Review: Doctor Who: Revolutions of Terror by Nick Abadzis, Elena Casagrande, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, n.pag.
Published 2015 (contents: 2014)
Acquired September 2018
Read November 2019

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol 1: Revolutions of Terror

Writer: Nick Abadzis

Artist: Elena Casagrande with Michele Pasta
Colorist: Arianna Florean with Claudia Sg, Rabiola Ienne, Valentina Cuomo, Azzurra Florean
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

A couple years ago, I read through all of IDW's Doctor Who comics thanks to a Humble Bundle. In 2014, Titan took over the Doctor Who comics license from IDW, and in 2018, they put together their own Humble Bundle of a bunch of their earlier stuff. So here I am, reading it all. Unlike IDW, which usually just published an ongoing featuring the current Doctor and TARDIS team, Titan publishes multiple ongoings, plus miniseries, featuring the current Doctor and past ones. Rather than read this all in chronological order, though, I'm sticking to publication order to get the most out of Titan's crossovers.

from Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #2
(art by Elena Casagrande)

So it all launches with this, Revolutions of Terror, featuring the tenth Doctor and a new companion, the American would-be art student Gabby Gonzalez. This collection contains two stories; the first, "Revolutions of Terror," is a very effective pastiche of a Russell T Davies new-companion episode (e.g., "Rose," "Smith and Jones"), telling the story of alien parasites in New York City on the Day of the Dead from the perspective of Gabby and her family. Nick Abadzis's writing is decent, but the real star is Elena Casagrande's artwork, which really brings the whole family and their environment and the Doctor and the monsters to life. This was a fun, nostalgic tie-in: you won't be bowled over by this, but if you enjoyed Doctor Who from 2005 to 2009, you'll probably like this take on it. I found the rules of the parasites overly fiddly (I think Russell himself could have handled it more elegantly), but otherwise, it was on point.

The second story, "The Arts in Space," was less effective. Clearly also pastiching an RTD genre, the throw-the-companion-into-the-crazy-future one (e.g., "The End of the World," "Gridlock"), but I got lost amidst all the stuff about block transfer computation, and the actions of the villain didn't ring true emotionally. I did really love the bits drawn to look like Gabby's own drawings, as she writes about her journeys to her friend Cindy. But otherwise, I struggled with this one. It's just two issues compared to "Revolutions"'s four, so maybe Abadzis's stories need more time to breathe.

Elena Casagrande used to do a lot of fill-in work on IDW's Star Trek titles, often hired to imitate the work of David Messina, so I was really gratified to see her get to soar in her own style here.