Doctor Who #16 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Doctor Who #16 proves a worthy conclusion to the Dead Man's Hand storyline.  More, it proves to be a fitting capstone for the IDW Doctor Who series.  We don't know who might pick up the license to publish more Doctor Who comics in the future but we can only hope they will prove to be as good as the IDW series was 90% of the time.



Tony Lee's script brings everything to a satisfying and logical conclusion - no easy task in a story involving Oscar Wilde in the American Old West, an alien invasion, Calamity Jane, Thomas Edison and the stone-skinned zombie of Wild Bill Hickok!  The only real flaw with the story is that Clara is given surprisingly little to do in the final battle save offer moral support.  Indeed, Clara spent most of this storyline on the sidelines and its' a bit jarring given what we've seen The Impossible Girl do in the past.  



Mike Collins' artwork continues to be serviceable but hardly outstanding.  Collins is a fair caricaturist in his close-ups but he becomes sloppy in the middle and far distances.  Heavy inking also contributes to the overall loss of fine detail throughout the book.  Despite this, the book is still an enjoyable read.

Doctor Who #14 & #15 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

I somehow managed to miss Doctor Who #14 last month and didn't realize it until I saw #15 in the shop this past weekend.  Thankfully, the matter was easily rectified and I was able to get caught up on what happened after what was - if  memory serves me correctly - a most enjoyable set-up.

The Doctor and Clara find themselves in Deadwood at the same time that Oscar Wilde is conducting his famous North American tour.  Strangely enough, stone-skinned masked men are gunning down the people of Deadwood without guns - including one that Calamity Jane swears is the long-dead Wild Bill Hickok himself!  Naturally The Doctor is all too willing to throw on a Stetson and play Marshall but could there be more going on than even he suspects?  Almost certainly...



Tony Lee depicts Smith's Doctor as a delightfully dorky man-of-action.  Things go a bit far in one scene where The Doctor ponders whether or not he prefers being ignored or having people try to kill him but for the most part Lee perfectly captures Smith's manic energy.  Indeed, the only major flaw with Lee's script is that he may be trying to do too much with this story. 

Teaming The Doctor with one historical figure would be story enough.  Here he is teamed with four of them, ignoring the people of Deadwood itself!  There are also multiple villains in play but the readers are unlikely to complain even when the historical bits get a bit cumbersome.  The best sequence of the book, bar none, involves all the incarnations of The Doctor getting involved in a psychic legal defense of The Doctor's life. 



Mike Collins' artwork is oddly uneven in both issues.  He fares well enough in the close-ups and does a decent enough job depicting the various Doctors as well as the historical figures involved.  Yet some panels are over-inked and Collins' artwork loses all detail in the middle and far distance.  This leads to some oddities and inconsistencies in the artwork but nothing that distracts overly much from the final package.

Doctor Who #13 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

While Doctor Who is frequently described as a series where anything is possible, rarely is this idea pushed in a historical context.  "Cities made of song and people made of smoke" are all well and good but you can't just go mucking about with "what might have been" in history.  Even when history itself is apocryphal and filled with more tall tales than any sci-fi dime novel, it just isn't done! 

And yet, with Doctor Who #13, Tony Lee has done it and done it well. 




The central conceit of this issue is that a young Oscar Wilde - who did travel the length and depth of America in 1882 - found himself in Deadwood, South Dakota at the same time as "Calamity" Martha Jane Canary.  At the same time, The Doctor and Clara make a day-trip to Deadwood.  And, yet again at the same time, there are rumors that the legendary Wild Bill Hickok has risen from the dead to seek revenge as a mysterious masked gunfighter, who kills with a gesture instead of a gun. 

Lee balances all of these stories and subplots like a plate-spinner.  More, he manages some truly touching character moments, such as Wilde and Clara bonding over booze as Clara tries desperately to avoid pitching story ideas to a Wilde who is years away from writing his most famous works of fiction.  Amazingly, there are hints of even further complications in a story that already has three good stories running through it at present time.  This story may well justify the four issues being devoted towards telling it.


