Annabel Lake
Annabel Lake was a human who met the Doctor when she was a little girl. Her mother died shortly after their first meeting, and Annabel held a grudge against him. She joined MI6 and became involved with her father's project, Wonderland. She moved to Cornucopia with her father under the alias of a Toliakk called Miss Ghost. She met the Doctor again there twice.
Biography
Prague
Annabel was born in England, but moved to Prague with her parents as a young girl. Her father, Patrick Lake, told them that he worked as an accountant and that he had been transferred there, when in truth he was a spy working for MI6, investigating Yuri Azarov. In November 1989, Annabel and her mother, Heather, were kidnapped by Azarov. Here they met the Eleventh Doctor, who was also being held captive. They discovered the Golem of Prague and freed him from Yuri's control. The Doctor sent Annabel to sleep to prevent the Mavora from feeding on her fear and, while she was asleep, Heather became the Golem to save the world from the Mavora Collective. She was destroyed in the process. (COMIC: The Broken Man)
She attended her mother's funeral with her father, where he promised never to lie to her again. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone)
Training with MI6
Annabel trained to join MI6 and work under her father. She was first in her year at everything, having promised herself that she would never again be a victim. After the Cybermen's attempted invasion of Earth in 2005, MI6 decided to start operating in space, gathering intelligence, infiltrating the enemy and, when necessary, eliminating them, long before they reached Earth. It was around this time that Annabel discovered that her father had been blocking her transfer to UNIT. When she confronted him, he offered her a place on the Wonderland project. She was given converted cyber armour with some modifications, along with an Amaranian Star-Hopper on her birthday. She then started operating on Cornucopia, and Annabel and Patrick had moved there by 2012. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone, The Flood)
Operations on Cornucopia
Psychic Metal
At this point, Annabel was working for Granny Solasta, the head of ThiefCorp, disguised as a Toliakk called Miss Ghost. Here she met the Doctor for a second time, as he and his friend Rory were captured by Solasta, who wanted to use the TARDIS to get to the Bank of Heaven, a ziggurat made from the same psychic metal that had resulted in Heather's death, which Annabel was investigating, and which was sending Cornucopia into poverty.
The Doctor was forced by Solasta and the other crime lords of Cornucopia to take them to the bank, where he tricked them into fighting over its riches. Annabel tried to stop them but thought better of it, choosing to save herself. The Doctor managed to destroy the ziggurat and escaped with Amy, Rory, Horatio Lynk and Annabel. The Doctor then correctly deduced that "Miss Ghost" wasn't a Toliakk, and Annabel turned off her disguise. However, the Doctor had no idea who was under the suit as he had not yet met Annabel as a child and she didn't take off her helmet anyway, instead hinting that she knew him and that she'd be seeing him again soon. (COMIC: The Cornucopia Caper, Hunters of the Burning Stone)
After Granny Solasta's death, Annabel and Patrick continued to live on Cornucopia. Annabel was still disguised as Miss Ghost, and was now working in port authority. Continuing her investigation into psychic metal, she boarded Captain Pala's ship, using the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to access information. However, her cover was blown just after she found stores of liquid psychic metal. While the ship's crew were attacking her, the ship was attacked by the Hunters. Annabel grabbed a member of the crew, Tarky Pakko, and questioned him, finding out that they got the liquid from a mining ship in the Kell Nebula. She destroyed the liquid metal just before the Hunters could get to it, prompting them to destroy the ship. She then opened a portal to escape, leaving Pakko behind.
The Hunters proceeded to attack Cornucopia. Annabel followed them and once again met the Doctor, this time accompanied by Ian Chesterton. She demanded that he told her what he knew of the Hunters, and took Barbara Wright hostage. Barbara struggled and they both fell back into Annabel's portal. They emerged on Annabel's ship, where Barbara confronted her and demanded to know who she was. She took off her helmet and introduced herself as Annabel Lake and revealed that she blamed the Doctor for her mother's death. Barbara introduced herself, and the two witnessed the Doctor, Ian and Patrick's confrontation with the Tribe of Gum and the Prometheans. Now able to track them, Annabel explained her past to Barbara, before saying that now that she has a face and a name, she also has a target.
They followed the energy wake to Earth-space, and were attacked by the hunters. Barbara spoke with them and persuaded them to let them past, promising they would speak again soon. After watching the Prometheans regress the human race to the stone age, they used a short range teleport to infiltrate their neuron platform and rescue the Doctor, Ian and Patrick. When the Doctor accused Patrick of turning Annabel into his toy soldier, she was quick to defend him, telling him he failed and her mother payed the price, and what they do now they do to honour her. She demanded that he made himself useful and thought of something.
