EVOLUTION OF THE CHARACTER

Following the rather bland first appearance of the Mad Hatter almost eight years passed until he resurfaced in Detective Comics #230 in April 1956 - as a fundamentally different character, albeit again written by Bill Finger (and now pencilled by Sheldon Moldoff). Confusingly enough, however, this is the first time readers actually learn of the Mad Hatter's real name, Jervis Tetch, and his motivation, being a somewhat over the top collector of hats (both presented in the expositionary soliloquy which is par for the course in any Silver Age comic book).

Detective Comics #230
(April 1956)

Taking the cue from his original 1948 story, Finger also had this Mad Hatter produce all kinds of weapons from out of his hats in true magician fashion - in this case ranging from flame throwers to buzzsaws. Essentially, however, this Mad Hatter tries to trick Batman - which he partially succeeds in after contaminating the cowl with a radioactive substance which then forces Batman to discard it (unseen). However, the radioactivity then functions as a tracer for the Dynamic Duo who thus find the Hatter's hideout, take him down, and send him to a long spell in Gotham prison.

The Mad Hatter's next appearance would not be in a comic book but in the ABC television series. In episodes 13 and 14 of the first season (with an original airdate of 23/24 February 1966) actor David Wayne played the Mad Hatter in a plot which not only followed the story from Detective Comics #230 very closely but also modelled the visuals of the villain on Moldoff's artwork.

There were, however, two major changes: firstly, and typical for the campy tone of the TV series, Batman's cowl turned pink when sprayed with the radioactive substance, and secondly the Mad Hatter's main weapon was his trick top hat, from which a concealed set of eyes would pop up and shoot a hypnotic beam at his enemy. This latter feature for the first time put the Mad Hatter in the category of villains who use mind-controlling techniques, a trait which would play out strongly in the character's subsequent development.

Still absent from DC's comic books, the Mad Hatter next appeared in an episode of The Adventures of Batman, the classic 1968 animated television series produced by Lou Scheimer's Filmation studios.

Whilst bearing no outward resemblance to the NBC live-action Batman Mad Hatter, the idea of a top hat which pops open to reveal a weapon makes a reapparance - in this case a glue gun (which makes sense given that this was produced for Saturday morning childrens' TV). "A Mad Mad Tea Party" was a one-segment episode and thus only runs for just under 7 minutes, yet it featured the strongest references to Alice in Wonderland used by any Mad Hatter version so far - but no doubt the wildest prop was his top-hat shaped getaway car.

After those two television appearances, the Mad Hatter disappeared once more, and he would be absent from the Batman comic books for no less than 22 years. He did finally return in Batman #297 (March 1978), written by David Vern Reed and pencilled by Rich Buckler, in "The Mad Hatter goes straight" - a story title which was made to sound dubious by the cover blurb "Death wears 1,000 different hats when the Mad hatter strikes!"

Batman #297
(March 1978)

Reed (1924–1989, born David Levine), who had acquired a reputation for writing entertaining but unconventional Batman stories since the mid-1970s, portrayed the Mad Hatter as a man who is sadly disappointed by the fact that crime is not giving him that special kick anymore, and who as a result begins to reminisce about his youth when he would imagine being a white-hatted sheriff or a plume-hatted cavalier or even wearing the hat of a soldier from the Foreign Legion. And since these fantasies would always see him fighting on the side of the law, the Hatter decides to give up crime altogether and finally go straight.

This, however, in reality only applies to his attire, as he dons the clothes and, most importantly, hats of figures associated with good deeds - such as riding out on horseback as a Wild West sheriff, complete with cowboy-style hat - but then only stops robbers to then finish their work himself. Little does the Mad Hatter know, of course, that when he pulls this stunt on Bruce Wayne and his date in Gotham Park he alerts the Batman to this singularly odd new crime spree of his, and the Darknight Detective lures the Mad Hatter into a trap by throwing a party for Jason Bard to announce his candidacy for district attorney and thus "throw his hat into the ring." This of course lures the Mad Hatter to the event, but as he crashes the party wearing a chef's hat he is taken out of commission by the Batman.

A quaintly entertaining story which pushed the "themed villain" concept to its tongue-in-cheek limits, it still featured the "impostor" but added nothing to the characterisation as the Mad Hatter is portrayed as nothing more than a mentally off-balance criminal who has a bee in his bonnet about hats. Essentially, the Mad Hatter - both original and impostor - had been left without both an origin and some depth of personality by Bill Finger and consecutive handlers ever since his first appearance in Batman #49 in October 1948.

Following short spells of writing Batman in Detective Comics #463 and #464 (September and October 1976) as well as in Batman #295, #305 and #306 (January, November and December 1978), comic book industry Wunderkind Gerry Conway (who had his first story published in DC's September 1969 House of Secrets #81 at the tender age of sixteen and was entrusted with the writing of Amazing Spider-Man when he was 19 by none other than Stan Lee himself in 1972) was put in charge of the Caped Crusader's adventures in Detective Comics in December 1980 (issue #497) as well as in Batman as of July 1981 (issue #337).

In spite of having started his career at DC and then ultimately spending more time there than at the House of Ideas, Conway's approach to plot and characterization as well as his narrative stlye were about as "Marvelous" as it could get. It made him successful and popular, and it was what DC was looking for in order to close the gap on their rival publisher - and given his experience, Conway was acutely aware of the differences between the two companies.

Gerry Conway in 1984

While Marvel had picked up speed with a growingly more mature readership, DC was still putting out very "clean" and fairly simple stories which more often than not ran for one or two issues only and with minimal (if any) consequences for the next plot. As the Marvel Universe got more complex, DC seemed stuck in ultimate rewind. But as Gerry Conway came on board, Dick Giordano was planning to change things at least for the two Batman titles by running them in sync, ultimately as though it were one fortnightly comic book, and this gave Conway the chance to essentially write the Darknight Detective after a brief run-in period as though he were a Marvel character.