Artist Mike Collins shows the same skill here he did in the recent Fourth Doctor chapter of Doctor Who: Prisoners Of Time.  The characters from the show and historical figures are well caricatured and Collins proves an effective visual storyteller.  The panel layout is logical and the story flows smoothly without any confusion.

Bottom Line: If you're a Doctor Who fan, this story is a must read.  Fans of western comics in general and good historical pieces may also wish to give this one a shot.  Seeing the legendary Oscar Wilde in the equally legendary locale of Deadwood is worth the price of admission alone. 

Doctor Who #12 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

WARNING: The following review does contain spoilers for Series 7, Part 2 of the Doctor Who TV Series. It might also contain spoilers regarding the upcoming 50th Anniversary Special. Read no further if you wish to remain unspoiled and know that this comic is bloody brilliant and well worth reading, even if it is read a few months from now.


This month's issue of Doctor Who will be of interest to fans of the show for one reason above all others. A flashback at the start of the comic seems to confirm what, so far, had only been speculated - that the Time Lord we saw at the end of The Name of The Doctor was an incarnation of The Doctor from the time of The Time War.  One who refused the name of The Doctor and who fired the metaphorical bullet that removed The Time Lords from the universe. 


Ignoring even that factoid, there is much to admire in this issue.  Writers Andy Diggle and Eddie Robson have built upon Diggle's story The Hypothetical Man and created a villain truly worthy of The Doctor.  More, they give a depth of character - and dare I say, a level of sheer awesomeness - to Clara Oswald that she did not receive in the television program.



If this issue has a weakness, it lies in the artwork of Andy Kuhn.  Khun's style is good and a worthy fit for the Steampunk aesthetic of this story but his work in this final part of the Sky Jacks storyline does seem somewhat rushed and uneven at times compared to previous issues.  Still, the overall affect is a good one and this issue has more good than bad and a few parts that are honestly great. 

Doctor Who #11 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Part Three of Sky Jacks continues smoothly from where Part Two ended, without pausing for a moment.  Trapped in a seemingly endless limbo on-board a steam-powered World War II bomber, The Doctor and Clara have solved the mystery of where they are and why they can't summon The Doctor's ship - The TARDIS.  Naturally, the answers (i.e. they're somewhere inside The TARDIS) just lead to further questions as our heroes quickly find themselves under attack and at the mercy of a new enemy. 


Fans of the show may complain that this story by Andy Diggle and Eddie Robson seems derivative of the second half of Series 7, with Diggle's new villainous mastermind seeming to be an ersatz copy of the main villain of that series.  While the similarities are there and this story has quite a bit in common with the episode Journey To The Center of The TARDIS, one can hardly fault Diggle and Robson for the similarities given that they must have had this story written months before the new series ever aired.  Taken on its' own merits, this is a crackerjack Doctor Who story with plenty of tension and humor to thrill and amuse the reader.


I've said before that I don't find the artwork of Andy Kuhn aesthetically pleasing.  That is not to say that it is bad - merely that as a fan I prefer cleaner, less-stylized art in my comics.  Yet I cannot deny that Kuhn's style with its' heavy inks and exaggerated characters is a perfect fit to the dirty, Steampunk aesthetic of Diggle and Robson's story.

Doctor Who #10 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Picking up right where last month's issue left off,  Doctor Who #10 continues this dramatic steampunk storyline as our heroes find themselves trapped in a strange empty void with no ground and few safe zones.  The Doctor seems to have been trapped for slightly longer than Clara, claiming he has been working as "The Smith" who fixes all the broken things for about three years.  Of course that's a drop in the bucket for a Time Lord - he's far more concerned about the fact that his best efforts to find the TARDIS (let alone summon it) have proven unsuccessful. 



The script by Andy Diggle and Eddie Robson is full of the wit and humor one would expect of a story featuring the Matt Smith version of The Doctor.  More, there's an honestly engaging mystery at the heart of the main plot, to say nothing of the subplot involving the secret mission of the American pilots Clara befriended.  The fast pace of this issue more than makes up for the slow start last month, as we see The Doctor coping with the multiple mysteries as well as the hostile aliens who run the local Black Market.