The Doctor left in the TARDIS and returned to the neuron transmitter, using the psychic gauntlet to reverse the Promethean's indoctrination of the human race, and transforming the transmitter to the shape of the TARDIS. Patrick tried to launch a full strike on the platform, but Ian protested. Barbara asked Annabel to give them a chance to stop the Prometheans their own way. She asked if she had a plan, but Barbara admitted that she was just trusting her instincts. Annabel told her that sometimes instinct is all they have, and that if she kept trusting it, then she would trust her. She opened a portal to the platform for Ian and Barbara and witnessed them persuade the hunters that compassion is the greatest strength they can ever have. When the Prometheans attacked them the hunters chose to protect Ian and Barbara, and a fight broke out. Patrick ordered Annabel to open fire while they were vulnerable, but she refused. When he tried to do it himself she forcibly stopped him, telling him he loved him, but he had to see that the hunters, their ancesters, are their only hope. The hunters and the Prometheans destroyed each other in the chaos. Annabel then continued to pose as Miss Ghost on Cornucopia. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone)
Azrael
At some point, Danny Fisher joined Annabel and Patrick on Cornucopia. The three ran an operation to infiltrate the Obsidian Mainframe in order to monitor every transaction that took place there. They planned to lure the Doctor there to rescue five Kindred of Fel, an endangered telepathic species that was being auctioned by Mr Minus to be eaten. Danny would disguise himself as Londi Kalo, a humanoid goat-like cabbie, and deal with the Doctor, while Annabel took the identity of "crazy old diva" Donaria Strul, pretending to have an interest in buying the mainframe. When the Doctor overloaded the mainframe, he unknowingly provided a diversion, which Annabel used to plant "spyders", tiny robot spiders that would hack the mainframe. Their mission a success, Annabel and Danny returned to Cornucopia. (COMIC: Pay the Piper)
When they learned of 1930s pilot Amy Johnson's presence on Cornucopia, Patrick suspected the Doctor's involvement. After finding that the Doctor had returned to the planet, they watched him and discovered that he had lost his TARDIS thanks to them using him to hack the mainframe. The Doctor later visited her in Miss Ghost's office. She initially threatened him, but he reminded her that he hadn't blown her cover. When he asked for her help in tracking down Azrael, a dangerous necrotist from ten thousand years ago who had somehow returned to life and bought the TARDIS on the mainframe, she rejected him, saying that Cornucopia was not her priority. The Doctor reminded her that the people on Cornucopia weren't threats. When Danny, still disguised as Londi Kalo, entered the office, the Doctor figured out that they had used him to hack the mainframe and cost him the TARDIS. He angrily told them that they owed him.
They took him to their headquarters, where the Doctor and Annabel found Azrael's location with the combined power of their sonic screwdrivers. Patrick sent the Doctor, Annabel and Danny through a portal, and they emerged on the Wasting Wall, Azrael's supposed masterpiece. After picking up tech signals, the three found a scientist who was working for Azrael on a weapon called the Mercy that turned people into blood statues. The scientist killed himself in order to beceome a part of the Wasting Wall, and Annabel tried to use his equipment to track the data feed back to Azrael. However, it was booby trapped, and her sonic caused it to explode. The Doctor and Annabel were knocked unconscious.
When Annabel awakened the Doctor, they assumed that Danny was buried under the rubble. However, they had found the TARDIS, parked on a pedestal and coated in the Mercy. Azrael appeared, and Annabel shot at him, only for her and the Doctor to be captured. He used a psychic wand to dismantle her gun and both of the sonic screwdrivers, and removed his mask to reveal his true identity: Danny Fisher. While working in the mainframe he had stolen Azrael's mask from an auction and found that it contained his memories and skills. He had designed the Mercy to destroy alien life but spare humans, planning to use the Mercy-coated TARDIS to destroy all life - and all threats to Earth - in the universe. Annabel pretended to go along with his plan in order to get free but quickly turned on him, stealing the psychic wand and using it to free the Doctor. She then fought Danny while the Doctor tried to stop the TARDIS. Danny gained the upper hand and went to kill her, but she grabbed the wand and fried him, leaving only a skeleton, much like the scientist they had encountered earlier. The TARDIS then took off with the Doctor holding on, but there was nothing that Annabel could do to help him.
Later, after the Doctor had stopped the TARDIS, he rejoined Annabel on Cornucopia and the two watched the Lifesong Carnival from above the city. Annabel reassured him that she didn't blame him for her mother's death, and said that she'd be looking for monsters a lot more carefully now. The Doctor wished her luck and gave her a spare sonic screwdriver to replace the one that Danny destroyed. Shocked, she asked him why he was trusting her. He told her that it was because she trusted him, echoing a similar conversation he had had with her mother. (COMIC: The Blood of Azrael)
Behind the scenes
- Annabel Lake's name and story resembles that of Amelia Pond, in that they both met the Doctor as children before he eventually returned to their lives as grown ups. On this connection, Scott Gray, her creator, wrote in the Hunters of the Burning Stone graphic novel, "My starting point for the character was that she was a mirror image of Amy Pond, but a tragically distorted one. Young Amelia meets the Doctor on an amazing night brimming with glowing phone boxes, giant eyeballs and fish fingers and custard. The brief encounter leaves her with a burning, lifelong desire to recapture that magic. Annabel also meets the Doctor as a child but on a very different kind of night — one composed of giant monsters, underground prisons and the death of her mother. The Doctor isn't a magical figure for Annabel; he's a harbinger of horror."
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