Fortunately, that question relates to the puzzle. "I'm trying to work that out myself. He had effective control of the whole world. It could be something to do with that, but the marks chart the control mechanisms he already had without giving him any more. It could be for making some sort of monster, but he already had Finality Man and all of the Justified superheroes he captured. And he could bring in more from Apokolips itself, like all those robots he used against Kahndaq. Paul?"
Good to see someone asked the question, at least. 'Why?' is an important factor here.
"Darkseid's trying to brute force more Anti-Life fragments. My guess was that he was experimenting with some new type of corruption on someone or something inside."
He nods. "That sounds logical. S-. Ah. Catwoman?"
Not used to using the 'made-up names', eh, Ted?
"To people like that, there's no such thing as too many giant monsters. Which is now living under Gotham somewhere."
"Do you have Mister Jones' phone number?"
...Honestly, Croc
could be useful in searching the underground.
Selina looks at me like I'm an idiot. "Paul, how would he even hold a phone?"
"Lantern." Canis blinks hard, shaking his head. "What did you do to this device?"
Oh, Canis? An issue with it?
"I interfaced with the desires associated with it."
"You have-. It is as if you have sprayed bright orange paint over a classical portrait."
...Huh, maybe that's why some metaphysical sorts get a bit odd around him. It's like getting your godly senses doused with orange Fanta.
"Oh. Ah. Sorry. I could probably remove that-."
"No, that would remove everything."
Yeah, there's a reason art restoration, especially after stuff like defacement, is a hugely difficult and expensive process.
Ted makes a gesture of appeal. "Did you get anything? What did-?"
"It is made to cause a metamorphosis of some sort. Someone is placed inside and their nature is changed. After their failure with Dreamer and the other Forever People, perhaps Darkseid felt that a more sophisticated approach was necessary."
So I
was on target with Nina Dowd, then. Though I doubt it turned
Tetch into a ludicrously large-breasted catgirl.
...A Hare-boy, maybe?
"So who went inside? And… When?"
Since it was located in a small room underground using alien metamaterials there's basically no way to calculate its age. The obvious time for it to have broken is five months ago when the life burst happened, but the desires I felt fairly clearly hadn't been influenced by that. Does that imply it was broken before that?
I doubt it could have been protected from the White Light somehow.
Every living thing has a connection to it.
"A mad seer. Someone disconnected from reality, who sees things that others do not."
Selina and I glance at each other for a moment.
Yeah, that sounds like Tetch for sure.
"Would you recognise that person if you saw them again?"
"I have not seen this person before. But the association would be strong. Brut!" His dog perks up. "Scent!" "Find the form, boy."
Which helps, if Tetch did undergo any physical changes to match the spiritual ones.
Brut starts sniffing in earnest, prompting Selina to take a step back. "Would getting some of his old clothes help? I'm sure Arkham has them in their lockers."
Canis shakes his head. "No. Unless they were a magician, the smell of their souls would be too weak for Brut to track. We will be looking for the touch of Mannheim upon them."
And as some measure of canine demi-divinity, Brut can smell that stuff from across the planet, I bet.
Ted blinks. "You know who it was?"
"We've been looking for Jarvis Tetch." He looks blank. "The Mad Hatter. He's an Alice in Wonderland-obsessed madman. He usual modus operandi involved mind controlling and kidnapping young girls and having tea parties with them."
Ted looks uncomfortable. "When… You say… 'Tea parties'-?"
...Yeah, that does sound sort of bad out of context. Even
in context, it's not great.
"I mean they drink tea and eat cakes. There have been deaths, but it's not because he was deliberately trying to kill them and more… Because he doesn't recognise that his fantasy isn't actually happening. But… That might be because Batman punches him out before he gets psychotically angry about them refusing to play along or wanting to go home."
I shudder at the thought of him ending up going too far because Batman got dragged into some other, bigger affair...
Canis frowns. "Why does he wish for tea parties with children?"
"Because he's mad. His brain is broken, and he can't cope with actual reality and so projects a total fantasy onto the world around him. And when things don't conform to that fantasy, he… Can't cope. He can't understand it."
Fortunately, he's not violent about it...
Yet.
"But why does being mad make him drink tea with children?"
"Specifically? I don't know. Sometimes the human brain just fixates on things when it can't cope with the stress it's under. If I had to guess, it's because the book had happy associations from his childhood."
Which it does, if his wiki entry was anything to go by.
I look at Selina for further information, but she just shrugs. "Too old and not blonde enough. I'd have though that your girlfriend would have been at more risk with her Cheshire Cat theme."
"The Mad Hatter didn't take tea with the Cheshire Cat."
It appears several times, but never interacts with the Hatter. Merely nudges Alice towards him.
I… Think. I only ever read Alice Through The Looking Glass, and that was a long time ago.
"He had henchmen named after the other characters."
Honestly, the
group outlasted any association with him.
"How did that work?"
"Badly, usually. Canis, do you have any idea what Mannheim would want with a delusional neurologist?"
Sadly, I don't think it was for the sake of some nasty art.
Canis thinks for a moment. "You say that he is delusional?"
I generate a construct image of him, costume hat and all. Canis looks at it blankly-.
And really, most of his
look is just a slightly odd form of three-piece suit. Some odd choices of fabric patterns, and the
Hat.
Right. Apokolips.
"Yes, he's delusional."
Indeed, New God fashion has a lot of strange choices, especially in the more Kirby-inspired forms.
"Then it may be that Mannheim hoped to use his madness in some way. I have heard of devices which project disordered mental states. They are usually smaller."
"What if the range was supposed to be worldwide?"
...And now I'm feeling a worrying link to the Atlantis warding stones. Could this have been a plan to crack Gamemnae's barrier?
Canis considers the device carefully.
"Perhaps, but I do not see the point. They were already under the influence of the Anti-Life. Making them mad as well…" He shakes his head.
And if that madness is
destructive, it's wasteful.
Selina makes a beckoning motion with her right hand. "Any other ideas?"
"Mannheim was manipulating the arcane systems of this world, correct?" I nod. "Then it may be that he was attempting to use Mad Hatter to speed up that process with his altered perception."
Applying something of a 'We're all mad here' debuff to Humanity's mental resistance? Could work.
Ted's jaw hangs open a little. "Huh?"
"With enough magic, and enough madness, a world already at one with the spirit of Darkseid and an avatar of Darkseid already present… Changing the nature of the physical world is possible." He shakes his head. "I have never been involved in such things, but I am aware that they can be done."
...And that makes the fact they beat it all that more gratifying.
"And… Breaking out? Assuming that it was him?"
"Clearly, whatever it was Mannheim was trying to do did not work. Perhaps you preventing it when you expunged the Anti-Life, or perhaps it was already a failure by then. It hardly matters."
Or maybe it worked
too well? It just hasn't expressed itself yet.
He turns away, a-
BOOM!
-tube opening.
"Come, Brut! We hunt!"
I guess we'll see when they find him.
A cat, two dogs and a snake, looking for a peculiar little man. It almost sounds like some inane scenario that would fit into Wonderland. Though any conceptual study Apokalips is getting into is a worrying concept in itself. Best to head off any follow-ups into it just to be safe.
