WHO REVIEW: Doctor Who: Origins

Prior to Big Finish getting Jo Martin on their expanding roster of Doctors, the only significant appearance of the Fugitive Doctor outside the TV series was this, a 2022 miniseries by Titan Comics. Titan's main Who writer, Jody Houser, scripted the story; she's a steady pair of hands with a good grasp of different Doctors, and her Thirteenth Doctor range was pretty solidly good. Her regular collaborator Roberta Ingranata provides the artwork, with Warnia Sahadewa providing some excellent colours.

The trade edition collects the four issues, plus the nameless strip that was given out for Free Comicbook Day 2022. This is a fun way to start the collection, pitting the Fugitive Doctor against a small-scale but entertaining threat and saving a bunch of kids in the process. It ties in nicely to the real and fictional history of Doctor Who; the Doctor arrives in 1962, implied to be one of her first visits to Earth (at least, that she remembers), predating the series itself. It's a brief mission, but she finds herself starting to like humans and the Earth. There's a fun coda, in which the First Doctor arrives a year later, having decided this is where he wants to hide out with Susan. He might not remember being the Fugitive, but the link is in there somewhere.

The main story deals with another mission for the Division, and while it's made clear that the Doctor is sent on plenty of diplomatic and rescue missions, there are plenty of more underhand assignments, and she isn't given the full story on all of them. The Doctor is assigned a temporary assistant named Taslo (because there's got to be a companion), new and naive but holding her own secrets. They're sent to take out a cult formed from various aliens who are allegedly threatening Gallifrey, by any means necessary.

There's more to it, of course, and it's no surprise when we find out the Division has being lying to the Doctor's face, but their motives are interesting. In spite of being very directly involved in the outside universe, these early Time Lords are just as rulebound and inflexible as those of the TV series' era, terrified of change and of anything that they view against true Time Lord life. It's clear the Doctor is becoming disenchanted with her role as an agent, but this is the mission that finally makes her decide to go on the run (I guess that's a spoiler, but it's hardly a surprise). 

It's a strong story, and the comics medium suits the bold, brash and colourful Fugitive Doctor. While it looks like audio will be her main home for the foreseeable, I'd love to see some more graphic adventures for her, either as Division agent or Fugitive.

WHO REVIEW: A Little Help from My Friends/Alternating Current (Houser, Ingranata, Angiolini)

With the new series, Doctor Who: Flux, just a week away, it seemed a good time to review these two lovely trades from Titan Comics. The first goes by the full long-winded title of Doctor Who: A Tale of Two Time Lords - A Little Help from My Friends, and comprised the entire Thirteenth Doctor: Year Two run in the States, published in Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS in the UK. This was followed by Alternating Current, the first story in Doctor Who Comic as the series was renamed. This leads directly into Time Lord Victorious: Defender of the Daleks, which was supposed to be published after but ended up being published some months earlier due to various delays. But that's the COVID era for you. These things happen. One oddity that has arisen from the changes is that both these books are labelled as volume one, which is one of those silly little nothings that will annoy me every time I see them on the shelf.

Both stories are written by Jody Houser, illustrated by Roberta Ingranata and coloured by Enrica Eren Angiolini. These ladies are pretty much the DW comics dream team by now, and Houser really has the Thirteenth Doctor down to a tee. In fact, I don't think there's a writer out there who portrays her as well as Houser. Admittedly, we're dealing with comics, which are a totally different skill to TV script or prose writing, but still. 

The big draw, though, is that these stories team up the Thirteenth Doctor with the Tenth, bringing back a host of popular characters and monsters while they're at it. It's easy to be cynical about this; recent sales of Doctor Who material have been flagging a little, and Ten remains one of the most popular Doctors ever. It's a transparent attempt to get fans buying material with Thirteen in that ties into the current programme. But so what? This is not a new idea. We also have Doctor Who: Edge of Reality just out, a video game that features both Whittaker and Tennant providing voices for the Doctor. You have to wonder why they don't go the whole hog and have Tennant turn up in the TV series. (That's assuming they haven't done that anyway. We'll know for sure in no more than seven weeks.)

