Jervis Tetch (New Earth)

Tetch, growing up, never had any friends, due to his appearance. His whole life he has been in love with the works of Lewis Carolls “Alice in Wonderland” and “Through he Looking Glass” especially the “Mad Tea Party” chapter. In adulthood he became a neural scientist working for Wayne Enterprises were he invented circuitry that can control minds. Jervis lived in a boarding house owned by Ella Littleton. There he befriended Ella's daughter, Connie Littleton, and her friends in her high school. A few years later, Connie became pregnant. Fearing the reaction of her extremely strict mother, Connie lied to her and claimed she had been raped by someone on her school's baseball team. Ella approached Tetch for help and convinced him that the Gotham Hawks were "bad kids". Tetch agreed to use his mind control technology on a member of the team, making him use a pipe bomb to kill the other players. Although this was Tetch's first known criminal act, his involvement in the locker room bombing would not be discovered until years later.

Mad as a Hatter

At one point Jervis lost his mind and becoming obsessive, delusional and schizophrenic he went to crime modelling himself after The Mad Hatter his most loved character from his beloved “Alice in Wonderland” and wielding his vast genius and mind control Tech. He started kidnapping young girls to be “Alices” in his tea party’s before selling them to slavery but he was stopped Batman and was arrested. The courts found Jervis insane and sent him to Arkham Asylum.

Arkham Asylum

Despite Jervis's kind facade he was one of the asylums most dangerous inmates, he would be pleasant at one moment and then homicidal at an other. Jervis in attempts to make friends would be kind to the other inmates like sneaking a pet plant to Poison Ivy. Like the other rogues, Tetch managed to escape Arkham on numerous occasions.

Along with Wonderland and controlling people's minds, Tetch was obsessed with headgear and wanted above all else attain for his extensive collection of hats Batman's cowl by any means necessary.

Criminal Career

Jervis occasionally allied with other villains in an attempt to kill Batman, using a mind controlling hat on Scarecrow, forcing the villain to fight. When Batman overcomes his attackers, Tetch flees and appears to die on a bridge under the wheels of a train. In actuality, he had escaped by jumping onto a truck that had been passing underneath the bridge.

Tetch has even kidnapped Lucius Fox of Wayne Enterprises and held him for ransom. Once again, Tetch was stopped by Batman, but not before using his advanced equipment to feed information from Fox's mind into his computer. Tetch devised a plan to implant his mind control devices in Walkmen, which he gave out to young girls at Dick Grayson's school in order to sell the young girls to the millionaire third-world dictator Generalissimo Lee. The young Robin managed to defeat the Mad Hatter.

One of Tetch's latest plans consisted of implanting his devices in "free coffee and donuts" tickets he handed out in front of the police stations in Gotham. That plan had him controlling most of the cops in the city. He even had Gotham police detectives Crispus Allen and Renee Montoya break into a bank for him.

Tetch was trying to escape Arkham Asylum with the aid of a guard under mind control. The guard fired on police and was killed in return fire. Tetch was also shot multiple times and left in critical condition. It was thought he might have died.

While working with Black Mask, Tetch implanted a mind control chip directly into Killer Croc's brain, which caused him to mutate again due to the virus he was injected with by Hush and the Riddler. Croc embarked on a quest to get revenge on those responsible for his mutation, and started with Tetch. Batman arrived in time to save Tetch, but Croc escaped.

