A Review by Ewen Campion-Clarke 6/7/06
It was a moment I had always dreaded. Every time the idea was brought up on opinion forums, I did my meagre best to shoot it down. People would bitch that the comic strips in DWM were 'juvenile' and should be dropped. Worse, when the new series was a hit they suggested a junior magazine to have the comic strip - because, yeah, only little kids, the intellectually subnormal and wierdoes like comics in Doctor Who. I was horrified. Why? Cause I'm in Australia. It's difficult enough getting your bog-standard Doctor Who Magazine; no newsagent sells The Fourth Doctor Specials, or In Their Own Words let alone Doctor Who Adventures. And while it was to my great relief that the parent mag kept its comic, it was to my frustration that this unique-to-the-UK spin off would have its own adventures for the Doctor and Rose, comicwise. Worse, I have grown up to the point where I finish a proper DWM in a couple of hours (even excluding the stuff I've read on the net). A thin pamphlet for the under-tens focussing on the Sycorax being scary and cool, valid as it is, doesn't appeal. I wish it did. And when money's tight, you don't buy kiddy magazines for the comics.
A dilemma.
But one I have got out of. To say anything else would spoil the air of mystery and enigma I strive to build around myself - it's fragile enough as it is without me wrecking it. But I was able to get my grubby fingers on the comic strips - JUST the comic strips - of DWA and the even rarer Battles in Time. And it is the first five comic strips that I review here.
All the stories are short, bissected by mini cliffhangers which are created by crude photo cut outs of either the Doctor or Rose stuck over a time vortex with captions like "EEEEEE0000WWWW! Oh no! Find out what happens on page 32!" and other blood chilling questions (for the record, the 'EEEOOOWWW' seems to be the onomatopaeic version of the cliffhanger scream - oh well, we accept 'vworp vworp', don't we?). The fact it will only take a second to find out what happened next does kill off that tension, and reminds me of the late Fifth Doctor/early Sixth Doctor strips which had half their content on either side of the magazine, sometimes done in such a way you could get to the next bit by finding the other half of the page you're on on the other side of the magazine and there's the rest of the comic. You could rip out all the boring archives and interviews in between... not that I did that and I advise anyone with DWA not to do that. Unless you never intend to sell them on eBay.
Which Switch?
The new-series TARDIS control room was pretty much ignored by the main comic strip, appearing in one panel during the Eccleston era and only really appearing during its last gasps (The Cruel Sea, A Groats' Worth of Wit). John Ross' art and Adrian Salmon's colouring finally make the new control room easy on the eye: it's not longer pitch dark, and the console is simplified enough to look at. The story isn't intending to beat The Tides of Time as high art, but Michael Stevens' story is pretty good. When the TARDIS malfunctions yet again, the Doctor takes offense at Rose's suggestions that he doesn't know the purpose of the various controls and begins experimenting with them to find out exactly what they do. There's a slightly wistful feel as we have the new Doctor discovering just what the old was doing to 'fix' the TARDIS and shows off the differences between the two incarnations. I can easily see Eccleston's Doctor walking through holodeck-style simulations rather than leave the TARDIS, or logging into the galactic lottery to avoid thinking about things. There's even a foreshadowing to Tooth and Claw when the Doctor finds the stereo system to the TARDIS.
The main plot features when one wrong button shrinks the Doctor and Rose down to the point they have to balance on the grilled flooring to avoid falling through, and then find a way to reverse a switch now bigger than they are. And before that they have to find the damned thing and climb their way over the piecemeal console. There's a lovely moment where the Doctor gets stuck in a cobweb, and we see the spider that spun it died many, many years ago, leaving just a skeleton. A lesser comic would have had it still alive and make the last part of the story a race against time, but the plot works well, from the reason the Doctor takes off his tie to the very idea someone would put a shrinking button on the console in the first place.
