Boo Cook

This book wraps up the SERVEYOUinc storyline that's been running through these Eleventh Doctor comics, though first there's a cute story about an alien overlord who tries to take over the Earth by writing free comic books. The remainder of the book is pretty dramatic, grim stuff, though, with the Doctor working hard to make good for his guilt over what he did during volume two when he took over SERVEYOUinc. Stories include the TARDIS crew being split into three different dimensions, Cybermen show more intervening during a civil war in ancient Rome, and the Doctor facing down his mother. They're weird, off-kilter stories, and all the better for it. There's no point where this ever feels like it's trying to be the telly version! The Doctor's guilt is a strong thread here, and one I enjoyed: I don't think Matt Smith every played it quite this way in tv, but I think he could have, and quite well. This is a baggage-ridden Doctor, full of self-loathing, a characterization that occasionally lurked in the background; Ewing & Williams yank it into the foreground to good effect. Jones and ARC are written out in the this volume (I like how Jones went), and the ending promises that Alice will stick around for the next volume, which is good because I like her.

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As of this writing, I've dipped into Titan's offerings for the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth Doctors; The Eleventh Doctor series is my favorite of the three. In my review of the first Tenth Doctor volume, I said it did what a lot of good tie-in fiction does, and hit the nostalgia button. After Life goes one better, and does what the best tie-in fiction does, which is offer nostalgia and the new. The writing of Al Ewing and Rob Williams captures Matt Smith's voice, and the art of Simon Fraser show more and Rob Williams gets his crazy kineticism across on the comics page.

On the other hand, it's hard to imagine Steven Moffat pairing Matt Smith's Doctor with a grieving middle-aged librarian, much less adding two more companions who are a David Bowie riff and a shapeshifting service robot. But Alice is a great companion, and while Jones is often more of a joke than a character, he's a funny joke, so I'll allow it. (ARC doesn't make much of an impression in this volume, to be honest.) And while Revolutions of Terror was often (though admittedly not always) trying to be tv episodes on the comics page, the stories in After Life feel like they are told like comics. I especially appreciated their usual done-in-one nature; this volume collects five issues but four stories, whereas Revolutions of Terror did two stories in six issues.

The stories are vibrant and dynamic and out there, but also emotionally true. My favorites were the opener, "After Life," with its focus on depression, and good use of color, and the batshit insane "What He Wants..." (#3), where Alice and the Doctor accidentally pluck Alice's mother's favorite pop star out of time at the beginning of his career and transport him to 1931 Mississippi, leading to a series of escapades that results in Bessie (in the form of a monster truck!) careening through the delta while a blue musician blasts a crowd of zombies with his guitar. Oh my god, what? So good, and the kind of rapid-fire invention that one reads Doctor Who comics for. (I find it interesting how this comic is written. In this collection, Ewing & Williams co-write the first issue, but take turns on subsequent stories; Ewing goes on to write #2 and 4-5, while Williams pens #3. Maybe not coincidentally, I found the two solo-penned by Ewing more traditional, though still strong work.) And even though these are mostly done-in-ones, the writers are clearly working through a long-term plan, I look forward to seeing it unfold...

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Absolutely loved this. The Eleventh Doctor’s voice and expressions are spot on, and I loved Alice from the get-go, how she took things in stride when travelling with the Doctor. I liked that they time travelled to famous gigs and saw the first gig of a young man who clearly is modelled on David Bowie. His draft version of “Space Oddity” had me cackling, because I am secretly four. I also liked how the chapters built on each other but felt self-contained as well, so that if you’d had show more to wait a while between issues, there wouldn’t be too much to catch up on. Lovely stuff. Looking forward to Volume 2! show less

The first set of Eleventh Doctor comic adventures introduce a new companion (between the Ponds and Clara), Alice Obiefune. I immediately love Alice, because she's:

1. a library assistance, and her job skills are shown as valuable on adventures with the Doctor.


2. she's a character who is depicted as grieving and depressed, and her storyline is handled accurately and sympathetically.


3. she stands up to the Doctor's condescending ways and challenges his assumptions.

There adventures include picking up show more another companion, John Jones, who is a thinly veiled David Bowie from the late 60s before he becomes famous. Basically he's there for running Bowie gags while the focus remains on Alice as companion. They also visit with Robert Johnson in 1930s Louisiana, who happens to already be acquainted with the Doctor. But the main conflict in various places in space and time is standing up to the evil SERVEYOUinc, and not always meeting their agents in chronological order.

The Eleventh Doctor comics are refreshing and fun, and I hope keep up the good work, because the Tenth Doctor comics kind of became as slog. show less