History: The Mad Hatter was a madman obsessed with Sir John Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland, and lifted his persona directly from the book. He stole a Gotham Yacht Club trophy and robbed a horse show, attracting the attention of Batman and Robin, who apprehended him. Hatter was deemed insane and sent to Arkham Asylum. Hatter escaped and became one of Batman's more persistent and eccentric enemies.

While imprisoned another man posed as Mad Hatter and ran rampant on Gotham. Once the Mad Hatter escaped imprisonment he killed the imposter.

(Hitman #2) -Joker killed a kindergarten class, and the grieving wealthy father of one of the children put a hit out on him. Hitman Tommy Monaghan accepted the contract, and used his superhuman powers to make it past the GCPD and Batman into Arkham. He’d taken out a few other contracts once word got out that he was going to Arkham, and Hitman shot out one of Mad Hatter’s kneecaps. Hatter screamed for a doctor, and Hitman said he had a message from Liiam Dawson, who said next time Hatter bought guns from him he should remember to pay.

(Batman: Gotham Knights #38, 39) - Mad Hatter was released from Arkham by David Said of Checkmate. He had Hatter and Scarecrow observe the imprisoned Huntress, and do a psychological profile of her so that Checkmate would have an edge when they offered her a government position. Said was so impressed by Mad Hatter and Scarecrow that he kept them out of incarceration and sent them to the nation of Hasaragua, where he hoped they could be used to topple that country's dictator.

(Villains United: Infinite Crisis Special #1) - The Society made plans for a worldwide prison break to free every incarcerated supervillain, and they sent Killer Croc to free Arkham Asylum's inmates. Mad Hatter was one of the released inmates, but most of them were captured and sent back to their cells by a group of superheroes called in by Oracle to deal with the Arkham situation.

(Joker's Asylum II: Mad Hatter #1) - Mad Hatter tried to start his life over, promising to never again drink tea or wear his hypnotic hats. He began scrapbooking and making a book about how he would find his Alice and she would fall in love with him. He found a number of girls that resembled Alice from the Lewis Carrol book, kidnapped them, and tried to keep them by drugging them with tea. Something always went wrong, and he ended up killing them and stuffing them in his closet, but he repressed each one of these incidents. His newest Alice was a woman working as a checkout girl at a grocery store, and when he worked up the courage to approach her he felt betrayed when he learned her name was Cathryn. He broke down, drank his tea, and put on his hat. He blamed her for making him be the Mad Hatter again, so he kidnapped her, dressed her up as Alice and showed her the book he was working on. He told her that she should have been Alice so they could have fallen in love, gotten married and had children, but because she was Cathryn the end of the story involved him killing her with a cleaver. Batman arrived on the scene just in time to save Cathryn, and chased Hatter through his apartment. Hatter unlocked the closet where he kept his other Alices, and had a breakdown. He tried to have one of the dead girls drink tea, and kissed her mouth, at which point he was restrained by7 Batman and taken away by the GCPD. He saw a blonde police officer on the scene and started obsessing over her, determining to give his love story another go when he got the opportunity.

(Titans II #28) - Deathstroke freed Mad Hatter from Arkham as part of his master plan to cheat death itself. He didn’t like the idea of Hatter vanishing, and warned him that he’d have to repay his debt in the future or suffer the consequences. Hatter told Deathstroke he was spooky before calmly walking off.

(Titans II #37) - Mad Hatter fulfilled his obligation to Deathstroke, using his hypnotics to sooth Deathstroke’s son Jericho, who was painfully dying of cellular decomposition. Deathstroke finished the Methuselah Device, which restored Jericho to health, and offered his Titans a chance to resurrect their loved ones using the Device if they kept working for him. Titans Cinder and Arsenal saw the machine as an abomination, and tried to destroy it, resulting in a brawl among the villains. Hatter wanted nothing to do with the whole mess, and told Deathstroke even a madman could see that the Methuselah Device was wicked before taking his leave.

Comments: Created by Bill Finger & Lew Schwartz

In the pre-Crisis DC Universe there were nearly identical versions of Mad Hatter on Earth-1 and Earth-2.

Mad Hatter received profiles in Who’s Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #14 and Who's Who in the DC Universe #5.

Mad Hatter had cameos in Batman I #683, JLA #19 and Titans II #29.

All characters mentioned or pictured are ™  and © DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please visit The Official DC Comics Site at: http://www.batman.com