Andy Kuhn's gritty art style matches the story perfectly in it's dirty but straightforward simplicity.  Best known for his work on the series Firebreather, Kuhn's artwork isn't pretty but it is full of detail and character.  That's not usually my cup of tea, but for this story it works.

Doctor Who #9 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Whovians may find themselves confused at first by Doctor Who #9 - the first story in this comic series to feature Clara Oswald as The Doctor's companion.  There's quite a lot here that doesn't seem to match up with what we know of Clara from the second half of Series 7.  Chief among the problems are Clara's staying on The TARDIS over-night when the series depicted her only going on day-trips with The Doctor.  Also, the library of The TARDIS doesn't match its' recent appearance in Journey To The Center Of The TARDIS.


Thankfully, the fans who can work past these problems or think of a clever hand-wave (The TARDIS can easily have more than one library or the desktop could have changed) will discoverer a wonderful story with a steam-punk theme.  The focus is upon Clara along with a crew of WWII-era American Air Force pilots.  All of them have been stranded in the same strange pocket dimension, whose weaker gravity allows steam-powered engines to be practical. And where is The Doctor in all of this?  Spoilers. ;)  


The artwork by Andy Kuhn is simple but serviceable.  Kuhn's style is sketchy and highly stylized.  Normally, it wouldn't be the sort of art I'd enjoy but I think it fits the dark and dirty setting well enough.  It may not be pretty but it does set the mood effectively. 

Doctor Who #8 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Doctor Who #8 begins with a helpful recap for those who might have missed Issue #7.  It's a nice touch which harkens back to the classic days of comics and it doesn't seem at all awkward as it comes from The Eleventh Doctor talking to himself out-loud about what's just happened and how he can deal with it.  It sounds very much like Matt Smith and Joshua Hale Fialkov deserves praise for that nice touch.  Sadly, that's one of the few things I can praise him for.


I mentioned in my review of the previous issue that the drama of the story rang false, given that the main problem (i.e. The Doctor is trapped on a dead ship in Earth orbit surrounded by flesh-eating monsters that thrive on darkness) came about because of a completely unexplained event that flew in the face of established characterization (i.e. The TARDIS sealing itself so The Doctor couldn't get into it).  That problem continues in this issue, when we find out the Vashta Nerada still managed to get inside The TARDIS despite it sealing itself so they couldn't get inside. 

How?  Because the story says they need to so there's a little more drama after The Doctor and his Special Guest Companion Cosmonaut Alexey Leonov solve the problem of moving a dead rocket out of Earth orbit and into the gravitation pull of the inert TARDIS.  It's a minor point, but it does make the whole story feel forced.  Honestly, the story would have worked just as well without the Vashta Nerada being involved at all.


Thankfully, the art team is still top-notch.  Andres Ponces and Horacio Domingues doe a bang-up job of caricaturing Matt Smith.and a young Alexey Leonov.  Inker Ruben Gonzales utilizes just the right amount of shadow to highlight and darken everything.  I may grouse about the plot of the book but I have no complaints about the artwork.

On the whole, this issue is worth picking up if you already got last month's issue.  You have to know how the story ended, right?  However, if you're a newbie Whovian who is just getting into the comics, I'd advise you to download the first two issues of the current series instead of this two-parter. 

Doctor Who - Prisoners of Time #4 - A Review

It's been a few months since I picked up Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time.  As you may recall, I was less than impressed with the first issue and the cost of the issues ($3.99 each) left me thinking I might be better off waiting for the inevitable trade collection.  Still, the Tom Baker incarnation of The Doctor is my favorite and my Friendly Local Comic Book Shop saw fit to set aside a copy of this issue for me.  So I decided - why not?  I'll give it a go again.  And I'm quite pleased to have done so.


Visually, this book is a definite improvement on the first issue.  I found the style reminiscent of that used for depicting the adventures of The Fourth Doctor in the old Marvel UK Doctor Who comics.  The established characters are all well caricatured and the action of the issue flows well from panel to panel.  Hats off to Gary Erskine and Mike Collins for a job well done! 


