Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #11 - A Review

Stumbling across a powerless cargo ship in the middle of deep space is par for the course when The Doctor takes The TARDIS out to run a simple errand. It turned out to be far worse than a dead battery, however, as Bill quickly discovered the ship's cargo included 500 Heavenly Hosts and the ship's crew were mysteriously disappearing. Has this batch of Hosts gone bad?  Or is there something even more sinister on the ship?


Francesco Manna's artwork continues to be the worst aspect of this series. As in last month's issue, the level of detail varies wildly from panel to panel as does the quality of inking. Some pages such as the one above, are well-done. Others, like the one below, feature backgrounds that are ornately displayed with characters that seem to have escaped from a quick sketch! Another problem is there's often very little relation between a character's expression and the mood indicated by the dialogue.


I'd like to say that Richard Dinnick has redeemed himself this month after a rather static and cliched opening. Unfortunately, this issue sees The Doctor spending most of the issue pushing buttons while Bill gets into trouble. Cliched? A bit. And I'm afraid I jinxed myself with a comment in last month's review that has me actively dreading the next issue.

The Final Score: 5 out of 10. Competently done, mostly, but only the most devout of Whovians can stomach this one.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #10 - A Review

A space station adrift. A suspicious lack of crew. A prime target for investigation, if you are The Doctor.







If you commanded a creative team to craft the most cliched Doctor Who story possible, they might come up with something close to Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #10. Granting that the series was built on certain tropes, one expects better of Richard Dinnick than the standard "starbase under siege" story. The one saving grace is that, despite the word "Angel" in the title, the story does not involve the return of played-out Weeping Angels.

The artwork by Francesco Manna is surprisingly uneven, given his excellent work on the Dejah Thoris/Irene Adler team-up series. While doing a good job of caricaturing the cast, the level of detail used in rendering the characters frequently differs in individual panels. There's also some proportion problems, with Nardole looking like a small child next to The Doctor at one point. The colors by Hi-Fi, however, are fantastic.

The Final Analysis: 4/10.  This team could and should have done better.

Swords of Sorrow: Dejah Thoris & Irene Adler #3 - A Review

Irene Adler is returned to London and just in the nick of time!  For the alien beast Mycroft Holmes recruited her to track down is still on the loose. So is Dejah Thoris, who has really not enjoyed her time in London at all and would have words with the woman she thinks tried to assassinate her!


After two rather exciting and witty issues, the final third of Swords of Sorrow: Dejah Thoris & Irene Adler proves surprisingly weak.  Given how artfully Leah Moore had avoided the same-old-scenes where the heroes fight because of a misunderstanding, it's sad to see the sum total of this issue's action devoted to that cliche. And the conclusion involving the final fate of the wild Martian beast is a little too pat for my tastes.


The artwork by Francesco Manna seems seems somewhat rushed at times. There are a number of panels set in the mid-distance where there is hardly any detail at all on the individual characters and barely any inks separating the characters from the backgrounds. There are also some moments - like the top panel in the page above - where it seems a panel break would have been more efficient than layering one bit of the artwork on top of the other.

Swords of Sorrow: Dejah Thoris & Irene Adler #2 - A Review

Unlike the other Swords of Sorrow tie-ins thus far, this issue does not feature our titular heroines teaming-up or fighting one another. Instead we find them trading places, with Dejah Thoris now lost in Victorian London and tracking the Martian monster that is terrorizing the city. At the same time, Irene Adler tasks herself with chasing down an equally displaced big-game hunter, who is launching a one-man invasion of the city of Helium.


Leah Moore's script compares and contrasts both protagonists with surprising subtlety. Both Irene and Dejah are strong-willed women who suffer fools poorly and refuse to feel out-of-place on an alien world. But that is where the similarities stop.

Much like her famous foe Sherlock Holmes, Irene Adler is unabashedly oblivious to the feelings - or indeed existence - of the people around her. She can't even be bothered to ask the name of the cab driver she recruits as a sidekick, never mind remembering it! By contrast, Dejah tends toward a more holistic view of the world around her, at one point admonishing a crowd not because she was insulted for her scanty dress but because they stood idle and let anyone be treated so rudely. And Dejah has more than a few words for a certain Mr. Holmes when their paths cross...


The artwork for this issue is equally delightful. Francesco Manna finds the perfect balance of rich detail and fluid simplicity in the pencils and inks. And the color palettes utilized by Inlight Studio are well chosen.

Swords of Sorrow: Dejah Thoris & Irene Adler #1 - A Review

In the royal palace of Helium, Dejah Thoris ponders two mysteries - the disappearance of her ally Tars Tarkas and the gift of a strange sword.  It is as dark as the night sky and strong as any metal on Barsoom, yet as light as a feather in her grip.

On another world in another time, Irene Adler is concerned with two mysteies as well.  She's been secretly hired by Mycroft Holmes to track down an otherworldly creature that attacked the House of Commons and finds herself in possession of a remarkable new sword-cane. But she is not the only one hunting the lion-like beast and the secret of its origins will bring two equally remarkable yet completely different women face to face.


Leah Moore's script for this issue is wonderful.  The lion's share of it is devoted to Irene Adler and the story is largely told from her perspective in a wonderful emulation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's oeuvre. Then we reach the bits with portals leaving to other planets, an English big-game hunter being let loose on Mars and half-naked, red-skinned amazons in the streets of London and this book becomes sort of original pulp lunacy Moore excels at writing.


The artwork for the issue is of similar high quality. Francesco Manna fits an amazing amount of intricate detail into the backgrounds, faltering only in how forced some of the character poses seem. The color art by Inlight studios, however, is without fault.

All in all this is a rollicking ripping yarn that lives up to the concept of this crossover!