Review: Doctor Who: Conversion by Al Ewing, Rob Williams, Simon Fraser, Boo Cook, and Warren Pleece

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2015)
Acquired September 2018
Read June 2020

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, Vol 3: Conversion

Writers: Al Ewing & Rob Williams

Artists: Simon Fraser, Boo Cook, Warren Pleece
Colorist: Gary Caldwell
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This book wraps up the SERVEYOUinc storyline that's been running through these Eleventh Doctor comics, though first there's a cute story about an alien overlord who tries to take over the Earth by writing free comic books. The remainder of the book is pretty dramatic, grim stuff, though, with the Doctor working hard to make good for his guilt over what he did during volume two when he took over SERVEYOUinc. Stories include the TARDIS crew being split into three different dimensions, Cybermen intervening during a civil war in ancient Rome, and the Doctor facing down his mother. They're weird, off-kilter stories, and all the better for it. There's no point where this ever feels like it's trying to be the telly version! The Doctor's guilt is a strong thread here, and one I enjoyed: I don't think Matt Smith every played it quite this way in tv, but I think he could have, and quite well. This is a baggage-ridden Doctor, full of self-loathing, a characterization that occasionally lurked in the background; Ewing & Williams yank it into the foreground to good effect. Jones and ARC are written out in the this volume (I like how Jones went), and the ending promises that Alice will stick around for the next volume, which is good because I like her.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Tenth Doctor: The Fountains of Forever