Maggie Geha plays an artificially aged Poison Ivy in the “Mad City: Burn The Witch” episode of “Gotham” airing Monday, Sept. 26, on FOX. ©2016 Fox Broadcasting Co. Cr: Nicole Rivelli/FOX..
The Mad Hatter got a re-design on Batman: The Animated Series. ©1998 DC Comics
Tweedledum and Tweedledee made their debut in Detective Comics in 1943. Courtesy DC Entertainment Inc.
By Andrew A. Smith
Tribune Content Agency
Season 3 of Gotham, subtitled “Mad City” and beginning Sept. 19, promises to further flesh out the cast. Included will be some of Batman’s oldest – and goofiest – enemies.
Season 2 ended with the escape of a great many inmates from Indian Hill, where Professor Hugo Strange (B.D. Wong) had been experimenting on them. We’ve seen a doppelganger of Bruce Wayne among this crew, and can expect appearances by Killer Croc (or a prototype) and the revenant Solomon Grundy as well.
Indian Hill was funded by the Court of Owls, a hidden group of Gotham’s wealthiest (and most ruthless) movers and shakers. The Court, which goes back to the founding of the city, was added to the canon in 2011. That story is collected in Batman: Court of Owls, and is a must-read for Bat-fans. That story can’t happen yet on the TV show, so the Court will likely remain in the background as a constant threat to Jim Gordon (now a bounty hunter) and our other heroes.
In addition, Ivy “Poison Ivy” Pepper will be artificially aged from her current prepubescent self to a 19-year-old played by Maggie Geha. That makes sense, as much of Ivy’s schtick is her use of seduction as a weapon, which requires a character over the age of majority. And the nature of Ivy’s aging opens the possibility that she might age slowly or not at all – meaning she will be age appropriate when Batman finally makes an appearance (roughly a decade in the future).
That’s the new stuff that will obviously be good. Now comes the goofy.
Benedict Samuel (The Walking Dead) will play Jervis Tetch, the Mad Hatter. According to Entertainment Weekly, he’s a psychotic hypnotist in search of his sister Alice (of course), who possesses an undisclosed super-power the Hatter wants to use.
That doesn’t sound too bad. But, honestly, it took decades for the Mad Hatter to be anything other than a joke.
Tetch, as you might guess, is based on the Lewis Carroll character introduced in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. That was a wonderful character. The comic book version, introduced in 1948, was … not.
“Are you the dreamer, or merely part of somebody else’s dream?” asked the Hatter upon encountering the Dynamic Duo in Batman #49. It probably made more sense in the original Through the Looking-Glass. It really had no place with this character, a short, scrawny, brown-haired criminal who was obsessed with hats.
Yes. Hats.
In his next several appearances in the ‘50s and ‘60s, though, he was tall, beefy and red-haired, with a big handlebar mustache. This time he was not only obsessed with hats, he – gasp! – used them to commit crimes! Oh, the horror!
Still later (in 1981), the Hatter returned with yet another new look, claiming that the red-haired guy was an imposter, whom he had killed. Mind you, these re-inventions all took place over four decades, and were probably unnecessary, since most readers probably retained very little memory of a guy who used hats to commit crimes.
Especially since the red-haired guy would show up again five or six years later. Even the editors had trouble remembering this guy.
In 1983, wiser heads prevailed, deciding that if we had to have a Mad Hatter (or two), he needed to be a threat of some kind. It turns out Jervis had been a scientist all this time – who knew? – one who had technology that could erase memories, usually distributed to his unsuspecting victims via – you guessed it – hats. He also had a tenuous grasp on sanity, which made him somewhat unpredictable.
As is often the case, the character reached his apotheosis on Batman: The Animated Series (1992-95). In his first appearance there, in a 1992 episode titled “Mad as a Hatter,” his fixation on his assistant, Alice (of course), alternated between terrifying and poignant. Pretty cool.
“A weird-looking guy with a hat fetish. Hmm. Not the most imposing of adversaries,” wrote B:TAS writer and co-producer Paul Dini, in Batman: Animated (1998). “I made him a brilliant but lonely scientist. … When Tetch stumbled on the secret of mind control, he used it to make people respect and obey him. … Roddy McDowall’s vocal performance created the perfect balance between Tetch’s shyness and the Mad Hatter’s dementia. No longer a comical baddie obsessed with swiping hats, the Mad Hatter had become a real threat.”
So, after 44 years, the Hatter finally made the big time. Our next two villains? Not so much.
Gotham is going to bring us The Tweeds. In the comics, they are identical, portly cousins, whose first names are Dumfree and Deever. As criminals, they’re known as … (sigh) Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
Yep, another Lewis Carroll reference. Somebody in the Bat-offices had their own fixation, it would seem.
In The Original Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 1, author Michael Fleisher described them as “so fat, so lazy, and so eager to avoid exertion of any kind that they usually direct their criminal operations from a car or truck while their hired henchmen do the actual dirty work.”
Or as Robin phrased it, when first sighting Deever in Detective Comics #74 (1943): “Is he for real? He looks like a fat spider!”
Well, no, he just looked a short, fat guy. Maybe Robin should have worn glasses instead of that domino mask.
The Tweeds appeared twice in 1943, but then disappeared into comic book limbo for many decades. However, there is nothing more unkillable in comics than a bad idea, so the Tweeds returned in 1977.
I’d like to say that the Corpulent Criminals, like the Mad Hatter, had by that time metamorphosized into deadly villains instead of fat jokes. I’d like to, but I can’t. They are still fat jokes.
Other villains, like Killer Croc, beat them up. They were captured once by The Creeper, not exactly an A-list superhero, and in another story were defeated by a solo Robin. They even made a deal with a devil once, and pretty much got nothing out of it.
They never even got a spot on Batman: The Animated Series, which surely would have improved them. But, no, the best they managed was an appearance on Batman: The Brave and Bold, where they engaged in villainous bouncing.
Yes, bouncing.
Currently in the comics they act as brainwashed thugs for the Mad Hatter. That’s just sad.
Maybe Gotham can turn the Rotund Rascals into something less embarrassing. If nothing else, the show is going to make them brothers, not identical cousins.
The Patty Duke Show used that bit better, anyway.
Reach Captain Comics by email (capncomics@aol.com), the Internet (captaincomics.ning.com), Facebook (Captain Comics Round Table) or Twitter (@CaptainComics).
Replies
I'm glad they are bringing in the older villains that no one thinks too much of, lower the expectations the greater can be the surprise if they work out.