Star Trek: Asylum by Una McCormack

Strange New Worlds is by far my favorite of the Paramount+-era Star Trek shows, and Una McCormack is by far my favorite of the current stable of Star Trek novelists. Put these two together, and let's say that I was predisposed to like this book.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Asylum
by Una McCormack

Published: 2024
Acquired and read: November 2024

So thankfully, I did. The book has two parallel narratives; in one, the Enterprise is assigned to Starbase 1 to assist with negotiations with a race of catlike aliens. These aliens turn out to 1) have a racial minority that they oppress, and 2) have been encountered by Una ("Number One") in her Academy days. As the novel goes on, the negotiations are complicated by mysterious acts of vandalism on behalf of the oppressed minority. In the other, we follow Una during her Academy days as she befriends those aliens, but also struggles with balancing all the other aspects of life she wants to participate in, including a Gilbert and Sullivan production and the maintenance class taught by the Enterprise's future chief engineer, Pelia ("The Broken Circle"). At the same time, she also meets Christopher Pike for the first time, as he returns to the Academy to give a lecture series for cadets in the midst of a personal crisis of his own.

I zipped through this on a plane ride during my Thanksgiving vacation, beginning it before the plane took off and finishing it before it touched down. McCormack's novels are always easy to read, but in a pleasurable, rewarding way: there's a real depth of characterization here missing from most tie-in fiction, which typically just aspires to make sure you can imagine that the actors are reading the lines. Una is the novel's standout, McCormack deftly using her backstory as someone who must "pass" in a society that discriminates against her to bring out the complexities of such an undertaking. How can Una advocate for other people to be who they are when she herself must deny who she is in order to survive? McCormack was in higher education for many years, and her depiction of Una draws on that to show off a very real type of person from academia, the one who wants to do everything but soon finds themself hitting their limitations.

On top of that, unlike many tie-in novels, it's thematically rich, dealing with the complexities of cultural oppression and cultural resistance. There are sfnal metaphors here for the kinds of things that have happened and continue to happen in the US, the UK, and around the world when majority groups confront minority groups, and it all feels very real. I know many tie-in writers don't like it when I say things like this, but every time I read a Star Trek book by McCormack, typically the only thing I don't like about it is that it means McCormack hasn't written the great original sf novel about cultural clash that I truly believe she has within her! I read this at a rough time in my life, but like Bujold's Brother in Arms (which I read around the same time), it reminded me of what I needed to do: fulfill my obligations, both to myself and others, as ethically as possible.

I have some quibbles—Una has to make a mistake I really don't buy to set off the novel's present-day events, the Federation ambassador negotiating with the aliens seems to know curiously little of them—but there's a lot to like here. So far there's only two SNW novels, and I don't know how many more there will be in the long run, but I am willing to wager that this will be the best, unless of course McCormack writes another. (Shame about the incredibly bland cover.)

The NEW Blackhawk Era!: From Junk-Heap Heroes to the Return of the Black Knights (#228–43)

To a certain type of comics fan, the story of "The New Blackhawk Era" is a familiar one. The Blackhawks were in continual publication from 1941 to 1967; despite having been designed as World War II heroes, they had survived the end of the war and even a change of publishers, going from Quality Comics to DC, and moving on from battling dictators, to battling criminals, and later aliens, and later nascent supervillains. But as the 1960s continued, the Silver Age of comics was in full swing, and a group of war characters was out-of-date. There was one attempt to rejig the Blackhawk concept with 1964's issue #196 (see item #5 in the list below), but it didn't last.

Still, clearly something needed to be done. I don't actually have any behind-the-scenes insight here, but a comic doesn't undergo a creative change like this one if everything is working fine. In the three-part The Junk-Heap Heroes! storyline (issues #228-30, written by Bob Haney, art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera), the Blackhawks go an a mission where things go horribly wrong—and suddenly the President of the United States has called in the Justice League to evaluate the Blackhawks.* Their assessment?