It's fanwank to the highest degree, but if you can't do this sort of thing in the comics, where can you do it? The comics can legitimately use any character from any era in any setting, unbridled by budgetary constraints (excepting certain copyrights) and without having to worry about actors growing old, disinterested, or dead. Plus, Ten and Thirteen work well together. Whittaker's performance is clearly influenced by Tennant's, and they both have that exuberant energy hiding loss and loneliness, but Thirteen lacks the self-absorbed moping of Ten and seems more self-aware (and, as she points out here, is older and wiser). 

A Little Help from my Friends is the better of the two, taking advantage of a specific period in Ten's life when he was stranded in one location and then dropping Thirteen and the fam on him. The TARDIS is diverted to London in 1969, when Ten and Martha had been zapped back to by the Weeping Angels in "Blink." Not only do the current team have to try to investigate why they were sent back without accidentally nobbling the Doctor's personal history, they have to contend with a cadre of Angels and, for extra fun, Autons. The pick-and-mix approach to the revived series' monsters makes for a visual party, with the Nestene Consciousness appearing much as it did in "Rose," and of course the Autons and Angels are both very visually-based monsters. They're a good fit for the medium. 

The strength of the story is in its character interactions though. The Doctor tracks down Martha while Yaz leads the rest on a mission to keep tabs on Ten. Laying low and keeping things secret doesn't last very long, and while Ten and Thirteen get on pretty well by multiple Doctors' standards, the differences in their outlooks come to the fore. Thirteen, being newly female, much more experienced and with the benefit of hindsight, is baffled by how Ten could have missed how Martha felt about him, and finds herself apologising to her friends and repeatedly cutting Ten off when he's about to go all nostalgic over adventures with Rose. 

It's a fun, pacey story, ending on an effective cliffhanger as Thirteen takes her team home by jumping forward to 2020, only to find London in ruins. This leads nicely into Alternating Current, revealing that all that crossing time streams has led to a timeline shift, with humanity being conquered centuries before as a ripple effect on the Doctor's timeline. It's probably too complex an idea to run with very often, but the TV series could play with this idea to great effect. Changing history is a hazard in Doctor Who all the time, but what's rarely considered is the cumulative effect of the Doctor's actions on each other as they constantly cross their own history.

Again, there's a grab-bag approach to continuity on display here, with the divergence occurring in "Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror," which in this version of reality didn't involve the Doctor at all. Result: Tesla was abducted by the Skithra, who built their technological powerbase, accidentally woke up a Sea Devil colony and teamed up with them to conquer the Earth. In this reality, Rose leads a resistance group, with Pete and Jackie Tyler both alive, well and married. The fanwank perhaps goes a bit overboard here, but you know, why not? Having Ten team up with a different version of Rose, one who's never met the Doctor before, offers some interesting interactions, but we're robbed of "our" Rose being reunited with the Doctor in a new incarnation, which would have been fun. Then again, every time we return to Rose on Pete's World it robs a little impact from that story, so perhaps this new version is best. The standout character, though, is a sympathetic Skithra Queen who allies with Thirteen to help right the timelines. It's another fun story, not quite the level of the previous one, but it works. It also leaves some interesting scope for future stories to follow up some of the characters and ends with a great hook for the next serial.

PLACEMENT: For the Thirteenth Doctor, this must be after Spyfall, since everyone is fully au fait with the idea that she used to be a man. For the Tenth Doctor, the first story takes place during "Blink," but the second story must be sometime later since he has his TARDIS back and is seemingly travelling alone. It apparently leads into Defender of the Daleks which is part of the Time Lord Victorious arc, so the best place is probably between "The Waters of Mars" and The End of Time.

WHO REVIEW ROUND-UP: New Adventures for the Eighth Doctor (Mann, Vieceli, Hi-Fi)

 

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

Written by George Mann, art by Emma Vieceli, colours by Hi-Fi

Titan Comics' 2016 miniseries featuring the Eighth Doctor, collected here under the umbrella title A Matter of Life and Death, is a punchy five-part run of short adventures that make up a single overarching quest. The Doctor pops to one of his various properties on Earth, this one seemingly the cottage he used in the TV Action comic strips from the 70s, absorbing a fragment of these almost-certainly apocryphal stories into the modern day ongoing franchise. As questionable as some of the earlier Doctor Who comics were, it's wonderful to think that there's been a pretty much continuous run of strips since 1964 across multiple publishers. 