In terms of story, this issue is on par with the first and continues the idea of telling previously untold tales of The Doctor's past with elements from the new series being added in.  The plot focuses upon The Fourth Doctor, his best friend K-9 and his current companion - the savage warrior woman Leela.  The trio must locate a stolen jewel before the planet they are visiting is torn apart by the Judoon mercenary police officers who have been brought in to locate the gem at any cost.  The script by David and Scott Tipton is fun and well-paced, perfectly capturing the spirit of all the established characters.



I'd rate this comic as a Must-Read piece of work.  The artwork is good, perfectly capturing the feel of a classic Doctor Who comic.  The story is action-packed and interesting.  Really, there's no good reason not to get this comic if you're a fan of Doctor Who in general and The Fourth Doctor and Leela in particular. 

Doctor Who #7 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Had I been fully paying attention when I picked up my most recent haul of comics this past weekend, I probably would have skipped this particular issue of Doctor Who.  Why?  Because had I looked at the cover for longer than a second, I might have noticed before I got home that this issue was written by Joshua Hale Fialkov.  The same man whose Casablanca-themed story "As Time Goes By" drove me off this title last year.  But I picked it up.  I read it.  And generally I liked it.


The plot of the issue has The Doctor - currently traveling solo - answering the distress call of a 1960s Cosmonaut spaceship.  He's arrived several seconds too late to save the first man to successfully attempt a space-walk from an encounter with the Vashta Nerada - the flesh-consuming shadows from Silence In The Library. Complicating matters is the fact that the other Cosmonaut on board the failing ship is Alexey Leonov - the man whom history records as being the first man to walk in space... on a later trip.

Fialkov's take on The Doctor continues to bother me somewhat, being the same idiot man-child Matt Smith occasionally - but not always - plays at being.  A bigger problem is the portrayal of the TARDIS.  And yes, the TARDIS is an active player in this issue. 

The main drama of the issue comes from The TARDIS sealing itself off, without instruction, leaving The Doctor and Leonov trapped on the Russian ship with a limited amount of power and life-support.  This troubles me somewhat as this sealing happened when the Doctor and Leonov were two seconds away from entering the TARDIS.  This leaves the main drama of the issue seeming incredibly forced.  I will credit Fialkov with having a unique storyline this time and in breaking with the usual British-centered view of Doctor Who to explore the reality of a real-life historical figure who has been largely ignored by Western historians.
 

While I may quibble about Fialkov's take on The Doctor, I have no complaints about the artwork.  Reminsicent of Mike Allred though somewhat more photo-realistic, Horacio Domingues and Andres Ponce do a fine job of depicting the action and caricaturing The Doctor with their pencils.  Inker Ruben Gonzales keeps the shadows mercifully thin throughout most of the book, adding to the horror once the darkness does become apparent.

All in all, this isn't a bad issue to pick-up if you're a Doctor Who fan looking for further adventures in print form.  The artwork is enjoyable and the story is well-paced despite whatever issues I may have with how goofy The Doctor is written and the forced-drama of the TARDIS sealing itself against "its' thief".  

Doctor Who #6 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Reviewing Doctor Who can be a challenge at times.  I frequently find myself feeling like a broken record, when my complaints and complements about one issue mirror my comments about the previous issue.  Such is the case with Doctor Who #6, which continues the trends set by Issue #5 for good and for ill.

The script by Andy Diggle blends various elements from stories involving the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors as The Doctor takes the Ponds on a cruise in space.  It turns out that one of the other guests is Lady Christina De Souza - a cat burglar who crossed paths with The Doctor once in his Tenth incarnation and has somehow gained the ability to travel between planets.  What she's up to winds up tying into a most unusual heist where multiple thieves pursue differing ends and even The Doctor is not entirely what he claims to be.


As one might expect with Andy Diggle writing, this is all a rollicking good read.  Diggle explains everything taken from the show for those few who might be reading this comic without having seen all of the stories he refers to.  There's some honestly shocking twists and those who worry about the morality of The Doctor allying himself with an unrepentant thief who steals for the heck of it will find themselves pleasantly surprised.