In the words of Batman, "They just don't swing!" (It was the 1960s. Try to imagine Kevin Conroy saying that.)

from Blackhawk vol. 1 #238
(script by Bob Haney,
art by Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera)

Over the course of the story, the Blackhawks are disbanded, they split up, they each come up with new "superhero" identities, and then they reform. The identities include such winners as Olaf getting a mechanical costume that lets him jump really far as "the Leaper," Andre displaying a previously unmentioned penchant for building machines and becoming "M'sieu Machine," Chop-Chop getting his hands encased in metal so he can be "Dr. Hands," and Chuck wearing pyjamas covered in ears because he is now "the Listener."

Okay, say that you buy the Blackhawks needed a makeover... but did they need this makeover? Surely not! Look at Hendrickson as "the Weapons Master"... is this guy supposed to look more cool? He looks dumb, surely they even thought so in the 1960s!

(That said, I did kind of like how Chop-Chop mixes "ancient Chinese wisdom" with "happening 1960s slang" in this iteration.)

One of the things that fascinates me about superhero comics, especially minor ones, the whole reason I undertake projects like my Justice Society one, like my Green Arrow one, is how they get reinvented over time, how the premise warps and mutates to accommodate what is popular. Superman and Batman can set the trend, but Green Arrow responds to it. The Blackhawks, it seems to me, are a particularly vulnerable case of this, as their original premise is so closely rooted to the context of World War II. Can you update the Blackhawks to be relevant to the 1960s without also losing what made them the Blackhawks to begin with?

Not if you do it this way, at least. Nothing of what mad Blackhawk enjoyable in his original incarnation is to be found in the adventures of "Big Eye."

So far, so familiar; I'm not saying anything lots of comics critics haven't said before. Lots of comics fans know the story of "The New Blackhawk Era" and have judged it as a colossal mistake. And surely it was.

(There's a bit in issue #232 where Blackhawk asks, "Is this the New Blackhawk Era or a clown convention?" You're just tempting fate with a question like that!)

But... what about the stories?

I don't think I've ever read a review of this era that actually discusses the actual stories told about this version of the Blackhawks. Like, I've heard about the premise a million times, but that's just the first three issues. What about all the other ones?

The new Blackhawks work for G.E.O.R.G.E., the "Group for Extermination of Organizations of Revenge, Greed, and Evil"; they have a boss with a blank face (much like Mr. Cypher from the previous era) named Delta; they go on James Bond–style missions against S.P.E.C.T.R.E.-style global criminal organizations. For all the fact that they've been reinvented as superheroes visually, the actual stories owe a lot more to Cold War spy-fi. Gone are the airplanes, but now they are leaping into action in strange locales across the globe.

And do you know what else? They are actually kind of fun. Because, you know, they are written by Bob Haney, and Bob Haney is the kind of comics writer who lives the insanity. You say, "Bob Haney, the characters you have been treating as serious crimefighters are now goofy superheroes," and Bob Haney says, "Bring it." The stories crackle with energy and invention. Put aside how dumb the premise is—and I've never seen a commentary on this run do that—and they are actually kind of enoyable. The Junk-Heap Heroes! is full of energy, but I enjoyed even more the first full adventure of the new era, a three-part story running across issues #231-33 ("Target: Big-Eye"/"With These Rings I Thee Kill!"/"Too Late, the Leaper!"). I couldn't begin to explain to you why the Blackhawks are in space, but I enjoyed it a lot. On art, Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera prove they can pretty much do anything, responding well to the vim and vigor of Haney's scripts.

