Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor #12 - A Preview/Review

Faking the death of his companion Tara Mishra and setting up Rose Tyler as an examiner from Earth, The Doctor framed himself for murder and arranged to be sent to The Hesguard Institute - an Arkham Asylum in space for the most wretched examples of humanity. Why? So they could all investigate the new "Bad Wolf" process that purges people of their negative emotions and projects those emotions into emotionally blank beings called Sin-Eaters.

Unfortunately, the process had unforeseen side-effects when applied to a Time Lord who has done a lot of things he regrets. And now The Doctor's dark side is rampaging around what remains of The Hesguard Institute...







This second half of Sin-Eaters may have the fastest downturn in quality I've ever seen in a two-part comic book series. The sloppy, unfinished artwork of Adriana Melo is a large part of the problem, with the horrifically rendered gestalt Doctor from the final page of the last issue now rendered as a simplified Space Hulk.

I can usually suffer Melo's art for a good Cavan Scott story, but Scott isn't at his best this time around. His characterization is shockingly off, with The Doctor disturbingly undisturbed at the prospect of destroying a space-station full of relative innocents and Rose Tyler - whose courage impressed even The Doctor - reduced to the role of a panicky bimbo who says they need to talk about "acceptable safety standards"!

Martha Jones lovers may be pleased by this story but the vast majority of Doctor Who fans won't be.

Final Analysis: 4 out of 10. It's a nice take on Jekyll and Hyde and the caricatures of Christopher Eccleston in close-up are spot on. But that's about the only good things I can say about this comic.



Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor #12 releases on April 26, 2016.
Ask for it at your local comic shop or purchase it on Comixology.com.