“Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor” #9 and #10

“Could someone stop that SCREAMING please?”

The Doctor has lost himself in a hostile takeover of SERVEYOUinc, and it’s up to Alice, Jones and ARC to bring him back to his senses. And if that takes a little judicious cosplay, well, Alice is all for it!

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.  Here is a lesson the Doctor learns just a little too harshly when he develops a cunning plan to hit at the heart of SERVEYOUInc. by buying the company.  It’s a hostile takeover with good intentions. But ARC correctly senses fear – to “fear him – he is coming!” The fear is not from any of the sinster SERVEYOUInc. executives but the Doctor himself. He gets all he desires by becoming the Chief Executive, but it comes with a price of his soul, his personality, his heart.  But before he headed up to the corner office, he leaves Alice with a bracelet (which – – and this may just my Summer TV Binge playing tricks on me – – looks suspiciously like the Witchblade) that summons a hologram of the Doctor we know and love. The four rally the residents of SERVEYOUInc. to not only get back their friend, but save everyone else in this city from a corporate takeover of their creativity, energy, and freedom.

After a pair of issues with significant weaknesses and continuity errors, I’m happy to see Ewing and Williams working in close lockstep with these two issues. They tie this story back beautifully to the first pair of issues they wrote together, providing us the answer to what happened at the end of issue #2 with the entity we saw at the SERVEYOUInc. corporate offices and explaining the origins of the mysterious Talent Scout.  In spite of the references to SERVEYOUInc. in many of these issues, they have felt much like stand-alone stories.  That’s great for readers who are dipping in and out of the series, not so much for those reading sequentially week to week (such as we are here). Here, we finally get cohesion of narrative and connecting of dots I waited all this run (to date) to see. There is not a wasted moment in these two issues, no side plots that start but do not finish.  It is streamlined, action-packed, compelling, storytelling.  From the tension building with a panicky ARC to moments of humor to the heartfelt emotion from Alice that saves the day, Ewing and Williams put together a two parter that reads like a finale, but also opens a door for new adventures and even some new potential for Alice as a Time Lord. (Classic Whovians will like that Easter egg; had Doctor Who continued for another season in 1990, the companion Ace would have left Sylvester McCoy to travel to Gallifrey to train as a Time Lord.)

I guess Rob Williams can predict the future?

Like the script, this artwork also fires on all cylinders. I’ve complained in the past about art in these comics not always looking photorealistic to Matt Smith.  With this two-parter, the fact that the Doctor doesn’t always look like himself is not an issue, because the Doctor is not himself. The opening pages of “The Rise and Fall” give us a playful Raggedy Man executing his hostile takeover plan with frenetic energy and a devious grin, and close with a sinister Christopher Eccleston clone with a corner office and expense account. John Jones continues to try on new personalities; for this arc he’s part Miami Vice Don Johnson sharp dressed man, and then part David Bowie Aladdin Sane. (I’m still trying to figure out what role John Jones plays in this entire series past comic relief; the fact that our artists are trying on all these different persons underscores that they continue to search for the identity and purpose of Jones as well.) Boo Cook and Simon Fraser take advantage of the city setting to play with detail and color, giving us a shiny, slick SERVEYOUInc city, John Jones/Xavi Moonburst’s costume and care, and the final explosion of SERVEYOUInc. city. While you know this city isn’t the safest place to be for our principals, you’ll certainly enjoy looking at it.

I would also be remiss if I did not mention the stellar artwork on these issues’ main covers.  Brian Williamson’s cover for issue #9 (“The Rise and Fall”) hammer home the theme and tone of the issue in its simplicity.  With the Doctor on his knees and a “SERVE YOU” backdrop, you know what the Doctor will be up against without having the issue’s secrets completely given away. Blair Shedd’s cover for “The Other Doctor” (issue #10) contrasts in its fun and whimsy: Alice looks adorable in the traditional Eleventh Doctor getup.

But there’s two panels in this pair of issues that hit home for me, and hit hard.  And I’m going to get real for a moment, so strap in. (Trigger warning for discussion of mental illness.)

I suffer from depression and anxiety, and have for the better part of a decade. I’m fortunate that I had the capacity to seek treatment without prejudice, but anyone who suffers from mental illness knows, sometimes there’s no such thing as being fully cured. And this particular week, all sorts of things – – business, romance, and miscellaneous (to quote “Giant Days” #52)  – – preyed on all sorts of my insecurities.

Your friends are secretly laughing at you behind your back and really don’t need your companionship anymore now that there’s another younger, skinnier, sexier model around.  You’re really not that good of a writer. Who’s going to want to have an interview with you – – especially when they see you in person? Your coworkers think all this comics stuff is stupid. Why are you spending all this time wasting your time on this comics stuff when you have a secure day job? You’re nothing but a fraud, and a dried up old hag to boot at 41.

There’s no basis for any of these in fact. None. But when you have mental illness, fact doesn’t matter.  Your brain shouts the lies loud enough to drown out the fact.

If the SERVEYOUInc. talent scout offered me whatever I wanted in this state, to take my problems away, make me slimmer, sexier, younger . . . well, I woudn’t have thought twice on that offer.  Price be damned.

And then Alice gave me pause. Alice has her pain from losing her mother, getting her back, and then losing her again in the worst possible way. Alice doesn’t want to carry this burden.  But Alice also knows it is what makes her whole, makes her real.  It is a part of her, it is her story.  It is part of where she’s been and what brought her to the Doctor today.  Strip that away, and Alice is not Alice. Strip away what makes me . . . me, those passions, that pain, those flaws, those warts . . . and there’s nothing left but a shell.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized I would rather carry that pain, because it makes me the person I am. It hurts like hell and tortures me and has me crying myself to sleep at night.  But I accept it, like Alice does. I work to overcome it, knowing some days it will be easier than others.  Whatever it is, whatever form it can take each day, It makes me whole. It makes me human.  It makes my story.

And all of these lines across my face
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I’ve been
And how I got to where I am
– Brandi Carlile, “The Story”

Next week, the shapeshifting ARC will have center stage in issue #11, “Four Dimensions.”

If you’d like to read along with me this summer, all issues of the series, single and trade, are available on Comixology. If you are in the United States or Canada and your local library has access to the Hoopla Digital service, you can make Alice happy by borrowing single issues and trades from the series via your local library.