Well, anything except make the new costumes look good. Most comics creators struggle to come up with one good superhero design, and unfortunately, they had to think up seven.

from Blackhawk vol. 1 #232
(script by Bob Haney, art by Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera)

That said, you can tell Haney was making his stories up as he went along, and he doesn't always get away with it. In "The Terrible Twins"/"A Coffin for Blackhawk" (#234-35), we lurch from complication to complication, and what began as a Cold War thriller ends with the Blackhawks learning that the circus owner was a G.E.O.R.G.E. agent all along, who can just solve all their problems for them... presumably because Bob was out of pages. "Melt, Mutant, Melt!" (#236) is similarly rushed, but I did really enjoy "The Magnificent 7 Assassins"/"The Walking Booby-Traps!" (#237-38), where the Blackhawks discover they may have caused the death of a fellow G.E.O.R.G.E. agent... only he's still alive? And... evil!? And... an android?!? Go for it, Bob Haney, why not. Again, it kind of fumbles the ending, but when the journey is such a pleasure, I don't really care.

(Also, Lady Blackhawk is accidentally restored from her Queen Killer Shark identity in #228... and the proceeds to stand around making tea for the remaining issues. Is this really my Zinda Blake? I'm not sure why they bothered.)

Alas, this is clearly the point where DC realizes the series can't be saved. With issue #237, it goes bi-monthly; with issue #240, the main stories drop from twenty-four pages to sixteen, with an eight-page reprint to pad it out. (#240 reprints 1957's "The Perils of Blackie, the Wonder Bird" from #111; #241 reprints 1961's "The Phantom Spy" from #160.) Issue #241 marks another important change; the editor begins apologizing. (GCD says Dick Giordano took over from George Kashdan with #242, but Giordano clearly did at least the lettercol for #241.) Sorry, they say, the new Blackhawks are stupid.

And then in #242 ("My Brother–My Enemy!"), the New Blackhawk Era is quite definitely ended. While the Blackhawks are on vacation, literally everyone in G.E.O.R.G.E. is killed. Since they left their new costumes at the G.E.O.R.G.E. base, the Blackhawks must readopt their OG WWII-era uniforms to fight the villain, who turns out to be Blackhawk's Nazi-brainwashed brother. The story is plotted by Marv Wolfman, but still scripted by Bob Haney! I tell you, the man can do anything, even completely reinvent the characters he just completely reinvented eighteen months prior, and casually dismiss the entire premise he'd spent fourteen previous issues building up.

This is the first story to tell us Blackhawk's real name, and unfortunately, it's "Bart Hawk," but other than that, I found it pretty solid, especially thanks to the stylish, dark artwork of Pat Boyette. Good use of the series's WWII roots, though I think the origin for Blackhawk doesn't fit what we learned in Military Comics #1 or Blackhawk #198.

from Blackhawk vol. 1 #243
(script by Bob Haney, art by Pat Boyette)

I also enjoyed #243 ("Mission Incredible"), again by Haney and Boyette, a largely grounded spy thriller about the Blackhawks having to evacuate a little girl from the other side of the Iron Curtain. It seemed to me that the creative team was working out a space for Blackhawk in the spy-fi era... but even though the lettercol in issue #243 promises more to come, it never did. Blackhawk was finally cancelled after a run of eleven years and 136 issues at DC, not to mention its previous sixteen years at Quality.

But cancellation at issue #243 doesn't mean there's no issue #244. Stay tuned for next time!

This is the sixth post in a series about the Blackhawks. The next installment covers Blackhawk vol. 1 #244-50 and The Brave and the Bold vol. 1 #167. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Blackhawk Archives, Volume 1 (1941-42)
2. Military Comics #18-43 / Modern Comics #44-46 / Blackhawk #9 & 50 (1943-52)
3. Showcase Presents Blackhawk, Volume One (1957-58) 
4. Blackhawk vol. 1 #151-95 (1960-64) 
5. Blackhawk vol. 1 #196-227 (1964-66)

* This is the first explicit indication that the Blackhawk stories take place in the DC universe. In the pre-Crisis cosmology, this surely must be Earth-B.

Almost Heaven (As Usual, Again)

"Why do we sing about West Virginia, Dad?"