The artwork continues to be this book's weak point.  Josh Adams' artwork isn't all bad but his character designs are still inconsistent from panel to panel, managing to make even the alien creatures that are meant to look distorted seem off-model.  The colorist chose a poor palette which leaves Amy Pond looking like Daphne Blake from Scooby Doo and Rory Williams grey before his time.

If you're a Doctor Who fan who enjoys a good story no matter what the medium, you should give this issue and the one from last month a chance.  It should be a must read for any Doctor Who fan.  Avoid this only if you are one of those rare few who absolutely cannot ignore some shady artwork for the sake of a crackerjack tale. 

Doctor Who #5 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Looking back, the biggest problems I've had with with most Doctor Who comic book adaptations have always lain with the artists.  Talking with my fellow Wholigans, I find they're of a similar mind.  I don't know if it's because the characters' appearances are so ingrained in our minds because of the TV show that we judge any "off-model" artwork as utterly irredeemable.  What I do know is that Josh Adams' character designs are half-successful, at best, in capturing the essence of our heroes. 

There are some moments where Matt Smith's Doctor does indeed look like Matt Smith and other moments where he resembles Dick Van Dyke.  Rory Williams suddenly ages 20 years between panels, as his hairline recedes halfway up his scalp.  Colorist Charlie Kirchoff doesn't help matters, occasionally coloring Amy Pond's hair with the fiery red shade of Karen Gillan's locks and other times painting her as orange as Daphne from Scooby Doo!


Thankfully, while art issues are commonplace on Doctor Who, so are excellent scripts.  This issue proves no exception, as author Andy Diggle spins a tale that draws off elements of the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctor's tenures.  Having rescued The Ponds from a disastrous holiday that's left them stranded in a Spanish airport, The Doctor spirits them away on the maiden voyage of a cruise starship.  Surprisingly, The Ponds discover that the annoying rich woman bound for Utah who delayed their flight on Earth is somehow on the starship.  Even more astonishingly, The Doctor recognizes her as Lady Christina De Souza - the infamous cat-burglar who helped him save a bus full of people from The Planet of the Dead.  How did she wind up in deep space in the future?  The answers may lay in a mysterious vault in Utah, which The Doctor visited once before...


Diggle's story throws us several mysteries and long-time Doctor Who fans will appreciate the craft involved in mixing these previously uninvolved elements into a new story.  The issue also closes on a wicked cliffhanger that will leave you desperate for the next issue.  If you haven't given Doctor Who a chance in comic form and can deal with some jammy artwork, this would be a good book to cut your teeth on.

Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time #1 - A Review

With Doctor Who's 50th anniversary this year, it's only natural that we'd see quite a bit of media looking back at the rich history of the world's longest-running science-fiction TV show.  Enter Prisoners of Time - a 12-issue mini-series which - based on this first chapter - will show readers something of every one of The Doctor's eleven incarnations.  It spoils little for me to say that this chapter is largely devoted toward The First Doctor and establishing the unifying trend between this and the upcoming chapters.   



Prisoners of Time is a also a fine example of the twin problems a creative team faces with adapting an established series from one medium into a comic book  For the writer, the problem lies in crafting a story appropriate to the series they are adapting.  Doctor Who allows for more freedom than traditional science-fiction shows but it still has a certain bouquet that must be matched to feel authentic.  For the artist, the problem lays in caricaturing the established characters so that they are recognizable without creating the appearance that they are tracing photographs.   



Writers Scott & Paul Tipton meet the first challenge ably.  Prisoners of Time feels exactly like the start of an extended Doctor Who story.  We open with an unseen figure plotting against The Doctor, considering what is known about him regardless of incarnation and deciding the best way to deal with The Doctor is by separating him from his companions.

