Many Whovians say you never forget your first Doctor. I’ve struggled with who my first Doctor really is. Since I binged watched Eccleston and Tennant in order to start watching Smith as those episodes aired on BBC America, I kind of watched many Doctors in a short amount of time.
What I have realized is that there is only one Doctor that I actually miss and that is Matt Smith. I think it is because he is the first Doctor I’ve watched with millions of other people at the same time. I was able to talk about those episodes after they aired. It was a shared excitement that built throughout a season. The Whovian community is vast and conversing about our love of the Doctor creates a bond and I didn’t really get to experience that with Eccleston or Tennant because I watched them quite some time after they aired.
With no new episodes for months now, I’ve read a few books starring the 11th Doctor and they’ve been a mixed bag. Some of them captured the character, but many of them didn’t ring true. They didn’t match the quirkiness that Matt Smith brought to the role. I’m happy to say that this comic captures the 11th Doctor very well.
This issue, and I’m assuming the series, takes place during the time after Amy & Rory’s wedding when the Doctor traveled alone. Or so we thought. We are introduced on page 1 to Alice Obiefune and she’s a rather depressed woman. She’s recently buried her Mother, lost her job, is being kicked out of her apartment and her only friend in the world is moving. These panels are colored the same way as her mood: gray. That is until there is a splash of color that enters her world. That color just happens to be a large alien dog followed by a peculiar man in a bowtie. Little does Alice know that her life is about to change.
As I mentioned earlier, this issue does a great job of capturing the 11th Doctor. The manic energy is there. The half man-child, half wise old man is there. And most of all, the heart – or hearts - are there. The Doctor, with an infinite number of things to worry about, still manages to take time to meet with one person, one seemingly unimportant person, because they are sad. Why? Well, as the Doctor has told us before, “…in nine hundred years of time and space…I’ve never met anybody who wasn’t important before”.
The interactions between The Doctor and Alice make this book wonderful. I didn’t need lots of action, or lots of mystery because I found myself totally engrossed in the budding relationship between two strangers. This is how so many Doctor Who stories start and it left me wanting more. Ewing & Williams do a wonderful job on this first issue and drop a few hints that are left unexplained for future stories.
The art team of Fraser and Caldwell put together a solid start too. I already mentioned the coloring matching the mood earlier, but it really is a standout of this issue. Even though Fraser’s Doctor might not look exactly like Smith you know who it is supposed to be and he has several outstanding panels here. My favorite is the close-up of Alice, a single tear falling down her face, when she realizes the Doctor came back just for her. She was important to someone and it meant the world to her.
Yes, I’m reading this through the eyes of a Whovian that misses his favorite Doctor, but this issue hits the things that I love the most about Doctor Who. It’s a wonderful start and I’m left anxiously waiting for issue #2.
Oh, and there is a bonus Pond Life story at the end. You just have to read it and enjoy.
Writers: Al Ewing & Rob Williams
Artist: Simon Fraser
Colorist: Gary Caldwell
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