This story takes place a few years after the events of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and The Wizard of Oz, in which the three heroines, Alice, Wendy and Dorothy, are teenagers and are invited to a most peculiar boarding school where they are the only three students. It seems their strange adventures as young girls have led to them all being diagnosed with a dissociative disorder, but Dr. Rutherford, the school's headmaster, believes that not only are these girls sane, but they have a rare ability to cross between worlds and he hopes to study them and, with the help of a particular nanny, hone their abilities.
The events of their childhood has left emotional marks on all three girls, and their early adventures have helped shaped them into the young ladies we see in Cheshire Crossing. Determined to never be defenseless again, Wendy has become a bit of a tom boy and has learned a thing or two about fighting, while Alice has become very isolated and pushes many people away. Meanwhile, Dorothy still tries to be the same innocent girl she was during her first adventure in Oz, but she has also had to grow up a lot.
When the girls get pulled into Oz, Dorothy is shocked to learn that the Wicked Witch of the West is back and bent on revenge, and when the Witch discovers the other worlds, she sets her eyes on an alliance with Captain Hook. The girls must learn to work together and use their individual strengths, as well as tackle the particulars of all three worlds if they have a hope of stopping this villain team up.
I enjoyed a lot of what Cheshire Crossing had to offer. The artwork feels right for the settings and characters and the story was a fun return to these well-known heroines. If I have any criticism concerning Cheshire Crossing it’s that the story felt like the early work that it is. I got the impression from the graphic novel's preface that little-to-no editing was done to the story and dialogue of Cheshire Crossing for this printing. I have no doubt that, if he had the inclination and ability, Weir would have polished this story to a better place. Regardless, the end of Cheshire Crossing does set up a potential sequel and I would be interested to see what the next story holds for these three magical ladies.
