Comics Review
Doctor Who The Fourth Doctor#1 Review
Victorian Values
Tripwire’s Contributing Writer and Doctor Who maven Rob Cave reviews Titan Comics’ Doctor Who The Fourth Doctor#1…
Doctor Who The Fourth Doctor#1
Writers: Gordon Rennie & Emma Beeby
Artist: Brian Williamson
Titan Comics
I like Doctor Who. I like comics. So, in the abstract, I’m very happy that UK publishing stalwart Titan Books are making the most out of the Dr Who comics licence by publishing multiple titles featuring the adventures of multiple incarnations of my favourite time traveller. But while space and time are infinite, my resources are not. Consequently this Doctor Who 1, which partners Tom Baker’s version of the Time Lord with his fan-favourite companion Sarah Jane Smith, is also the first Titan Comics Doctor Who series I have read.
The story takes us to London in 1887, and while there is nothing inherently wrong with this late-Victorian setting, it has been used a lot before, both in the new and classic series. The comic even references the Fourth Doctor’s most prominent Victorian outing, The Talons of Weng-Chiang, with our hero donning what appears to be the same deerstalker hat from those episodes. At times, it seems as if writers Rennie and Beeby are consciously attempting to invoke the feel and the pace of the old show. This strikes me as a very risky move because, while I have great affection for this period of the show, even I would have to admit classic Who could sometimes feel a little slow and mechanical.
The plot itself involves a mysterious shrouded figure, Lady Emily Carstairs, who bears the striking similarity to the Doctor’s more recent Victorian-era sidekick Madame Vastra. Carstairs has an interest in time travellers, petrified people and the myth of Medusa, and she also has some large cycloptic aliens at her disposal, who capture Sarah Jane. But despite a cliffhanger reveal at the end of the issue, I felt some crucial ingredient of excitement was somehow missing from the narrative.
Maybe it was just my reaction to Brian Williamson’s art, which although functional, struck me as slightly laboured and overly reliant on photo references. Or maybe it was the gloomy colouring, full of dull browns and purples.
Despite this, the comic contained one sequence that I found both intriguing and significant. It focused on a pair of humans, apparently also from the Victorian period, explaining their theories and some of the technology of time travel to the Doctor. Curiously, this conversation appears to flow out of order, not just in terms of word bubbles, but with whole groups of panels appearing out of temporal causal sequence. At first I though this might be some kind of production error, with the panels literally placed in the wrong order. The fact that none of the characters acknowledges the strangeness of what is happening only reinforced my doubt and prompted me to re-read those panels several times to make sure I hadn’t imagined or misread it, but it appears I did not.
In comics, time is conveyed by the sequential juxtapositioning of words and images. In playing with the sequence order, Rennie, Beeby and Williamson appear to be mischievously messing-around with the very way in which time occurs in comics. It might be a one-off stunt, but I liked it and this sequence is the single thing that is most likely to prompt me to come back for the next issue. There have been many Doctor Who stories set in Victorian London, but there have been far fewer that play with the comics medium itself. I don’t know if the creative team are planning to place the exploration of the structure of comics at the centre of their story, but I for one am hoping that they do.
ROBERT CAVE
You must be logged in to post a comment Login