Kid Two cheesing with his Aunt Cat

This is the question Kid One (now six, and on their sixth Mollmann Thanksgiving) asked me Friday night after the traditional Mollmann hot dog roast. I explained that the Mollmanns have been congregating in state parks for Thanksgiving for over fifty years now, and that in those old days, when it was just my grandparents and their five children, they used to go to Pipestem State Park in West Virginia. So even though we haven't gone to West Virginia since 2008 (too far for my grandmother these days), we still sing John Denver's "Country Roads." It is nothing to be proud of, but what (most of) the Mollmanns lack in musical aptitude, (some of) the Mollmanns make up for with enthusiasm... though for some reason the lyrics of the second verse continue to evade many of us. I recorded it this year, out of a sort of morbid curiosity, but I haven't yet had the courage to listen back to it.

These traditions are important, of course, they keep us who we are. Every Thanksgiving the Mollmanns congregate in a state park, we eat chili for dinner Thursday, we go hiking during the days. My own little unit of the Mollmanns has acquired its own traditions, too; I have to teach  the week of Thanskgiving but my wife doesn't, so my wife and kids fly out Saturday and spend some time with my wife's family, while I don't join them until Tuesday. It's more work for her, of course, but I think she really appreciates getting to spend that extended quality time with her mother, and the kids get a lot out of it, too.

Kid One tastes their first(ish) snowfall

Kid One can be resistant to changes in routine—I feel like last year they were particularly anti-hiking—but now I think we've done it enough that the kids recognize the annual routine themselves, and thus come to find it comforting as well. They were both enthusiastic, engaged hikers this year. I would say it was an above-average Thanksgiving for them. The last couple years, we've stayed in three or four medium-sized lodges, this year we stayed in two big ones. This meant that my immediate family stayed with a couple others, and thus my kids got to spend more time with my cousins' kids of similar ages, which was quite nice. Kid One declared another cousin their friend once they spent some time listening to Kid One's Yoto together (but could not, of course, remember her name), while Kid Two kept bossing around another kid who was two years older than him!

Most excitingly, they got to experience a snowfall! As Florida babies, their experiences with snow have been few and far between. It did snow when we were in Cleveland for Christmas in (I believe) 2021, but neither of them remember this, so it was very exciting, even though by Ohio standards we're talking a light dusting. "Is it Christmas?" Kid Two asked my wife. No, not yet, buddy.

After I explained the origins of Mollmann Thanksgiving, Kid One declared we ought to back to West Virginia. I don't know that the Mollmann clan can make this happen, probably the logistics are too complicated when Mollmann Thanksgiving has something like fifty total attendees. But tradition is important, and if I ever get the opportunity, I'd like to take my family back to where it all began, back to what they claim is "almost heaven."

The Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold, Part 7: Brothers in Arms

In my Vorkosigan reading order, this is the seventh book overall, but the fourth Miles one, though the previous Miles-focused one (Cetaganda) didn't really move the character forward in any kind of way. So here, we have Miles's first progression since what was the second book I read, The Vor Game. However, it's worth pointing out that in publication order, this is the second Miles novel, preceding Vor Game. (Bujold was crazy!)

Brothers In Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold

Originally published: 1989
Acquired: December 2022
Read: November 2024

Perhaps this is why the opening of Brothers in Arms jars a bit. If you left off with Miles in Vor Game or Cetaganda, you left off with him as a member of the Barrayaran military; he has his links to the Dendarii mercenaries, but his focus is on his traditional military career. It's weird, then, when you begin Brothers in Arms and find not only that Miles is with the Dendarii mercenaries, but this is apparently what he does on a regular basis, to the point of leading them into major combat actions! My vague understanding is that the book I will read next will actually fill this in somewhat; even if it didn't, though, it's the kind of thing one must get used to when reading a series of books about someone's career published out of chronological order; certainly as a fan of C. S. Forester's Hornblower, I am very familiar with it!