We then launch into a likely scenario for The First Doctor to engage in - taking a journey to introduce his companions to his old friend, the biologist and educator Thomas Huxley.  We learn of Huxley's past in an information dump similar to the ones used during The First Doctor's tenure, when Doctor Who was still nominally an educational show for children.  Thankfully, this section is rather brief and we are quickly swept up in an adventure involving the ant-like Zarbi from the classic First Doctor story The Web Planet.


Simon Fraser doesn't fair so well in meeting the challenges required of a Doctor Who artist.  While he does a fair job caricaturing William Hartnell and the other Doctors in the close-up panels, he does a poor job of caricaturing the rest of the First Doctor's cast.  Vicki in particular comes off looking badly misshapen.  Some of the Doctor and Companion portraits we see at the start of the issue are incredibly vague and indistinct, with Adric only being identifiable by his star-badge.  Thankfully, Fraser's visual storytelling is top-notch and the action from panel to panel flows well even if the actual figures appear warped.    
 

Would I recommend this book?  That depends upon your fondness for The First Doctor and your tolerance for dodgy artwork.  I think the story was good and perfectly captured the spirit of the early Doctor Who episodes but the artwork is just too uneven for me to justify buying this book on a monthly basis.  I'll probably pick-up the inevitable TP collection but at $4 a monthly issue for a regular-size comic, this series isn't quite good enough for me to justify the expense.  I may change my tune when Issue #4 comes around (Tom Baker is my favorite!) but for now, I'll have to suggest giving this one a miss unless you're a die-hard Doctor Who collector or if your wallet is a bit fuller than mine.

Doctor Who #4 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

Doctor Who #4 continues the tale of The Doctor and The Nurse, which began in the previous issue.  As Amy Pond grows sick of "her boys" bickering, she concludes that what the flighty Doctor and the dependable Rory Williams need is some male-bonding time without her getting in the way.  Leaving them alone in a pub, she goes off to wander around 1814 London by her lonesome.

Rory and The Doctor don't agree on much but they do agree that taking the TARDIS forward a few hours so they don't actually have to talk to each other is a brilliant idea.  Of course the TARDIS, being as temperamental as she is sexy, doesn't take them where they want to go because there's somewhere they need to be.  And so begins a glorious comedy of errors as The Doctor and Rory deal with many problems, large and small, all while trying to get back to 1814, where Amy has uncovered some trouble on her own. 


I described Brandon Seifert's scripts as delightfully mad last month and I am hard-pressed to think of an more apt description that that this month.  We catch glimpses of what would be the beginnings of about five or six great Doctor Who episodes here - The Doctor meets James Bond creator Ian Flemming back in his own days as a spy, someone shrinks New York City and sets a regular size gorilla loose in it, The Silence trigger the infamous London Beer Flood - all this and a thousand dancing Daleks!  Well, not really, but they wouldn't be out of place amongst all the rest of the chaos.  The whole experience is enjoyable, coming off as an extended version of the Pond Life trailers created by Steven Moffat which showcased some of the Doctor's solo adventures as he sent letters "home" to The Ponds.  Seifert captures the spirit of the characters from the show perfectly and anyone who felt Amy was less proactive as a heroine in the recent Series 7 episodes will be glad to know she holds her own in this story.


The art team of Philip Bond and Ilias Kyriazis match Seifert's script perfectly.  The look of this book is cartoonishly stylized, but appropriately so.  The action is quiet silly and the characters well-caricatured.  This book looks as fun as it is, which is a rare thing to see in a comic book these days.

Bottom line: this story may not be for everyone.  There are serious Whovians who will look at this and stroke their chins and mutter tut-tut and wonder why nobody in 1814 London makes a fuss about Amy Pond's mini-skirt.  The rest of us will merely laugh, throw a pie in their face, shout hurrah and enjoy this silly little spirit of adventure.

Doctor Who #3 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

One of the more annoying aspects of Steven Moffat's time as the show runner on Doctor Who has been the constant return to the idea of Amy Pond having to chose between the exciting Doctor and the dependable Rory Williams.  It was false drama, for we all knew that The Doctor had nothing to offer Amy apart from adventure and Rory proved his worth to Amy time and time again.  Paradoxically, one of the best aspects of the show from this time was Rory Williams attitude toward The Doctor, which was heightened by the same conflict.  Rory was an everyman with an attitude, ready to snark at The Doctor whenever something went wrong (which it frequently did) and more than willing to puncture a hole in The Doctor's pomposity.