The characters are well caught out, clearly fresh from the events of New Earth, though the scene immediately after shrinking has the Doctor surprisingly moody where I'd expect him to be glib and flippant, and Rose's line "Thanks to your dress sense, not to mention general untidyness!" just sounds odd. Rose's gymnastic skills are made use of and while she saves the day, both she and the Doctor have their 'accidentally stumbling into danger' moments. Probably the biggest complaint I have is the last panel's view of the Doctor - clearly Eccleston in a Tennant wig doing his piercing stare. Which sits odd with the 'last line gag'.
Mirror Image
The first exchange between the Doctor and Rose pretty much sums up the comic strip and the philosophy behind it. "Ooh! Creepy alien castle!" "Creepy is GOOD!" There's nothing higher or more sophisticated than that. Jaqueline Raynor, clearly used to the freedom of prose to do her work, sees the challenge of a six page comic strip and decides to bolt the thinnest of plots around one damn creepy idea. It's not even an original idea; I can think off the top of my head six movies and cartoons to have done something similar. Rose wanders into a hall of mirrors and is sucked into them while her evil reflection returns to the Doctor. Coming so soon after The Cruel Sea and New Earth, there's a 'been there, done that' feel which pretty much fells the last leg Mirror Image had to stand on: novelty. The Doctor knows Rose isn't herself because she isn't behaving right and that's before the mini-cliffhanger where there's faint tension at the though Rose will be left with the others on the wrong side of the looking glass.
The Doctor defeats the menace with such ease it's a miracle no one else had thought of it. All you need is a sonic screwdriver (or maybe just a good opera singer) and these mysterious form-stealers are knackered. Even though Jac tries to add the dilemma of being unable to smash the mirrors without killing the imprisoned people, it's resolved within a page. And if you stole someone's reflection, why would you suddenly have fangs? Who are these reflection stealers? What do they want? We don't know and we don't find out - especially considering there are duplicates on the outside world whose fates are unknown. Is this setting up for a sequel? The story doesn't even have a gag to end on, and that Eccleston as Tennant illustration appears again. I'd say it's a cunning metaphorical use of reflections, but it ain't. Does at least one of the regulars have to appear in every panel or something?
As a novel, maybe, able to expand the story and give it rationale this might have worked. Maybe as a normal DWM comic strip able to show more insanity between the mirrors, this might have worked. But this feels like it was only there to pad out the second issue. A waste.
Under the Volcano
"Next issue: The Doctor and Rose are kidnapped!" promised the final panel of the previous story, Mirror Image. Taking that in lieu of plot, Si Spencer's story begins with Rose bemoaning the fact that they've been kidnapped! No false advertising here! Seriously though, starting in media res gives Under the Volcano plenty of time of expand its story - explaining the setting, the situation and allowing a bit of foreshadowing (surely even the most ignorant of Who fans would nod wisely when the Doctor arrives in Indonesia 1883 to see 'fireworks' in a story called Under the Volcano? See Inferno...). Yet the story seems to swing from one extreme to another. The tribal leader unintentionally spitting on the Doctor is the sort of background detail you'd expect from John Ridgeway's era, but the Doctor and Rose escaping with smoke bombs is straight out of TV comic - Egyptian Escapade, for those doubters. The Doctor's totally in character speech ("Not 'know' exactly. It's more of a gut feeling... or a hunch... an inkling maybe. Yeah, that's what this is! An inkling!") is followed by him already knowing this story's monsters, plus all their relevent weaknesses. The second half of the story is the titular volcano exploding. Literally, two pages of bangs interspersed with the Doctor explaining the plot. Although it gears you up for a scene like The Satan Pit where the Doctor regrets there not being another way to deal with the situation bar genocide, instead, we're already listing tourists destinations.
The Chalderans are a reasonably interesting alien race, and as monsters go from wierd fire gods to sinister aliens to really rather silly individuals while all the time looking like lava-composed demons. Seeing them suddenly surrounding the Doctor and Rose to in the very next panel bunched around a laptop trying to work out longitude and lattitude pulls the rug from under their feet a bit too quickly. If we'd got to fear them as monsters before seeing them as squabbling children, it'd be far more impressive. Instead we get a chase scene and everything explodes. The villains being defeated by their own stupidity is amusing, I guess, but it means they were never a real threat. It seems like a six-page limit is, to quote New Earth, "compressing plots to death". But unlike Mirror Image, this IS a story and not an excuse to exhaust the artist by drawing lots of reflections.