Once you get over that initial discomfort (and this just may be the fault of my reading order, not the book), the beginning of the novel is good fun. Miles has been serving with the Dendarii, who are repairing and resupplying on Earth, but finds himself ordered to join the staff of the Barrayaran embassy on Earth while he's there, so he must simultaneously maintain his Admiral Naismith persona and his Lieutenant Vorkosigan one—all the while the Cetagandans are trying to kill Naismith, but the Dendarii need him, and his Barrayaran superior has ordered him to stay away.

It's a recipe for farce, and of course farce is a thing that Bujold is quite good at. But it's more than that; the book itself points out that Miles is always acting: Admiral Naismith is a persona, Lieutenant Vorkosigan is a persona, and so too is Lord Miles. So who, then, is left? Who is he when he's not fulfilling all these obligations to other people? What is the Venn diagram of those people?

Like any farce, though, things must escalate, but to discuss this, I must get into spoiler territory, so look away if that offends you. (I will say, though, that it's a thing I knew going in, being familiar in a very broad sense with the overall outline of the saga.) In order to explain how Admiral Naismith and Lieutenant Vorkosigan can be in the same place even though they're not the same person, Miles invents the idea that one is a clone of the other created by his father's enemies... and what should happen but who waltzes into the situation: a clone of Miles created by his father's enemies! As complications go, it's honestly a bit contrived even if it is, obviously, fun.

Bujold does her best to justify it, but it's not so much the justification that lets her get away with it as what she does with the conceit. Because who is "Mark" (as Miles dubs him), but the blank space in the middle of that Venn diagram, the person that Miles might be without all those obligations weighing on him? So even though his clone wants to kill and replace him, Miles wants to help his "brother" to be the person he never can be.

But it's not true, of course. Mark is no more free than Miles is; in a sense, he's even more a victim of others' obligations than Miles is. At one point, Miles asks Mark to imagine who he might be if he was free of his creators and their plot... but can Miles imagine who he might be if he were free of all his obligations? No, Miles has no idea at all. In this book, he tries to romance Elli Quinn, but Quinn won't come back to Barrayar with him... and Miles just can't imagine himself without Barrayar, even though in doing so it seems he might actually be able to have Quinn. Who are we, Brothers in Arms seems to say, but all our obligations? Or at least, the ethical ones?* In the end, Miles must try to fulfill all his obligations as ethically as he can, because otherwise, there is no Miles at the core of that Venn diagram. That means saving Mark, but not imposing himself on him. Mark will discover his own obligations for himself.

This sounds very pretentious, perhaps, but it's Bujold, so of course it's not. Like I said, the whole thing is wrapped up in a beautiful veneer of farce, with good comedy, fun character moments, and some genuinely tense action sequences. If I have any criticism, it's that it seems to me there's more thematic depth to be mined from the character of Mark than we actually get here, since Bujold's emphasis is largely on the action and intrigue plot. Like yes, all of the above is definitely going on, but it's more of a background element than a foreground one at times. But my understanding (no spoilers for me, please) is that Mark returns in future books. Bujold has a pattern of introducing an idea and then returning to it years later in a more complicated way (Shards of Honor versus Barrayar, Warrior's Apprentice versus Vor Game), so I have faith that this book isn't just a fun action-adventure romp, but also a set-up for something bigger and better later on.

Every five months I read a book in the Vorkosigan saga. Next up in sequence: Borders of Infinity

* Not just via Miles and Mark, but also through the subplot about Miles's superior Galeni, who I loved. I hope he comes back someday.

Reading Roundup Wrapup: November 2024

Pick of the month: Brothers In Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold. It seems a bit unfair to all other authors in a month where I read a Vorkosigan book, but there really is no competition. Still, I did read a lot of good stuff; Naomi Novik would have won it any other month!

