Physician, Heal Thyself

"The Dalek gods are born! Your failure is complete!"

Writer: Si Spurrier

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 25th May 2017

Printed in: DWC: Tales from the TARDIS 18

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Alice, Abslom Daak, River Song

Synopsis

With a trail of temporal devastation in his wake, and casualties mounting among his companions, can the Doctor find the truth at last about his Time War crime? And will that truth, once won, prove to have been worth the cost?

Verdict

Physician, Heal Thyself was a very good comic strip adventure that has brought to an end the second year of adventures for the Eleventh Doctor. It has been an eventful ride and I must say that it has required a lot of thought and attention given the timey-wimey nature of events. I must admit that despite how highly I have often rated the stories from this run that I do favour the approach of the Tenth and Twelfth Doctor segments of these comics in not having no continuously overriding story arc. This method was used for the Eleventh Doctor and Alice in the first year of stories and I was hoping for a change this time around but that was not to be the case. I was also saddened that we did not get pure adventures with just the Doctor and Alice but despite another packed TARDIS crew, I thought Alice massively improved this year. I am intrigued to see what the third year of adventures has in store for us but it seems that I have to wait until August to find out as there is another hiatus from DWC which is a real shame. I have jumped ahead an issue to read this story because it just seemed to make sense having read Gently Pulls the Strings yesterday and it is something that I have done before. I thought the pace of this one was very good and improved upon its predecessor in providing the reader with some answers as to what had happened. The Doctor mentioning that he knew about the Squire for some time now was unexpected but hardly surprising and I liked how moments from past stories concerning the Squire were flashbacked to. They revealed where the clues lay and I am sure that if I reread the entire second year, things would make a lot more sense but I currently have no intention of doing so. The Doctor seems to have taken a backseat in recent stories which is ironic given how the whole story arc is about clearing his name of genocide and that was sort of achieved here. I was a little sceptical at how loose all the knots were tied but that didn't take away from this individual story but was rather a criticism of the plot as a whole. The characterisation of Matt Smith's incarnation here though was excellent which is always great. I was quite surprised by his initial plan that involved killing the Squire. That was quite shocking but it did highlight just how desperate the Doctor may be when it comes to the Time War. Abslom Daak actually had a bit of an emotional moment which was a first and I loved the comment from Taiyin when she said how Daak could never imagine actually talking to her. That was very poignant. His obsession with killing Daleks is a bit obsessive and can sometimes go over the top but I thought it was a nice touch to place him in the Time War alongside the War Doctor to finish the story. That pretty much ends his association with the Eleventh Doctor which is absolutely fine by me. The reemergence of River Song was most welcomed and I loved how the relationship between her and the Doctor was effortlessly captured on the page in such short space. She's a wonderful character and I have enjoyed her inclusion in these stories. The connection between Alice and the Then and the Now was quite a surprise but it did actually seem to make sense amongst all the chaos that was ensuing in the resolutions. Overall, a very good story that saw some great characterisation and despite having a lot going on, it managed to neatly wrap things up for the second year of Eleventh Doctor adventures.

Rating: 8/10