In remarkably fallow week for new releases, it’s extremely fortunate that the Doktor is back in. Although to book is scarcely living up to it’s volume two pitch as being restored to a regular schedule, thankfully the delays are small enough not to fully disrupt the flow of the story as the title downplays it’s initial futuristic tone in favour of a little Dark Night-style anarchy. For once, the wrap variant of the issue sports a fitting image, with the sketch of Sleepless blasting away on an organ being the perfect metaphor for the eruption of Heavenside’s society which began at the close of issue eleven. But that’s not to say that some people aren’t keeping their eyes on the bigger picture…

After taking several issues to build up his supporting cast, the book is now able to fly perfectly well despite only providing an outsider’s view of the Doktor actions, allowing the reader to appreciate the political and social forces which are responding to Sleepless’s actions. This time, Warren Ellis structures an extended scene featuring Detective Singer to combat one of the criticisms that might be levelled at the plot, making it clear that the psuedo-scientist’s manipulations are only obvious to those with a detached perspective, a criteria that applies to the readership as well as the more detached Eastside gang. There’s also a rather disturbing co-incidence here, with the writer introducing a plotline about police brutality being exposed through the blogsphere’s dissemination of amateur video footage in the very week that the outcry over the dead of Ian Tomlinson caused the Met and IPCC to start treating the incident with at least some of the seriousness it merits.

The main departure for this issue is the broadening of scope in the final pages, as Ellis expands the Doktor’s scope to including the American healthcare system, with Reinhardt using disenchantment with the status quo as the latest vehicle by which he can advance his apocalyptic intentions. Despite the sharp reminder at the close of the instalment of the forces that are ranged against the Doktor, there’s a strong feeling that he is winning here. Despite the warning at the outset, no one has truly begun to consider the scope of his intentions. Sleepless remains an essential read, with an absorbing mixture of futuristic vinaigrettes and a double inversion of the standard mad-scientist and conspiracy theory archetypes.