Entering his cottage he discovers that a young woman has taken up residence there. This is the beautiful blue-haired Josie Day, an artist who somehow knows to paint alien beings like Krotons and Cybermen and seems reluctant to answer questions. "The Pictures of Josephine Day" is a fun beginning for the series, with living paintings besieging a sleepy village, while setting up a central mystery. Josie clearly knows more than she's letting on, but it's subtly written and illustrated and only becomes truly evident rereading once the story is fully played out. 

The second issue, "Music of the Spherions" is my least favourite story of the run, with a pretty hokey central story about infectious sentient crystals, but it has a strong and noble central message and shows just how good a companion Josie is, saving the day through impassioned speeches and a willing to sacrifice herself if necessary. Josie's fun and arty but deep and serious at the same time. The story shows off Vieceli's artwork at its best, though, with some impressive alien vistas. Her Eighth Doctor is neither a realistic depiction of McGann nor a caricature, rather an impression of the character, always recognisable as this passionate, flighty regeneration.

"The Silvering" riffs on "The Unquiet dead" and The Talons of Weng-Chiang with a trip back to the 19th century and a night out at the theatre, where some very spooky going-ons are going on. Featuring mirrors that act as portals into a nightmarish parallel universe, it's not exactly original but it's atmospheric and exciting. The best moments involve mirror-soldiers, created from glimpses and part-reflections, horrible, tragic fractured beings. Lovely stuff.

"Briarwood" sees the Doctor and Josie attend a marvellous party at a fancy house in 1932, where there's a touch of Christie-style mystery and some sinister plant elementals to deal with. Oddly Mann names these the Nixi, whereas the folkloric nixies were water spirits, not tree spirits like the dryads. It's a solid adventure with a more meaningful resolution than I'd have expected.

The series finishes with "A Matter of Life and Death" itself (not to be confused with the Eighth Doctor comic story "A Life of Matter and Death," from DWM). Again, this seems to be riffing on existing Doctor Who stories, but with a new twist that answers the questions of the series and the Doctor's shopping list of missions in an "Ah, of course, how obvious!" way. It's all painted out for us to see throughout and yet it's so wonderfully easy to miss. And the revelation of the ultimate mastermind of the story is rather fun as well.

Placement: By the Doctor's appearance, this is clearly the Time War era, which is to say the modern iteration of the Eighth Doctor who seems to be the default version since 2013. More pertinently, the Doctor's dialogue reveals someone utterly exhausted by the constant shadow of war, but he still remains the recognisably enthusiastic, occasionally bouncy Number Eight. So this is likely early on in the Time War, before things have really started to threaten everything.

Highlight for a spoiler: for the Twelfth Doctor and Clara, likely between series eight and nine.

WHO REVIEW ROUND-UP: 13th Doctor - Time Out of Mind (Houser, Sposito, Ingranata)

 

TIME OUT OF MIND - written by Jody Houser, art by Giorgia Sposito, Roberta Ingranata and Valeria Favoccia, colours by Enrica Angiolini

Catching up with the Thirteenth Doctor comics from Titan (now the only place to enjoy an ongoig graphic adventure for the current incarnation, since DWM sadly stopped their regular strip feature) brings us to this interim volume, which collects the 2109 Free Comic Book Day release (which I missed) and the two-issue Holiday Special from the same year. As with the whole run, it's all written by Jodie Houser, who ansolutely nails the character of the Thirteenth Doctor and makes the fam work with a real light touch.

The FCBD issue (apparently titled “Meet the Fam!”) is a fun little side trip, bringing the TARDIS to an alien amusement park where Graham manages to get himself abducted by losing a game of space coconuts. It's silly, fun, and a bit throwaway, with some lovely artwork (including a double-page spread by a guest artist), but ends on a sinister. Each of the time travellers remembers a different version of events at the theme park, and can't even recall what planet it was on. Actually reading on release there would have been months between this cliffhanger and finding out the resolution, but as it is, we can steamroller on ahead the the Holiday Special.