Writer Brandon Seifert - best known for his self-published horror/medical comic Witch Doctor - explores this conflict in this, the first part of The Doctor And The Nurse.  After their latest adventure results in everyone coming even closer to death than usual, Rory and The Doctor nearly come to blows.  Amy concludes that her boys need some quality male-bonding time without her getting in the way. 



Naturally, because this is a Doctor Who comic, things don't go quite that smoothly.  Amy's plan to enjoy some alone time in the relatively quiet year of 1814 are put on hold after she notices an agent of The Silence walking about and decides to investigate it herself.  And The Doctor and Rory, mutually agreeing that this male-bonding stuff is a bunch of bollocks, decide to jump ahead a few hours in the TARDIS before Amy gets back from her walk.  This results in a series of adventures involving tuxes, moon landings and prehistorical animals as Amy's boys try to get back to the right time.

Seibert's script is as delightfully mad and light on logic as anything you'd expect to see on the regular Who series under Moffat's tenure.  One can almost hear the crazy montage music that plays whenever we see The Doctor running through several time periods in rapid succession, as we see him and Rory poking their head out of the TARDIS and trying to figure out where they are.  Never mind that the TARDIS instruments should easily enable The Doctor to know where and when they've landed or the fact that Amy is able to wander around Dickensian London in her trademark mini-skirt without being arrested for indecent exposure.  This story is pure fun and there's no time to worry about such logical plot holes when you get to see Rory Williams smacking a saber-tooth tiger across the face with a rolled-up magazine.    


The artwork by 2000 AD artist Phillip Bond  is manic enough to match the script.  Bond does a good job of caricaturing the cast of the show, though his general style is more cartoonish than realistic.  However, given the comedic tone of the story, this proves to the benefit of the issue.  Bond is also an excellent visual storyteller and the action of the story flows smoothly from panel to panel under his pencils.

If you haven't been reading the Doctor Who comics of late, this is a grand time to jump on!

Doctor Who #2 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

If you're a comic fan who knows quality creators, I shouldn't have to do anything to convince you to pick up Doctor Who beyond mentioning who is working on it now.  The script is by The Losers and Green Arrow: Year One author Andy Diggle.  The artwork is by Fables artist Mark Buckingham.

You need to know more?  Oh, okay.  I guess I can write a proper review.  But it really isn't necessary.  The book really is that good!


Continuing the action of the first issue, our story opens upon The Doctor and The Ponds investigating a mysterious device constructed by a pair of Victorian spiritualists.  Unlike their seances, the device is quite real, quite dangerous and responsible for paralyzing several people... including Rory!  Concluding that the frozen people are having time stolen by a hypothetical being, The Doctor finds himself fascinated by a wonder he's never encountered before.  Amy, of course, is less interested in the metaphysical implications of a man who isn't there forcing himself into existence and more interested in how the heck she's going to get her husband mobile once more.


Andy Diggle's script is as good as any found on the TV series, perfectly capturing the voice of the regular cast while establishing some interesting original characters.  Diggle does a particularly fine job of playing up The Doctor's arrogance and hubris, becoming more concerned about exploring a mystery than saving lives.  You truly feel like you're reading an actual episode - a surprisingly rare feeling with many Doctor Who comics!  Mark Buckingham's artwork perfectly matches the script, going far beyond merely caricaturing the actors from the show.  Those who only know Buckingham for his work on various Vertigo Comics series may well considering picking this book up purely for his artwork, even if they aren't Doctor Who fans.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - this book is amazing and a must read for all Whovians and anyone who enjoys a good yarn.

