In this review of Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #2, The Doctor gets the little girl to the surface of the mall as Ruby finds some new friends. Meanwhile, an antagonist finally reveals himself.
Title: Doctor Who Issue 2
Writer: Dan Watters
Artist: Delsey Ramsay
Color Artist: Valentina Bianconi
Main Cover: Roberta Ingranata
Variant Covers: Kelsey Ramsay, Megan Huang
Release Date: August 14, 2024
This review contains spoilers.
Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor — The Story
Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #2 begins as our antagonist of this story shows us with an explanation instead of telling. He decides to use Bruce Cotton. Bruce is terrified of heights. He is so scared in fact that he refused to leave with the evacuation ships leaving him in the mall. To demonstrate his point, the antagonist gets Bruce alone and turns off the lights. This forces Bruce to climb up to the catwalk to check the fuse box. He is terrified but he does it anyway giving the antagonist joy. Then with a snap of his fingers, the catwalk collapses causing Bruce to plummet to his death, screaming all the way down. The antagonist bottles this scream but it is not enough. He wants the scream of a Time Lord.
That brings us to the Doctor. He is stuck in the basement with a little girl he is trying to protect. He is being attacked by the zombie Cybermen. The Doctor gets an idea, he convinces the child to close her eyes while he does the same, the Cybermen vanish, they were not real. He rushes to find Ruby.
Ruby has been separated from the Doctor, she is scared and she feels she is being stalked by something. It turns out that the something’s are afraid of her, they are an insectoid species. Then is scared of being crushed and squished. With the help of the Tardis key, she is able to communicate with them and convinces them that she is not a threat and tells them about the Doctor.
in the mall the Doctor comes across a crowd of people. They are standing over Bruce’s body. Then the antagonist speaks into the child, Maria’s mind trying to coax her to scream for her mom., then the zombie Cybermen attack. The Doctor tries to convince the people that they are not real but he fails.He snatches the girl and takes her to the Tardis. He plans on finding Ruby with the Tardis. The Doctor starts to materialize then the antagonist stops it. The Doctor exits the Tardisand the antagonist decides to materialize over the Tardis.
Analysis
There is no change to the art in Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #2. The art continues to show the story and in a way, the art actually leads the story. Instead of a monologue, the antagonist actually narrates the art to show us what he is planning to do. This is how the medium is supposed to operate. Do not tell me, show me.
The theme of this entire story is fear and the power it generates. It is true that fear can be a powerful emotion. Psychologically, it can trigger the fight or flight reflex that Cain spur a person to either run or fight their fears. This is shown in the tragic case of Bruce. He actually surprises the antagonist in that he chooses to face his fear but in turn that makes his final scream, that much more appetizing.
He is targeting the Doctor because as a Time Lord with numerous lives and experiences, he expects his scream to be th most satisfying of all. Unfortunately he does not take into account the Doctor’s vast experience. He has faced the Cybermen in numerous incarnations and as a result he understands who they are and what their motivation is. He questions why they are stalking this child, she cannot possibly help them in any way, this question leads him to test and show that a hypothesis that they are not real is true. Possibly a better choice would have been the Darleks, they hold a dark place in the Doctor’s memory.
Final Thoughts
This story explores the power of fear. It considers it one of the most powerful emotions. So powerful it must be bottled up.
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