After Life

"How do you feel about helping me catch a rainbow dog? Because I think that might be fun."

Writers: Al Ewing & Rob Williams

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 26th February 2015

Printed in: Doctor Who Comic #1

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Alice

Synopsis 

After rebooting the universe with a second Big Bang, the Doctor has seen his new friends Amy and Rory married, and given them a honeymoon to remember.

Leaving the Ponds to settle into their newlywed life, the Doctor is travelling the cosmos alone, checking for anomalies in Reality 2.0 - a mission that's about to change his life, and that of Londoner Alice Obiefune - forever!

Verdict

Well here we are again! This time it's on the official release day of the wonderfully good Doctor Who Comic from Titan Comics that allows us living in the UK to read what the Twelfth, Eleventh and Tenth Doctors are getting up to in their respective timelines! Yesterday saw me read part one of Terrorformer with the Twelfth Doctor and current companion Clara but today sees me delve back into After Life, the debut of the Eleventh Doctor in this series of comic adventures. Seeing as today is the official release of the new comic, I thought I'd talk a little about the physical comic itself. I went into my local WH Smith expecting to find it amongst the monthly comics such as the Incredible Hulks or the Amazing Spider Man but instead it was situated amongst the kids magazines next to Doctor Who Adventures. That disappointed me a little because these comic strips specifically are certainly not aimed at the younger viewer who would read DWA. I think the comic itself is very good and is slightly larger than the US versions of the comics housing the same adventures I was lucky enough to get. It's brilliant that we actually have a comic to purchase every month as well as the comic strip in DWM. To me, there is a distinct difference between a comic and a comic strip. I just love the comics! So here we are, set between A Christmas Carol and The Impossible Astronaut, the Doctor certainly got up to a whole load of things whilst the Ponds were absent! The introduction of Alice as companion is a very good one, though my rating suggests I enjoyed it slightly less than last time which is a shame. But nonetheless, I liked how we caught up with Alice following on from her mother's funeral. Things were just going from bad to worse for her. Evicted from her house and hearing that her best friend was moving away. She was on a massive downer. However, it looks like that'll soon be cured as she ran into the Eleventh Doctor on the streets of London! What was he doing? Chasing a giant rainbow dog. Yup, that's the Doctor in a nutshell really. Despite its ridiculous appearance, I loved how the rainbow dog was actually an empath and the thing it most wanted was to remove the sadness from someone it held dear. A giant pink squid of course. I thought it was good how the Doctor actually went back to Alice because she was so sad. The Doctor definitely notices things like that and it was nice to see the rare compassionate side of this Doctor. The reference to Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead was excellently thrown in with Alice being a library assistant. The Doctor knew immediately that they'd get along splendidly because she was clever! He liked that and concluded it was because of the books she was often living in. It was nice how he showed her around the TARDIS and it was good to see the swimming pool once more! The theme of the Doctor not keeping pets but making friends was wonderfully portrayed throughout and once Alice opened the TARDIS, she became companion in my eyes. The Doctor must have been devastated that he missed out on the "it's bigger on the inside" moment because the TARDIS was upside down. Not what he was hoping for I'm sure. I enjoyed the scenes in the House of Commons and with these comics being (presumably) written by Americans, their depiction of the Prime Minister as pretty much a baby was superb. It'll be spot on if disaster strikes in the next election and Ed Miliband gets into Number 10. Surely not though. The way the Doctor solved the issue of the rainbow dog was lovely with the love story being complete. The Prime Minister was still on the floor asking for his money by the time things had been resolved! Did he not trust UNIT? It was good to see them appear even if only in a cameo role. Overall, a good introductory story for the new comic series and Alice as companion. The characterisation of this incarnation of the Doctor was captured very well and I can't wait to see what the brief glimpse of the Time Lord means in future stories! 

Rating: 8/10