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.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #7 - An Advanced Review/Preview

Following an unexpected detour to a barren Atlantic island in the 9th century, The Doctor and his companion Bill Potts found themselves caught in the middle of a stand-off between a group of Viking settlers and a team of Martian Ice Warriors. Thankfully, The Doctor was able to convince both sides to work together against a common menace - the sentient virus known as The Flood!

It beggars coincidence that two of The Doctor's old enemies should encounter each other in this place at this time. When another monster from The Doctor's past emerges, he can hazard a guess as to who is responsible. However, that knowledge may not be enough to save The Doctor and his allies even if he is correct!





The artwork fails this final chapter of The Wolves of Winter. Three artists working on a single issue rarely produces a quality work and the old adage about too many cooks proves accurate here. Even if the visual continuity weren't shattered by the wildly varied styles at play, there's no comparison between the levels of quality presented by the artists involved.

It's a damn shame because Richard Dinnick's story is a brilliant one and it deserved a better presentation. Weaving together the strands of older Doctor Who tales as the base for his own epic, Dinnick has managed the near-impossible. The Wolves of Winter is that rare continuity-driven story that is easily accessible to new readers. Fans of Classic Who and New Who alike will enjoy this Twelfth Doctor tale... if they can just get past the artwork.

The Final Analysis: 6 out of 10. Richard Dinnick wrote a great story but they should have let Brian Williamson draw the whole thing.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #7 releases September 20, 2017. 

Ask for it at your local comic shop or purchase it on Comixology.com.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #6 - An Advanced Review/Preview

Unexpectedly arriving at the site of a Viking expedition, The Doctor and Bill were stunned to find they were not the only recently arrived visitors from the heavens. The good news is that the other new arrivals - a party of Ice Warriors - are not looking for a fight. The bad news is they've come to Earth to dispose of a threat from their home-world of Mars - the sentient, water-traveling virus known as The Flood!




As a Doctor Who trivia buff, I love it whenever the media outside of the show attempts to build upon the mythology and link certain elements. In this case, everyone's favorite Martian frienemies - The Ice Warriors - are finally given a connection to the menace from The Tenth Doctor's penultimate adventure, The Waters of Mars. Yet this second chapter of The Wolves of Winter proves a ripping yarn on its own merits and shows Richard Dinnick to be a skald as skilled at spinning tales as he is recanting history. Paired with the amazing art of Brian Williamson and the colors of Hi-Fi, this book should be on every Whovian's pull list.

The Final Analysis: 10 out of 10.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Year Three #6 releases August 23, 2017. 

Ask for it at your local comic shop or purchase it on Comixology.com.