Tony Black reviews Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor – The One Vol. 5…
The Doctor struggles to clear his name, and rediscovers more of what his War Doctor incarnation got up to during the Time War! Plus: the Squire uncovers her true past, and Alice cracks a temporal mystery. (While Abslom Daak uses his chainsword to bash things a lot) Guest-starring River Song, and the best jailbreak of ANY century!
The second trade issue collecting year two of Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor comics, ‘The One’ and it’s collection takes place roughly between the fifth and sixth seasons of Doctor Who, written by Rob Williams & Si Spurrier, and drawn by a variety of talented artists.
First up is an included short story from Free Comic Book Day 2016 called ‘Obsessions’, with artwork from Leonardo Romero, which wedges neatly in the middle of the ongoing narrative cutting across the second year of the comic. It sees the Doctor answering a simple question from his companion Alice Obiefune – why does he do what he does? Many companions have asked and none get a straight answer, but the Doctor, in discussing the nature of obsessions, here manages to flesh out further the psychology behind unpredictable, villainous companion Abslom Daak, on the TARDIS looking for his dead, beloved wife somewhere in the ship. It’s a small but nicely written character piece, as much as out Abslom as the Doctor, and slides neatly into the continuing story arcs and developments of the collated issues here, with some nice panels depicting a range of alien vistas Abslom sees along the way.
The first major story, covering issues six and seven, is ‘The One’ (also the overarching name of the trade), written solely by Williams & drawn by Simon Fraser & Leonardo Casco. We are right in the throes of the continuing season arc, in which the Doctor is attempting to figure out who killed the Cyclors, the murder of whom he has been blamed for, and a merciless time spanning bounty hunter called The Then and the Now has been sent to kill him in revenge. Williams here introduces River Song into the mix as the Doctor prepares a break in to a place which played a key part in the Fourth Doctor’s story back in the 1970’s (let’s not spoil where, but it’s a cool place to revisit) hunting for clues to clear his name.
Williams uses this as an excuse to try and capture the same repartee the Doctor and River had under Steven Moffat and on the whole he succeeds, but introducing her does lead to main companion Alice being sidelined a touch. Thankfully we have the great Abslom to chip in providing nihilistic lines as he attempts to murder everything in sight (he’s great comic foil) and the mystery of the Squire continues permeating the story. While it struggles to feel like a tale in its own right, so closely intertwined with the ongoing story as it is (and there’s a real Douglas Adams rip off at one point), Williams really does manage to make this Doctor’s adventures as serialised as Moffat did on the TV show – and while Fraser & Casco’s artwork isn’t the best, certainly in terms of drawing the main players, it adds up to a fun and enjoyable mid-season tale which compounds the overarching story.
‘Downtime’, the eighth issue of the run and another one-shot, written by Spurrier alone and drawn by Warren Pleece, very much continues directly on from ‘The One’. Determined to get some titular downtime, the Doctor brings his crew to a hive of scum and villainy where Spurrier gets to have some fun alongside continuing the story and character beats; the Doctor’s reputation which at this point was preceding him amongst aliens as a destroyer is played for laughs, and later Abslom’s own reputation is played for comedy and later a reflection on how he’s started to change without his raison d’être, aka Daleks to kill.
Alongside this the Doctor is in an uncharacteristic grumpy funk at how it looks like he may have killed the Cyclors in the Great Time War after all, and he’s increasingly snapping at poor Alice; Spurrier does a good job here of really showing the Doctor at increasing frustration breaking point, steadily coming to fear he can’t run away anymore from The Then and the Now and whatever he did. It builds to a suitably good cliffhanger, as the ongoing story compounds and puts River in peril, but overall it’s probably the strongest tale in this trade yet – and Pleece gets to draw some vibrant, exotic and Lovecraftian aliens which stand out well.
The ninth issue, ‘Running to Stand Still’, again picks up immediately after ‘Downtime’, written again solely by Spurrier and drawn by Casco. River is taken out of play, quarantined given something wants to erase her from time, and this allows Spurrier the opportunity to give Alice much more of a role, and retrospectively you sense that was all part of the grand plan. The Doctor has been increasingly irate with her lately, to the point of being out of character, but we come to learn there may be a reason for that – and it’s connected to what Alice has discovered in previous issues, that she may be the way The Then and the Now keeps turning up and almost killing them all at every given opportunity. Casco gets chance this issue to draw the planet Sssh aka Lujihimene, a former beauty planet which now looks very much like a Trenzalore graveyard, and makes this issue visually appealing as Alice attempts to invoke a super dangerous plan with Abslom which the Doctor isn’t privy to. Revelations and twists in the tale are coming thick and fast now and the build to where Alice’s fate, and the Doctor’s grand plan, is going is increasingly rewarding to read.
And in the final tenth issue of this trade, ‘First Rule’, written solo by Williams and drawn by Fraser, we are launched into a massive cliffhanger by the climax which leads Alice into the heart of the Great Time War, thanks to an unusual mode of transport, and to encounter a very grizzled version of the Doctor we never knew about for a long time. Even though this is a massively serialised story, Williams (and Spurrier) are cleverly layering in development for Alice who, beyond trying to unravel the central mysteries behind the narrative, is consistently looking to prove she is worthy of being a companion. The Doctor, conversely, faced not just with a furious Abslom and the prospect of someone he cares about dying, has to consider the nature of the companion and the cyclical idea of how they travel with him – all of these themes are rippling under a story Fraser draws wonderfully, with some fantastic visual moments mostly revolving around Alice’s journey. It’s not the end of the story, with the climax of the tale still to come, but this tees up a potentially explosive finale to Year Two very very well.
If you’re new to Doctor Who or the comics run of The Eleventh Doctor, ‘The One’ as a trade isn’t going to be easy to penetrate and soak up – but it’s not impossible. You can absorb the general beats of the story as you go but it might be an idea to grab ‘The Then and the Now’, the previous trade, and read that first to get the story beforehand which will provide important context to what comes next. It’s a cracking overarching narrative though with some really fun characters, good writing, decent (if not series best) artwork, and it very much fits the kind of stories we were used to seeing Matt Smith’s Doctor explore.
Rating: 8/10
Tony Black
