By Justin McCarty

I love doppelgangers; they are one of the coolest tropes out there. The evil twin, the traveler from another dimension, and the time traveler; all versions. It’s a little hobby of mine to look for people’s doppelganger. Using the evil twin motif and setting us up to be unsure of what is real is what makes this short series interesting. Alterna continues to turn out original, imaginative comics. Whether you think newsprint is a gimmick or not, (I like it) they keep making engaging comics. 

Dennis is a married man with a young daughter, working a dull day job, and generally living an unremarkable life. He gossips with his coworkers, and his boss makes life hell, again, a man living a normal life. He is in his usual routine when he is rear-ended by an old man. It turns out the old man died at the wheel causing the collision. Dennis, dazed and concussed, finds the old man dead in his car. Despite the incident, he continues to work where he is browbeaten by his boss and job rival, Steve; a major source of frustration for Dennis.

 After work, Dennis takes a ride from his buddy, Ricky, who I hope we’ll see more of. He has dinner with his wife Melissa and his daughter, where he discusses work. He then puts Sarah to bed and walks the dog. An ordinary evening. When Dennis returns from the dog walking, he sees himself coming out of the front door! The Doppelganger tells Dennis he has 36 hours to live, he’ll never see his wife again, or she’ll die, and maybe he should just make the best of it. From there Dennis has to come to grips with what is happening to him. Is this real? What’s real?

I love this comic because it takes a familiar framework and does something different with it using a very interesting central character. This feels fresh because Hart grounds this in a world that looks very much like the real world. Our protagonist is an everyday guy. There are no magic spells, no flying cars. Javier’s line work puts us right there in the character’s world, grounding us. After setting up this world for us they throw a paranormal juxtapositioning element and the turn the stakes all the way up!  What is going to happen to Dennis in the next 36 hours?

The evil twin plot device is a well-worn trope in all mediums, the concept itself has been around since early man, as far as I can tell. It’s such a fluid idea that it can be used for paranormal, futurism, and mythical stories and genres. The look-alike phenomena exist within psychology, with real documented conditions of people hallucinating visions of themselves. An imaginative storyteller has so much room to play around. The paranormal and psychological show up in this comic. Dennis has a concussion. Is his brain affected somehow? Could this all be in his head? Is this really a demon he was unlucky enough to cross paths with? Is he losing his mind?

The doppelganger is perfect for exploring the human condition. That’s why it is so familiar. The mirror image of a life. How could a life be lived in an opposite way? Could your look-alike solve your marital problems? Turn your career failures into successes? Stand up to your bullies? Make better grades in school? This comic is in good company - from Dostoevsky to Star Trek.

Score: 4/5

Doppelganger #1
Alterna Comics