Interesting place Krakatoa. A pre-third Doctor visited it, and the Ninth was in the area being sketched (it's implied he was washed ashore on the island the day before it went off). It's a pity this story couldn't be in DWM. It would have been great for a multi-Doctor story with Rose meeting a pre-Rose Ninth Doctor and all sorts of emotional paradoxes could have abounded. Father's Day in stereo!! It's such a good idea I'm tempted to pitch it to DWM on my own, so you lot keep your distance.
And that picture of Eccleston as Tennant appears again! What is this, a conspiracy?!
The Germ War
Alan Barnes is an old hand at comics and you can tell: he's the first to grab the six-page limit and not only use it but use it well. It starts in media res, has every panel show movement, has plenty of time for characterisation and a simple, child-friendly (but not childish) premise: what would happen if cleaning robots decided to get rid of dirt at the SOURCE! The idea of such a mundane task as cleaning getting so out of control is simultaneously humorous and unsettling, no wonder Charles Daniels' idea of deadly Dustbins works so well. "STERILIZE AND DISINFECT!" may not be the most terrifying catchphrase but it's a hell of a lot more appropriate than 'DELETE!'. And it's not afraid in the best Who fashion to mock the ridiculousness of the threat without it's danger (As Rose cries, "We're running from an army of Toilet Ducks?!") and the way of defeating them isn't so much predictable, but appropriately logical. It's a wonderful moment when the Doctor's apparent flippancy turns out to be a cunning plan, the sort of thing the comic strip Eighth Doctor was renowned for.
The revelation of just what the Disenfectoids are doing, even though it's very similar to Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, is just one idea and so it doesn't fall down like poor Mirror Image. However there is still the feeling a good two pages have been cut from the plot, but this is still the best strip DWA has released so far. I don't know why the TARDIS is so noisy in this story though.
Oh, and that picture doesn't turn up. Tennant is Tennant all the way through - though he does say 'Fantastic!'...
Warfreeks!
Alan Barnes again! Well, if it ain't Baroque, don't fix it. There's more than a hint of the Fey/Shayde/Feyde solo story Me And My Shadow with the distinctive artwork and the historical setting. Looking for chocolate, the TARDIS crew arrive in Belgium forests at night and are caught between the Germans and the British. It's very sinister and although the lack of space means we have to resort to cliches (the evil German leader wears a monocle, limps and has a dueling scar - naturally he's insane! Though he isn't killed by his own men, or killed at all), but in two pages it sets up an eerie atmosphere of apocalypse, supernatural visitations and madmen going machine-gun crazy... and that's before the floating Monopticon-type alien cameras appear on the scene.
The Doctor knows all about the aliens again, but at least these ones are disturbing. A cross between the War Lords and the Thoros Betans, we get a bunch of blood-thirsty historical battle enthusiasts, with Warfreek Emeritus being damned creepy with only a handful of panels to his name. Maybe it's his half-grasshopper, half-Blue Meanie appearance. Maybe it's his undoubted intellect. Or maybe it's just this little exchange which is a worthy cliffhanger for the middle of the story, as he addresses his students:
'Can anyone guess what happens next?'Very disturbing. Though the Doctor's war cry of 'LET'S GET SONIC!' is even more disturbing, though for completely different reasons. No doubt Rose's speech ("And through it all, I offer you protection, a lotta love and, er...") is some pop culture reference, but it went over my head. My opinion of the story would have dropped further had I not noticed something else about Warfreeks!. Destrii makes an appearance! Page 3, panel 3, sitting in the back row of the Warfreeks lecture! Nice to know fish girl survived the Time War!
'Sir! Sir! Will their be mindless slaughter, sir?'
'A terrible, mindless slaughter? YESSS!'
The final caption promises "More dangers and adventure next week!" And if it's half as good as the last two stories, DWA comic strips will be easily worth an Iron Legion-style compilations annual.