Background stories and subplots started to materialize which were developed over several issues before bursting into the foreground, and the famous "Marvel flaw" was introduced: Bruce Wayne has real problems with his social life, Alfred discovers he is a father (whose daughter wants to kill him), and Commissioner Gordon is fired. And whilst he was at it, Conway also had Gotham itself take a dip as both its political establishment and its police force were gradually shown to be in a firm grip of rampant corruption and decay.

In that same vein, Conway revisited old adversaries of the Batman and gave them a new and ultimately more realistic spin, and the first to receive that special treatment was the Mad Hatter in Detective Comics #511. By portraying the mind-reading (and mind-erasing) approach of Jervis Tetch not as a mere gimmick (as the Super Instant Mesmerizing Device in the 1960's TV show) but as the result of an array of advanced technology and machinery, Conway turned the Mad Hatter into a villain who in spite of his Alice in Wonderland traits became believable and even possible.

In that respect, Conway had the Mad Hatter join the ranks of the mad scientists who become "mind game criminals" such as the Scarecrow and Professor Hugo Strange - all being rather terribly and therefore frighteningly possible in the real world.

As such Conway probably wanted to make sure that any memories of the simpleton hat collector were put aside, and therefore retroactively labelled all previous appearances other than the first as the work of an impostor. And almost as though to make a point, Conway has the Original stating that he "disposed" of the identity thief. Other than that, however, there still was no background story attached which explained who Jervis Tetch actually was.

This void was finally filled by writer Paul Dini (who was 35 at the time) in 1992 - not in one of DC's Batman comic books, but rather in a new cartoon show which was way more than just that - and hence aptly named Batman: The Animated Series.

In epiosde 24 of the first season, which was titled "Mad as a Hatter" and first went on air on 12 October 1992, Dini not only provided a background story for Jervis Tetch aka the Mad Hatter but also gave the character a tragic personal dimension - and at the same time turned him from a criminal simpleton and occasional nuisance to the crime-fighting Batman into a maniacal and dangerous villain. Voiced by Roddy McDowall, Jervis Tetch was depicted as an English, average-sized man with blonde hair and a large overbite who is a skilled neuroscientific researcher and electronics genius. A very shy person, he has devoted himself to experimenting with animals using his self-designed mind controlling microchips, stored within hats, to stimulate their brain waves.

The drama unfolds when he falls in love with his secretary, Alice Pleasance, who does not, however, reciprocate his feelings. When her boyfriend leaves her, Tetch turns up in a dashing attire (i.e. the way we know the Mad Hatter to dress) and attempts to win Alice's affection by taking her out for a night on the town. She misinterprets the gesture as simply a way to cheer her up, and thus unwittingly spurns his affections. Driven over the edge, he uses his mind control devices to turn Alice into his robot-like puppet in an Alice in Wonderland setting in which, ultimately, Batman defeats the Mad Hatter and breaks the control he had over Alice.

By providing this background and origin, Dini finally gave the character the depth it needed. Appearing in three additional episodes, Batman: The Animated Series brought out the full potential of the Mad Hatter: a fundamentally sad story featuring a lonely person who takes on a decidedly rough edge when he uses his intellectual wit to dominate others and rob them of their free will.

With Conway, the Mad Hatter had stopped being cheesy, and Dini gave him weight and a malicious twist. From here on, things just got darker and more vicious as subsequent writers increasingly presented the character as being a psychotic and dangerous homicidal who succumbs to his delusional ideas.

Batman #378
(December 1984)

Batman #492
(May 1993)

Batman #693
(January 2010)

Arkham Manor Endgame #1
(June 2015)

In the pivotal 1993 Knightfall saga (which culminates in the famous "breaking" of the Batman by Bane) the Mad Hatter is the first to strike following the massive breakout of Arkham. He is still true to his set manners, however, as he invites all criminals to a tea party where he feels sure Batman and Robin will show up too. And there's still a trait of charm when he hides his mind-controlling implants in "free coffee and donuts" tickets which he hands out, of all places, in front of the police stations in Gotham in Gotham Central.

But with the 2011 "New 52" reboot, the Mad Hatter took a deep and dark plunge.

Batman Dark Night #20
(June 2013)

Batman Dark Night #18
(May 2013) [opposite]

In this incarnation of the DC Universe, Jervis Tetch has been an inmate patient at Arkham Asylum for years as a result of steroid abuse, and at one point begins referring to himself as "The Mad Hatter". After he finally manages to escape from the institution he goes on a savagely brutal rampage, using his mind control technology to e.g. make a passenger train full of people commit suicide or go insane.

The senseless cruelty and sadistic savagery of this Mad Hatter originated in Batman Dark Knight and is the result of writer Gregg Hurwitz and artists Ethan Van Sciver rethinking the character as a "perverse and horror-inspired serial killer with something Charles Manson about him" (Rogers, 2013). Add to this numerous hints in recent years that he is a pedophile, kidnapping little girls with the name Alice, and the result is a villain who is thoroughly and utterly despicable.

It's certainly a long way from Batman's world as depicted by Gerry Conway and Gene Colan in Detective Comics #510, and whilst the Mad Hatter lost his goofiness back in 1982, he has now lost all innocence and indeed all charm in recent years.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

DAUDT Ron E. (N.A.) "Gerry Conway Interview", www.wtv-zone.com

KLAEHN Jefferey (2010) "Gene Colan Interview", jefferyklaehn.blogspot.com

ROGERS Vaneta (2013) "Hurrwitz, Van Scyver debut 'perverse' horrific Mad Hatter", newsarama.com