Secret Six

Aftwards he was approached by Catman, and he joined the members of the Secret Six in opposition of The Society; they recruited him in hopes of a defense against Doctor Psycho's mind control abilities. When Ragdoll attacked the Secret Six under Dr. Psycho's control, Tetch what he called his "thinking cap" on Ragdoll's head and he went into a seizure. After the Six crash-landed, they were attacked by the Doom Patrol, who came close to apprehending the Six until Mad Hatter stepped in and used his mind control abilities to subdue the Doom Patrol singlehandedly, going so far as to almost make Elasti-Girl eat Beast Boy before Scandal stopped him. The Six commented to themselves afterwards that even they had no idea Jervis could do this. It has been revealed that Tetch designed a hat to make him happy beyond the measures of what illegal drugs can accomplish. He also revealed that he had planted miniature listening devices around the House of Secrets to keep tabs on his fellow members. After revealing the true motives of Scandal Savage to leave the team, the Six went after her, finding themselves at Vandal Savage's temple in the mountains, where Doctor Psycho started attacking the team. Tetch was about to get the upper hand on Doctor Psycho when Cheshire appeared and stabbed him in the back with a poisoned dagger. Scandal tended to Hatter's wound, and Catman administered an antidote to Tetch. While the Six faced off against Cheshire and Vandal Savage, Hatter took on Dr. Psycho one on one, and emerged victorious despite his injuries, possibly killing Dr. Psycho with Cheshire's dagger. Hatter saved Scandal from falling to her death, and the Six told Tetch that they were his friends, something Tetch has never had. As Hatter stood atop Savage's destroyed base with Ragdoll, he expressed deep happiness and excitement about having friends. He said to Ragdoll that he will be a very good friend in return. Ragdoll then pushed Hatter off the roof, seemingly to his death, saying there's only room for one dandy freak on the team. Miraculously, Tetch survived the fall. Heartbroken, he vowed revenge on the rest of the Six.

Wonderland Gang

Tetch fell victim to his own mind control devices at the hands of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The two forced him to "lead" a gang of Wonderland-related crimes through various gimmicky heists before Batman deduced the Tweedles to be the true masterminds. Once the three were returned to Arkham, the Hatter quickly exacted revenge on the two, manipulating them into a bloody brawl with his mind control chips.

Revenge

Mad Hatter is the one who has hired the Six to break Tarantula out of Alcatraz, to deliver her as well as a "get out of Hell free" card created by Neron to Gotham City. Doing so has put the Six directly in the line of retribution from Junior, Ragdoll's psychotic sister. Junior believes that the Neron Card is key to saving her soul from eternal damnation, and will stop at nothing to reclaim it from Tarantula and the Six. It seems that Junior's wrath is not the motivation behind Tetch's hiring the Six to perform this mission. He has made it clear his intention is to ensure the Six safely reach Gotham. The story is ongoing, and the Hatter's full plan has yet to be revealed, although it is made clear in the same issue that Tetch intends to murder each member of the Six as part of his revenge. Tetch observes as the Six battle Junior and his goons on Gotham Bridge and when the battle ceases he confronts them, telling them how they betrayed him. Ragdoll throws Tetch's hat over the edge and Tetch jumps off after it.

Batman Life After Death

Tetch next shows up, seemingly uninjured from his battle with the Secret Six, working with The Penguin, who is planning on killing the new Black Mask. He assists Penguin in attaching a mind control device to a gas mask, which is placed on Batman's head to turn him into a puppet to assassinate Black Mask. The plot fails, and Batman recovers before killing Black Mask. Following this, Tetch is shown once again incarcerated in Arkham. He hires Deathstroke and the Titans to free him, and escapes just prior to a massive prison riot.

Powers and Abilities

Abilities

Genius Level Intellect
- Electrical Engineering
- Gadgetry
- Science

Weaknesses

Mental Disorder: Tetch is a paranoid schizophrenic, has obessive compulsive disorder and is highly delusional. Due to his immature self-image, he identifies with children more than adults. If he feels threatened, he sometimes uses nonsense rhyme as a defence mechanism.^[1]

Notes

Although this character was originally introduced during DC's Earth-Two era of publication, their existence following the events of the 1985–86 limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths remains intact. However, some elements of the character's Pre-Crisis history may have been altered or removed for Post-Crisis New Earth continuity, and no longer apply.
The Mad Hatter was modeled after The Hatter from Lewis Carroll's book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. He made his first appearance in Batman #49 in October of 1948. Like other Batman villains, he has become a darker character in recent years.

Trivia

The Mad Hatter has gone through many changes in his physical appearance over the years, but has always had the basic Hatter look. In his debut, he was a very short brunette- or auburn-haired man. When he reappeared in the early 1980s, he was depicted as of average height, with blond hair. In later years, he was short again but with white hair. Today, Tetch has red hair much like his impostor did, but his size and height still seem to vary. Constants throughout his depictions are a slightly overlarge head and (more recently) very large teeth. In the recent Secret Six #6 (December, 2006), Tetch claims to suffer from macrocephaly.^{[citation needed]}

Jervis Tetch (New Earth)

Contents

History

Origins