It was a canny move releasing this as a Christmas story, given that the Thirteenth Doctor still hasn't had one on TV and that 2019 was especically bereft of screen adventures for the Doctor. This sees the Doctor and her gang follow a brief trail to a frozen world where it seems that Father Christmas is causing trouble – except his name is actually not Santa, but Mr. Henderson, who seems to be some kind of evil anti-Santa, with a platoon of toy soldiers to do his bidding.

You can see where this is going, right? Mr. Henderson is in fact the Krampus (or at least, a Krampus – there have been several takes on the Yuletide monster since in Doctor Who comic and audios since he became popular in the English-speaking world). Also, this Krampus is a she, and why not indeed? As well as answering who's been messing with Team TARDIS' memories, this is very fun festive adventure that ties in playfully with other takes on the Father Christmas idea seen on the TV series. To begin with there are tiny elf-like aliens, before an honest-to-goodness elf named Baxter turns up, very much like the ones seen on “Last Christmas.” The Doctor never gives a definitive answer as to whether Santa is real (just as in that episode), and both she and Baxter refer to him as Jeff, the very name the Eleventh Doctor claimed to know him as in “A Christmas Carol.”

There are no big revelations in this slim trade collection, no world-shattering events, no crossovers. Just a couple of solidly enjoyable imaginative stories, and that's exactly what it needs to be.

Placement: The Doctor wears her fez, so it's after Kerblam! but more notably, Ryan mentions the Corsair, so it's after Old Friends. There's nothing to suggest this entire run of comics doesn't take place in the gap between Resolution and Spyfall.

WHO REVIEW: 3rd Doctor - Heralds of Destruction (Cornell, Jones, Hi-Fi)

HERALDS OF DESTRUCTION - written by Paul Cornell, art by Christopher Jones, colours provided by Hi-Fi Colour Design

Paul Cornell was never very fond of the Third Doctor, according to most accounts, which made it something of a surprise when Titan Comics announced he would be scripting a five-issue run set during the Pertwee years. This came out in 2016-17, and I've finally gotten around to picking up the trade and reading the story. In interviews, Cornell said he had an idea that could only work with the Third Doctor, and he didn't lie. Although it's just possible that the central conceit of this comic could work with another Doctor, it would have been a rough fit. (If you haven't heard the twist or read the comic and want it to remain a surprise, scuttle off and don't read the SPOILER below.)

No, there was only one way to make the return of Salamander work, and that was to have him invade the era that followed his own. It's an idea that could have been brilliant if they'd tried it on TV in 1974, although it's almost impossible that the BBC would have run with it. After all, most viewers would have only dim memories at best of 1967 story by the time it came round. Who fans, on the other hand, understand the significance of The Enemy of the World and Patrick Troughton's dual role in the story. The rediscovery and release of the serial a few years ago makes this a particularly good time to bring back what had been an important but fairly obscure villain.

The story proceeds as a follow-up to The Three Doctors, except that the Second Doctor is not actually the Doctor's previous incarnation, but the villainous doppelganger in disguise. While we've had Doctors meet people whose faces he'll later wear (due to Colin Baker and Peter Capaldi being cast in the lead after making guest appearances on the series), we've never had a Doctor bump into someone who looks like a previous self. (OK, there's the Curator, but since it's heavily implied he's the Doctor anyway, that doesn't really count.) The Doctor meeting his double is one thing, but meeting the double of a previous version of himself creates a whole new level of meta-commentary on the nature of the series. This is Doctor Who doubling back on itself and biting itself in the arse.

The dictator of the World Zones originates from the same period that the comic was actually released, adding yet another layer of timey-wimey stuff to the set-up (a phrase that is now revealed to have been invented by Jo Grant, which is pretty perfect really). Of course, there's a convoluted backstory to explain how he survived the events of The Enemy of the World, but when your thrown into the Time Vortex, anything can happen. Salamander is more of a comic supervillain than even the Master, making him absolutely perfect for the story. Pitting him against the Doctor, UNIT, and a tenuous alliance with the Master is just about the most ideal Doctor Who comics idea that could be set within the Pertwee era.

Cornell gets all the regulars spot-on, including the Doctor, but he doesn't go lightly on him. In fact, he absolutely savages him at points. He even introduces him in a gentleman's club, going on about his old mate Pol Pot ("Polly, I said..."), a biting and very fair attack on his similar name drops of Napoleon and Chairman Mao. (Of course, much later we learn he's best buds with Winston Churchill, who from many people's perspectives isn't far different.) Nonetheless, he gets his fair share of heroic moments and, as Cornell notes in his commentary, a characteristic "moment of charm." 

