Beautiful Freak [COMIC/2001.5.3]

★★★★☆

  It's rare that Doctor Who ever devotes a story to explore the immediate repercussions of a previous story — but when it does, it's often pretty darn amazing.

  Beautiful Freak is a delicate piece about acceptance, that of oneself and of circumstances. Scott Gray is obviously a dab hand at writing for the Eighth Doctor and Izzy Sinclair; the Doctor is heartsbroken and willing to help whatever the means, and Izzy has a very human reaction to being denied her own body and trapped in a stranger's. She's distraught, not just by the immediate prospect of having to adjust to new limbs, new bodily systems and new looks... but also the thought of having to live in a completely different way, to be endangered to prejudice and hatred. Most of all, she has no way of knowing if she will ever be herself again, and that's a fear every reader can relate to.

  It's extremely sad, it's touching, and it's ultimately powerful. With a short but riveting text so rich that entire essays could be written on its various possible allegories (seriously, it's such a good moment of Doctor Who when the Doctor assures his friend about how what matters is within, how that will never change), Beautiful Freak is one comic strip no one should miss.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  I don't think I've cared for a companion as I do for Izzy in quite some time. Hats off to the people who've created, written and drawn her. It's touching because of the normally romantic and suave Eighth Doctor's deeply sympathetic and caring reaction to her predicament, yes, but this is her show through and through. Character pieces have seldom been this effective.