The Doctor (Wildstorm)
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The Doctor is a name of several fictional characters in the Wildstorm universe. There is always only one Doctor at any given time, who is the latest in a long line of shamans protecting the entire planet. Each doctor is as powerful as the sum of all preceding Doctors, each of whom was also as wise and powerful as the sum of all preceding Doctors, hence, each new Doctor is more powerful than his immediate predecessor. The Doctor's vast magical abilities can do almost anything, as long as he can conceive and believe in his abilities in poetic terms, although more powerful feats can take their toll both on the Doctor and the planet's ecosystem.
When a Doctor dies, their spirit goes to the Garden of Ancestral Memory, where they can be visited by the current Doctor, and advise him.
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[edit] First Doctor
The first of the modern day Doctors appeared in Change or Die graphic novel and is an African-American. He was a member of a group called 'The Changers, led by the idealistic superhero, The High. The group also included the first Engineer. The group’s goals were to change the world by removing the structure of society itself. Ideally, there would be no more laws, authoritarian structures crime or war. The Doctor drugged all of London with the hallucinogen DMT. His place in The High's plan was to initiate a program of public education about the natural resources of the world, such as plants and magic, to show people a whole new world just sideways of the current one. Stormwatch attacked the group’s base to stop them and the Doctor was killed by a Hammerstrike Deep Sanction Missile, a bio-war payload and tailored acid bomb. The Stormwatch field troops did not want the Doctor or his allies to die, but they had been tricked by their own leader.
The Doctor is seen many times afterwards as part of the collective Doctors in the Garden of Ancestral Memory. He is the one who converses the most with Thornedike, providing hints, clues, inspiration and a voice of resistance when enemies use brainwashing techniques.
[edit] Renegade Doctor
In the Earth Inferno and Other Stories graphic novel, a pioneering heart surgeon became The Doctor in 1966. 18 months later, in the summer of 1967, he had murdered the population of three entire countries in alphabetical order. He was stopped by the combined force of every superhuman in the planet, plus the fact he had drunk every single bottle of Dom Perignon that existed at the time. The Doctor was stripped of his powers, kicked out the Garden of Ancestral Memory and incarcerated in a privately-owned temporal prison 20 million years in the past. From this place, he was still able to convince the planet that humanity was killing it, which caused it to devastate various large cities including New York City and the Vatican. When Thornedike recovered, the Earth still listened to the Renegade Doctor and not to him. The Midnighter tortured the Doctor into revealing all the Authority needed to know. To prevent the Earth from reversing its magnetic poles, the Renegade Doctor needed Thornedike to transfer his powers back to him for an hour. Brought to the present, he was granted his wish and a fight against The Authority and other-dimensional back-up ensued. The Doctor murdered all the backup heroes, retroactively molested the current Engineer and almost killed the rest of the team. Moments later, fifteen extra senses kicked in, part of the powers every Doctor wields. These senses included having empathy with every living creature in existence, which overwhelmed him. Apollo then killed him and the Engineer kicked off his head.
[edit] Jeroen Thornedike
| The Doctor | |
 The Doctor - Jeroen Thornedike, by Bryan Hitch |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Wildstorm |
| First appearance | "The Authority" #1 |
| Created by | Warren Ellis Bryan Hitch |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Jeroen Thornedike |
| Team affiliations | The Authority |
| Abilities | Shaman abilities inherited from every Shaman who came before him, that included changing reality and flight. |
Jeroen Thornedike, a Dutch heroin addict, was destined to become the next Doctor and a member of The Authority.
Jeroen was "a multimedia millionaire by twelve, a dot-com billionaire by twenty, and staring into space in a psychiatric home by the age of twenty-one". He eventually gave away all his money and tried to have an ordinary life until the original Doctor died and Jeroen inherited his abilities. Jeroen refused to accept the responsibility and instead spent his days shooting heroin and playing Sonic the Hedgehog.
Jeroen was first contacted to join The Authority by Sparks and Swift, but refused to join and teleported them away. After contacting him a second time, Sparks shot herself in the head, forcing Jeroen to use his powers to revive her. He joined the Authority soon afterwards.
During the "Earth Inferno" storyline Jeroen married a rock star (hinted to be Courtney Love) and overdosed on heroin while on his honeymoon. He fell into a bizarre trance, unable to help while many disasters hit around the world. He recovered with the help of past Doctors. Later, he agreed to relinquish his powers to a previous Doctor, the Renegade Doctor. This was in an attempt to stop the Earth from trying to wipe out humanity.
In the "Transfer of Power" storyline, Jeroen was replaced by The Surgeon, a French alchemist who was given control over the Doctor's powers. He was carried around in The Surgeon's pockets, in the form of a doll, and used to scrub out stains from the man's underpants. The Surgeon was never accepted by the collective consciousness of the previous Doctors, because he brought in contractors to the area where the former Doctors met. Said invaders bulldozed ancient shrines and shot at and or killed the entities found there. The Surgeon even supervised "Religimon," an entity designed to be a new corporate religion. The Surgeon died when The Midnighter shot him in the head. Jeroen instantly recovered his powers.
Thornedike died in The Authority: Revolution from a drug overdose given to him by Rose Tattoo on orders from Henry Bendix, who then captured his soul to point him to the next Doctor, Habib Ben Hassan. He was later freed by Jenny Quantum.
[edit] Habib Ben Hassan
| The Doctor | |
 Habib Ben Hassan as the new Doctor. Art by Gene Ha. |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Wildstorm |
| First appearance | "The Authority Revolution" #9 |
| Created by | Ed Brubaker Dustin Nguyen |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Habib Ben Hassan |
| Team affiliations | The Authority |
| Abilities | Vast magical abilities and ancestral knowledge from being Earth's Shaman. |
Habib bin Hassan was a young Palestinian suicide bomber, destined to become the new Doctor after Thornedike. Within the first 24 hours of inheriting his new powers after Thornedike's death, Habib engineered a peace in the Middle East that actually had a chance of surviving. However, Henry Bendix had captured him before any more work could be done. Bendix imprisoned Habib in a cell on his carrier where he was cut off from his powers. He was secretly freed by Jenny Quantum and joined in the battle with Bendix, Rose Tattoo and Bendix's alien followers. During the fight, Habib turned Rose Tattoo to the side of the angels, making her the Spirit of Life instead of the Spirit of Murder.
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