Christopher Jones is a fine choice of artist for the adventure, with a gently cartoony feel to his work that gives the story a colourful momentum perfectly in keeping with the era it pastiches. He delivers some brilliant set pieces, including a face-off between the Doctor and the Master and a voyage in the day-glo interior of Jo Grant's mind. I particularly enjoyed his depiction of Salamander in full-on supervillain costume, which makes him look a bit like one of the Dominators.

Cornell states in the commentary that this is his last Doctor Who story, and if that is the case, I'm pleased he stepped out of his comfort zone to provide a story for a Doctor we wouldn't normally associate him with. One thing that comes through very clearly is his love for the series, in any era. In fact, he's already bent his own rule by novelising Twice Upon a Time for Target, so maybe we'll be getting more original Doctor Who adventures from him after all.

Placement: Between The Three Doctors and Carnival of Monsters.

WHO REVIEW: 13th Doctor - Old Friends (Houser, Ingranata, Stott, Angiolini, Bailey)

Catching up with my Doctor Who reviews, beginning with some comicbook releases featuring two very different Doctors. Titan has been publishing Doctor Who releases for a good few years now, with some of the best comicbook material for the Doctor in years. Their releases have included both ongoing and limited series for new and classic series Doctors. Lately I've picked up the third volume of the collected Thirteenth Doctor series and the collected Third Doctor miniseries.

OLD FRIENDS - written by Jodie Houser, art by R Ingranata, R. Stott, colours by E. Angiolini, T. Bailey

The Thirteenth Doctor comics have been running for a little while, and I've dipped in from time to time, but it's this third collection, which was released in trade at the very end of 2019, that caught my fancy. Arriving on the planet Devivian with the fam, the Doctor is immediately arrested for crimes committed by another two-hearted, time travelling woman. Probing for a few more details, the Doctor discovers that a dark-haired Time Lady has stolen a powerful relic from Devivian. (Is that a reference to The Vivienne, or was I just watching Ru Paul's Drag Race UK too much while reading this?)

Naturally, she assumes this is Missy ("And she was doing so much better,") but when she gets on the trail of the thief, it turns out to be none other than the Corsair, making their first ever appearance in an actual Doctor Who story, rather than as a bit of background colour. In this incarnation, the Corsair is a beautiful, wild woman, an unrestrained swashbuckler. She and the Doctor have a brilliant dynamic; very clearly friends for years, with a hint of mutual attraction, even though the Doctor doesn't quite approve of the Corsair's methods.

Jodie Houser nails the dialogue of the Thirteenth Doctor and her companions (for better or worse - the occasional clunkiness feels deliberate here), but she's clearly having the most fun writing for the Corsair. It's surprising that it's taken so long for the character to make a full-fledged appearance. "The Doctor's Wife" was back in 2011, and aside from Neil Gaiman's own potted history of the character in The Brilliant Book, the character has failed to materialise in anything official. The Corsair is much like the Doctor without the rough edges worn off, the Doctor who upped and stole a TARDIS and didn't care about the consequences. It's tremendous fun watching them share an adventure, even as there's an underpinning of sadness, as the Doctor knows that it can't be long in her friend's future that they die. (Going by the reproduced material about the Corsair in the appendix, this is probably the seventh incarnation of the Corsair, while the one who met his end by the House was the ninth. Please excuse the jumping between pronouns, by the way.)

Roberta Ingranata provides the artwork for the first three issues, with Enrica Angiolini supplying incredibly rich colours, and together they make the various planets visited absolutely beautiful. Rachel Stott takes over, with Tracy Bailey, for the closing issue, with a greater focus on strong, characterful line work that really captures the regulars. Altogether, it's a rather gorgeous book. I'd definitely be up for meetings between the Doctor and the Corsair, especially since the gender roles could be mixed up in a number of ways between the various incarnations. And the Corsair's TARDIS is disguised as a galleon, which is both impractical and awesome.


Placement: Between Resolution and Spyfall.

Tomorrow: Paul Cornell's Third Doctor adventure, Heralds of Destruction