Script: Lawrence Miles. Art: Jim Calafiore, Peter Palmiotti and Paul Mounts.
A Review by Finn Clark 19/10/04
It hardly seems fair to review these two comic books as they stand. The Faction Paradox comic wasn't supposed to stop after issue two, but instead was meant to tell a story that Lawrence had plotted out (albeit not necessarily for comics) before he even wrote The Adventuress of Henrietta Street. Alas, it didn't happen. The book got cancelled. Thus all we have is 32 pages of comic strip, 12 pages of back-up text features (two Gazetteers and two Reliquaries) and a public letter from Lawrence Miles to himself.
So what's it like? (Apart from Lawrence's letter to himself, obviously, which is just odd.) It's okay, but sadly it's my least favourite thing with Lawrence Miles's name on the cover.
At the end of the day, it just didn't grab me. The story doesn't feel as if it's really got going yet, despite an escaped killer on the loose, and the similarities with Henrietta Street don't help either. Sabbath, Faction Paradox, the Mayaki, the apes (and animals in general) and the 18th-century English setting all feel a little too familiar. Everything I've previously read from Lawrence has seemed new, even on rereading. I suspect that Alien Bodies will always feel startling, no matter how often I return to it. However for me, the story elements of the Faction Paradox comic book have always felt stale.
The Book of the War probably didn't help. By exploring his fictional universe so thoroughly, Lawrence has made even the American Lodges (which are theoretically new material) seem old hat. However unfortunately the characters are dull too. None of the men grabbed my attention in the slightest, though I had some small interest in what might happen to the women. Isobel the blue-garbed servant is the token 'normal' person, though she hasn't yet grown a personality. The Mayaki kills people and is being hunted down like an animal, so at least she's doing something. Finally one feels that Sabbath's well-groomed friend, the Countess, is likely to become important later. However so far all of these characters' interest lies in what they are, not who they are.
The back-up text features are even less attention-grabbing. They're info-dumps and little more. I liked the Five Watchmen of Boston, if only because of the funny illustration, but basically it's like reading snippets from The Book of the War without the all-important context and scale. There are some nice ideas in here, yes, but they'd have been better employed being used to spice up the story pages. Some of Lawrence's trademark inventiveness could have made all the difference.
One curious observation... at 16 pages per issue, this comic is exactly twice the length of an old DWM episode. What's more, it's almost as if it was written in eight-page chunks. Political Animals has a spooky shock image at the half-way mark, while Betes Noires and Dark Horses is actually split into two eight-page chunks by the Gazetteer text feature. It wouldn't surprise me to be told that that's a little game Lawrence played with himself as a long-time Doctor Who fan.
Sabbath doesn't look as I imagined him (he's slimmer and more blandly handsome), though in fairness it's not the 8DAs' Sabbath. Also I might have hoped for the 18th century to look a little more characterful; at times it looks more like Timelash than a big-budget BBC costume drama, if you know what I mean. However those are niggles. I have no major complaints about the visual side. We've never seen a glossier Who-related comic book, with its lovely paper, attractive art from proper artists and some splendid cover paintings. There's even a cover for the cancelled third issue on book two's "Coming Next" page... a pastel-coloured war mammoth. It's rather cute.
I've criticised this book, but I regret its cancellation. The issues that exist won't blow you away, but they'll keep you out of mischief for twenty minutes. More importantly I'm sure it would have got more and more interesting as its story and characters started spreading their wings. However I'm starting to find Lawrence's work feeling a little familiar... both this and This Town Will Never Let Us Go kept doing things I'd seen before from him. It's okay. However, sadly, it's nothing special.