Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen #1 - A Review

In 2006, The Doctor and his companions Rose Tyler and Captain Jack Harkness return to the London of Rose's time to find The Cybermen are three days into an invasion of Earth...

Meanwhile, in a null zone in 24th Century Deep Space, The Doctor and his companions, Gabby Gonzales and Cindy Wu, discover that the largest shopping mall in the universe has been taken over by cyborg Sontarans...

Earlier, on a prehistoric Earth, The Doctor and his companion Alice Obiefune - in the middle of retrieving some long-extinct fruit for The Doctor's friend Madame Vastra - learn that The Silurians of that time have become physically enhanced by some kind of technology...

And near the end of Time itself, The Doctor arrives on the planet of Karn, seeking a path to Gallifrey in order to investigate what is causing tsunamis that threaten to pull apart the whole of the space time vortex...



The first chapter of Supremacy of the Cybermen proves to be something of a mixed bag. The script by George Mann and Cavan Scott is fantastic, establishing the setting and the various Doctors and their companions with great efficiency. The action sequences are all thrilling and the dialogue is true to form for all the characters involved.

The problem lies in the artwork, which I'm sad to say is mediocre at best. With three artists and two colorists at work on this book, there's very little sense of uniformity between the various sections. This would be bad enough with great artists utilizing dissimilar styles but the sections involving the Ninth and Eleventh Doctors are outright amateurish. The characters look off-model, continually caught with their faces in odd expressions, with Jackie Tyler looking the same age as her daughter in some panels and like a melting wax figure in others!

Is it worth suffering through for a good story?  So far, yes. But art snobs may do well to avoid this trip on the TARDIS.

PREVIEW: Sally Of The Wasteland #5 - A Review

Sally and Tommy have made it to the forbidden city of New Orleans - the only two members of their little band to survive the trip. But the paradise they were promised proves different than advertised. Can Sally save herself, save her man and save the world? Or is she doomed to speed the rest of her life as breeding stock for a scientist who would really need to get out more even if he weren't sealed up in a giant vault underground?!


In my review of the first two issues of Sally of The Wasteland for Kabooooom.com, I praised the series for its originality.  I likened it to the Fallout series of video games, because of how well it imagined a civilization growing out of The American South and what aspects of that society might survive as legend.  There's also a lot of weird mutants and animals made giant by the radiation.

Alas, the originality that made the first four issues of this series a delight is absent from much of this final issue.  This comic will continue to remind readers of Fallout but this time it will be because the villains live in a gigantic underground vault and are known as The Enclave.  About the only difference is that their form-fitting speed-suits are yellow instead of blue.

I say this not to accuse writer Victor Gischler of plagiarism (post-apocalyptic science-fiction doesn't branch as much as other sub-genres) but merely to voice my shock that the ending - which I will say is a satisfying one - should be so typical of the genre when the earlier issues of the series defied expectations so strongly.  That being said, this final issue is still a laugh riot to read.  And the artwork by Tazio Bettin is still as great as ever.

If you haven't picked up Sally Of The Wasteland yet, you should.  It's a B-movie in comic book form and good fun for anyone who doesn't take their action too seriously.  I give the whole series 4 stars out of 5, with this final issue being 3 out of 5.

Sally Of The Wasteland #5 goes on-sale November 26, 2014.