Review: Doctor Who: When Worlds Collide by Tony Lee, Matthew Dow Smith, & Mark Buckingham

Before we get started, I should note that my review of the Doctor Who audio drama The Highest Science is now up at Unreality SF.

Okay, so like I said yesterday, on Tuesdays from here out, I'll be reviewing books in what I call my "reading projects"; books I read on some kind of regular schedule. First up is the series of Doctor Who comics from IDW that I read issue-by-issue over breakfast from June to December 2014. I've already reviewed some of them, but I left off with The Ripper; next up is:

Comic PDF eBook, 90 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 2011)
Acquired May 2014
Read September 2014

Doctor Who: When Worlds Collide

Written by Tony Lee

Art by Mark Buckingham & Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff
Lettering by Neil Uyetake, Chris Mowry & Shawn Lee

There are two stories here, curiously undifferentiated in the collection. The first, only an issue long, has the Doctor, Amy, and Rory playing soccer with Anglo-Saxons, and it is not as fun as that description ought to imply.

The rest of the volume is made of what I can only assume is the title story. It's one of those tales where time zones get all mashed together, and to be honest, I find those tedious if they have no more substance than that-- Doctor Who long ago passed the point where temporal juxtaposition was innately interesting. Thankfully, this one does have a little bit of something to offer, mainly an army of temporal duplicates of the TARDIS crew, Sontarans on flying carpets, and a robotic dinosaur named Kevin. Also, Matthew Dow Smith's artwork, which is one of the real high points of IDW's Doctor Who stories over all. When Worlds Collide isn't great, but it's an above-average adventure for the range.

Next Week: The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Kevin return in... It Came From Outer Space!