Doctor Who #1 (IDW Vol. 3) - A Review

If IDW Publishing had set out to find the perfect creative team to bring me back to the Doctor Who comic, they could not have done a better job than selecting Andy Diggle and Mark Buckingham.  Diggle, best known for his original series The Losers, has been a favorite of mine since his run on Hellblazer and the Green Arrow: Year One mini-series.  Mark Buckingham, an Eisner Award winning artist with a list of credits longer than a gorilla's arm, is perhaps best known for his work on Fables.  Two quality creators who deliver unto us a quality book.


Our story centers upon Charles and Emily - a young Victorian Era couple who have been forced by rough circumstances into earning a living as charlatan mediums, capitalizing on the booming interest in spiritualism.  But while the shows they put on are fake, Emily's talent for telepathy truly exists.  In addition to allowing her to read the minds of their customers to find out what they want to hear, Emily's power also has made her a receiver for a mysterious intelligence that sketches fantastic machines through Emily's hands.  Mysterious devices which have attracted the attention of The Doctor...

Diggle's script tackles a fairly standard Doctor Who trope (i.e. alien intervention/technology being mistaken for magic) but the presentation of the story is hardly standard.  Emily and Charles are well established as sympathetic characters who dislike being dishonest but are unable to think of any other way to utilize Emily's gift as the pursue what they see as holy work.  The regular cast is also well portrayed in their brief scenes together before the action starts.  And I want to shake Mr. Diggle's hand and thank him for presenting Rory Williams properly, with all of his earthy wisdom intact and in all of his sarcastic glory.


Buckingham's pencils are as strong as ever, though he does falter somewhat in depiction of The Doctor, Amy and Rory at some points.  He does some phenomenal portrait-quality sketches (see the above scan of Rory, looking out at the reader) but this only serves to make his less-detailed far-shots (see The Doctor above) seem more off compared to the close-ups where he gets it right.  It isn't bad - just odd.

If you're a Doctor Who fan, you'll want to pick this book up.  It's a must read for all Whovians.

Fourth Doctor in Star Trek/Doctor Who Crossover?

I'm not a Trekkie.  Or a Trekker.  Or whatever the Star Trek fans are calling themselves at the moment.  So I wasn't as excited as some about the upcoming IDW Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover mini-series... until I saw this!



Yes, that's Captain Kirk.  Wrestling with a Cyberman.  With the Fourth Doctor looking concerned and Spock looking remarkably sedate, even for a Vulcan.

Suddenly, I want to read this.

Doctor Who/Star Trek: TNG Crossover Comic On The Way

SOURCE: "Make It... Geronimo." - Doctor Who/Star Trek – The Official Crossover."

Somewhere, somewhen, a thousand fan-fic writers just punched the air and shouted "YES!"

One Good Thing And One Bad Thing About Doctor Who (2011) #4

GOOD THING: Tony Lee sets something up here which is actually a neat little "out" which explains away a lot of the minor little kerfuffles in recent Doctor Who stories. Namely, that there is a sort of temporal grace period before The Universe "accepts" a divergent timeline as "the normal way of things". This allows The Doctor and Rory, faced with the problem of finding a kidnapped Amy in 1888, to go forward in time to where Amy's death is part of a 2011 Ripper Tour of Whitechapel, find out where she was killed and then go back there to stop it.





While this has been hinted at in several stories which involved the characters mucking about with time travel (Father's Day and The Big Bang come to mind), this revelation helps explain way some of the problems caused by more recent stories, such as A Christmas Carol (where The Doctor goes back in time to change a miserly old man into a better person over a chain of Christmas Eves) and the Comic Relief specials Space and Time, in which The Doctor takes advantage of a paradox to solve the problem of what to do when The TARDIS becomes parked inside itself.


BAD THING: The artwork - once again by Tim Hamilton alone - is still bloody awful. It's marginally better this time, with Hamilton seemsing to have finally settled on a standard sense of proportions for Matt Smith's Doctor. Yet we still get random big Anime-style eyes on Amy Pond!







The Final Verdict: Tony Lee's Jack The Ripper mystery comes to a satisfying conclusion. What is more, it actually gives an official (and interesting) out to any future Who writers who wish to play about more with the rules of Space and Time Bill And Ted style. Pity the artwork is still rubbish.