Comics Review

Doctor Who The Tenth Doctor#2.9 Review

Published

10 years ago

May 4, 2016

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The Doctor Will See You Now

Tripwire’s Contributing Writer and Doctor Who maven Rob Cave reviews Titan Comics’ Doctor Who The Tenth Doctor#2.9, which continues their series featuring David Tennant as The Doctor. Warning: minor story spoilers…

Doctor Who The Tenth Doctor#2.9

Writer: Nick Abadzis

Artist: Iolanda Zanfardino

Titan Comics

In these days of on-demand entertainment, graphic novel collections and recurring “jumping on points”, it is sometimes easy to forget that any issue can be a reader’s first issue, even one in the middle of a story. And it was in the middle of the story that I came to this issue of the Tenth Doctor’s comic series. I’ve seen every episode of his TV adventures, but had read nothing of his activities in his Titan Comics series before this issue and was immediately confronted with two new non-TV companions: New Yorkers Gabby Gonzalez and her best friend Cindy Wu.

Fortunately, there was a page to catch me up on their backstory with the Time Lord. Apparently Gabby’s travelled with the Doctor for a while, but Cindy is on her first trip. Sadly for her, she has landed a visit to a paranormal book fair in the English countryside rather than an alien world, or even their intended destination of London. And amongst the spooky books there lurks a monster, one that appears to be taking the form of a witch, sucking out bits of people’s minds.

This is all pretty workaday stuff for the Doctor and anyone travelling with him. There is a lot of running around and sonic screw driving aplenty, but writer Nick Abadzis sprinkles in just enough character moments – Gabby’s resourcefulness and concern for her friend and Cindy’s resilience after having her mind attacked by the “witch”– to keep the reader engaged. The strip’s artist, Iolanda Zanfardino, has a clear and simple naif style with an expressive line. Her depiction of the “witch” has a primal menace reminiscent of traumatised child’s drawing, but she doesn’t quite nail the likeness of David Tennant. I would also liked to have seen fewer panels with backgrounds of just the sky or plain grass with the odd tree branch silhouette.

Where the story really gets interesting, especially for dedicated Who fans (and will anyone else be reading this comic?), is at the revelation that the “witch” is actually a group of Gallifreyan children, thrown into the time vortex through the Untempered Schism (first seen in the TV episode The Sound of Drums) back before the Time War.

This revelation heavily overshadows the monster’s defeat and left me as a reader just aching to know about whom, or what was hurling kids into the time vortex on (possibly time-locked) ancient Gallifrey. This is probably Abadzis’s whole plan. If so, it works.

The added bonus of a one-page tenth Doctor humour strip by Rachael Smith increased my enjoyment of the issue, but it also left me wanting more. A collection of Doctor Who humour strips, perhaps like Jeffrey Brown’s Vader and Son books, would seems like the perfect stocking filler gift for Who fans during the festive season – Titan, are you listening?

ROBERT CAVE