IDW Comics Cold-Blooded War

Published

2009

• A Review by Finn Clark

A Review by Finn Clark 25/2/13

The weird thing is that it's close to being excellent. If I'd been offered this synopsis as an editor, I'd have gone for it, yet the finished story is retarded. We can't even blame it all on Russell, since he's only credited for the plot and that could be said to be the relatively good bit. Hmmm. This requires further investigation. What are the problems here?

Problem 1: Two Warring Factions! It's not far off being a remake of Gary Russell's two back-to-back Radio Times comic strips set on Mars, but with Draconians. The difference is that this time the Ice Warriors are mere bystanders and it's the Draconians who are giving us the houses of Adjit Assan and Jandi Husan, the brothers of Fusek Kljuco, etc. It's as if someone's sneezed on the keyboard. However...

Problem 2: I like the idea of going inside an alien culture and telling a story from their point of view. Doctor Who needs more of that. Unfortunately, it doesn't work here, because the story's tone is patronising and one-note. Burqas? Really? Hulke wrote the Draconians as 19th century Habsburg monarchs with a dash of Soviet Russia, whereupon the 1973 production team made them Japanese lizards and this has since been extended by Alan McKenzie and John Ridgeway... but now they're Muslims? "You have got to be kidding me," says Donna, although regrettably she's not saying it to the scriptwriters. It's because the aliens are sexist, you see. They don't like women and that's both sexist and sexism. Gosh. Did I mention they're sexist? Donna's outraged by their sexism and so she makes a big, slightly embarrassing speech in which she tells them that they're sexist. I don't object to the sentiment, but I did wince at the sledgehammer expression of it.

Problem 3: the continuity. Gary Russell's going old-school, yet again press-ganging anything from the show that didn't see him coming first and seemingly regarding the Doctor Who universe as the size of his back pocket. However, let's suppose you can get past the sheer overload, which is actually less overdone (although infinitely more stupid) than Tony Lee's a couple of issues earlier. The amusing bit is that it doesn't even make sense. For starters, what year is this? It's the year 2500 on page two, the Earth Empire (which fell in 3000) if you believe all the references to Adjudicators, and the time of the Galactic Federation (i.e. a thousand years later) given the presence of the Ice Warriors and Alpha Centauri. Note that the latter isn't just another member of the same species, but the specific individual we met in two Pertwee TV stories. We also get references to the Judoon and the sodding Shadow Proclamation (kill me now), plus a sighting of the waddling fat-babies from Partners in Crime (which it seems aren't babies at all but can get work as TV news reporters).

Problem 4: the story reminds us that the Ice Warriors use sonic technology, then the Doctor gets locked up and uses his sonic screwdriver to break the sonic bars of his prison cell. At first glance, this looks clever. Unfortunately, the people who locked him up are terrorist Draconians.

Nevertheless, underneath it all, there's a good story here. Despite all of the above, Agita's a memorable character and the finale is strong if you're not openly laughing at the story by that point. Personally I was, but it would be unfair not to admit that I'm being a bit of a fanboy in my criticisms above, especially number 3. You've also got to appreciate the fact that Russell is at least trying to do something with heart to it. The story has sincerity. It's brain-damaged, yes, but this is still the most powerful of the six endings in Through Time and Space, with the possible exception of The Whispering Gallery. This story is going to polarise people. If you're not a jaded old cynic like me, you might even be impressed.

Then you've got Adrian Salmon's art. I've got to say, on first glance I didn't like this brushwork. Maybe I'd have preferred it if Kris and Ceri Carter had been a bit more stylised and made the lines all aggressive and black? Hard to say. However there's some lovely design work here, with Salmon's Draconians being a revelation, especially Fusek Kljuco. I'm still staggered by their heads. I do believe Salmon's managed to pull off the almost vanishingly rare feat of redesigning an old Doctor Who monster and making them more iconic than the original. This is work that'll be remembered. Meanwhile, I still like my Ice Warriors best when they're all reptilian and textured, but it's fun to see Salmon almost drawing them like architecture and for contrast making his Ice Lord look ten years old.

Oh, and I love the Carters' blue sonic prison. It's not often you remember a scene for its colouring, is it?

This is a story to make you roll your eyes, but its stupidity is all on the surface and there's some good stuff underneath. I've acclimatised myself to Adrian Salmon's latest stylistic experiment and there are even one or two nice dialogue touches, e.g. "brilliant - no, marvellous!" Pretty much everything Donna says is painful and you'll be wanting the Draconians to snap and feed her to crocodiles, but both Agita and the finale are good. It's immeasurably better than Agent Provocateur, anyway.