Doll is a character that appears in the Storm Dogs series by David Hine and Dougie Braithwaite. Her birth name is Alanna. The time is a distant future on the backwater planet Amaranth, a place where criminals and others move to live and work relatively hassle free by the galactic Union government. Doll is a wirehead, a person who allows their mind and body to be rented via sophisticated technology (“Head Trip”) by others seeking different experiences. While the experiences users seek are varied, clients hiring Doll always want sexual encounters.
Before coming to Amaranth. Doll had been in love with a woman who came from a high born caste and they had started a family. The woman’s parents were incensed by matters and Doll alludes to her life being threatened by them. The rough and tumble nature of Amaranth’s human settlement seemed to dull just enough the new found pain of her life.
A series of mysterious deaths on Amaranth attracts the attention of a law enforcement agency of the Union, the interplanetary government. An investigative team is sent to examine the bodies and the locations of their deaths. One of the team members is Jered Hofman, a forensic scientist, whom Doll encounters in a dive bar called the Snake Pit. Sensing that Jered is different, Doll’s curiosity is aroused and picks him up on her night off and seduces him back at her quarters. A relationship ensues despite Doll having some serious misgivings about Jered after discovering he overstepped personal boundaries. In a third scene with the pair, Doll has clearly begun to allow herself to become affectionate and romantically intimate, experiences and feelings that she’d denied herself since her relationship ended. Sadly, this new relationship doesn’t last as Alanna (Doll) becomes a pawn of the force behind the mysterious deaths.
Hat tip to Mey Rude at Autostraddle! Please read her Complete History of Transgender Characters article.
Read the Jered Hofman profile.
Doll was created by David Hine and Dougie Braithwaite. She first appears in Storm Dogs #2. Piqued your interest? You can purchase the Storm Dogs trade on Amazon!
All rights reserved David Hine and Dougie Braithwaite.
