Review: Doctor Who: The Fountains of Forever by Nick Abadzis, Elena Casagrande, Eleonora Carlini, Rachael Stott & Leonardo Romero

Collection published: 2015
Contents originally published: 2015
Acquired: September 2018
Read: October 2020

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol 3: The Fountains of Forever

Writer: Nick Abadzis
Artists: Elena Casagrande, Eleonora Carlini, Rachael Stott & Leonardo Romero
Colorist: Arianna Florean
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This volume wraps up "Year One" of Titan's ongoing tenth Doctor comic; if the opening volume was a highly effective pastiche of a Russell T Davies new-companion episode, this is a very dismal one of a Russell T Davies season finale. The Doctor and Gabby return to Gabby's home of New York City, and even though Gabby's friend Cindy gets swept up in events, none of it matters. There's no sense of personal investment here-- this story isn't about the Doctor or Gabby or Cindy in the way that "The Parting of the Ways" was about the Doctor and Rose and Jack and Mickey and Jackie, or that "Doomsday" was about the Doctor and Rose and Mickey and Jackie and Pete, or that "The Last of the Time Lords" was about the Doctor and Martha and Jack, and so on. Nothing is at stake here for our main characters, they're just participants. This could at least be a story about Gabby and Cindy's friendship, but mostly Cindy is just an extra person to stand around in scenes where lots of people stand there while the Doctor talks. (Nick Abadzis anticipated the storytelling tics of the Chibnall era, I guess.)

It just feels like a random standalone adventure except for the attempt at scale. The universe is threatened-- but so what? The Osirans from Pyramids of Mars return-- but so what? Your boring bad guy from a boring story being related to an interesting bad guy from an interesting story doesn't make him interesting. I found it very hard to get invested in whether this guy should go through some portal, and without the period trappings, the Osirans are pretty generic super-beings.

from Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #12
(art by Elena Casagrande & Eleonora Carlini)

Despite all this, and despite involving four different people, the art is pretty consistent and mostly very good. I'm not sure about the occasional manga-esque effect (they're so occasional it jars), but at least Gabby looks like a Hispanic woman again. These artists could be supporting a stronger story is all.

I was disappointed because I thought the first volume of The Tenth Doctor had real potential. The second was meh-- but it had a different writer, so I could accept that, and figured that when the original came back, things would be better again. Hopefully "Year Two" gets things back on track.

I read an issue of Titan's Doctor Who comic every day (except when I have hard-copy comics to read). Next up in sequence: The Twelfth Doctor: Hyperion