All books read:

1. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Headlong Flight by Dayton Ward
2. Black Sun Rising: The Complete Doctor Who Back-Up Tales, Volume 2 by Mick Austin, Vincent Danks, Dave Gibbons, David Lloyd, Alan McKenzie, Mick McMahon, Steve Moore, Paul Neary, Steve Parkhouse, John Peel, Gary Russell, Geoff Senior, John Stokes, et al.
3. Monstrous Beauty: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine by Dan Abnett, Colin Andrew, Martin Geraghty, Scott Gray, Russ Leach, Paul Peart, Jacqueline Rayner, Gareth Roberts, John Ross, and Brian Williamson
4. Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
5. Brothers In Arms by Lois McMaster Bujold
6. Star Trek: Titan: Fortune of War by David Mack
7. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Asylum by Una McCormack
8. Victory of Eagles: Book Five of Temeraire by Naomi Novik
9. Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster by Terrance Dicks
10. Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 1 by Otto Binder, Al Plastino, Jerry Siegel, John Forte, et al.

I had a bit of a slow start; two-thirds of the way through and I'd just read four books this month. But then Thanksgiving Break came along (plus some shorter book) and I made up lost ground.

All books acquired:

1. Monstrous Beauty: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine by Dan Abnett, Colin Andrew, Martin Geraghty, Scott Gray, Russ Leach, Paul Peart, Jacqueline Rayner, Gareth Roberts, John Ross, and Brian Williamson
2. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Asylum by Una McCormack
3. Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 9 by Win Mortimer, Jack Abel, Jim Shooter, et al.
4. Victory of Eagles: Book Five of Temeraire by Naomi Novik
5. Steering the Craft: A Twenty-First-Century Guide to Sailing the Sea of Story by Ursula K. Le Guin
6. The Fantastic Four Omnibus, Volume 5 by Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, John Buscema, Rich Buckler, et al.

Currently reading:

• The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 8 edited by Neil Clarke
• Star Trek: Section 31: Control by David Mack

Up next in my rotations:

1. The Pelican History of England: 3. English Society in the Early Middle Ages (1066-1307) by Doris Mary Stenton
2. The End of the World: Classic Tales of Apocalyptic Science Fiction compiled by Michael Kelahan 
3. Victorians and the Prehistoric: Tracks to a Lost World by Michael Freeman
4. Star Trek: Coda, Book I: Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward
   

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 662 (down 1)

Monstrous Beauty (From Stockbridge to Beyond Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 55)

Monstrous Beauty: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Dan Abnett, Colin Andrew, Martin Geraghty, Scott Gray, Russ Leach, Paul Peart, Jacqueline Rayner, Gareth Roberts, John Ross, and Brian Williamson

Collection published: 2024
Contents originally published: 1991-2022
Acquired and read: November 2024

Like the final Peter Capaldi volume, the final Jodie Whittaker one is a weird catch-all one that has the "Collected Multi-Doctor Comic Strips" branding, with its Doctor's last two stories combined with a miscellany of material from previous Doctors: the first, third, fourth, seventh, and ninth, plus Dr. Who. As I usually do, I read the book's stories in original publication order, not internal order.

This book is a landmark volume, though! In plugging in the two gaps of uncollected strips (one during The White Dragon, the other between The White Dragon and Liberation of the Daleks), it means that every Doctor Who Magazine strip from issue #1 to issue #597, from 1979 to 2023, has been collected! In a mere thirty-four volumes! What an achievement—but more on that in a future post.

The Man in the Ion Mask, from Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1991
script by Dan Abnett, art by Brian Williamson, letters by Helen Stone

This is a slight-but-charming story of the Doctor visiting the Master in prison after the events of The Dæmons; the Master claims to have reformed, but the Doctor of course is wary, and rightly so. There's not much action (in a good way), and artist Brian Williamson is quite good at handling the dialogue and characterization the story requires.

Are You Listening? / Younger & Wiser, from Doctor Who Magazine Summer Special 1994
written by Warwick Gray, art by Colin Andrew, lettered by Amer Anwar

A linked first Doctor story and seventh Doctor story; the first visits a mysterious city with Vicki and Steven and runs off, while the seventh returns with Benny, finally understanding what's going on. They have their moments, but there's not a lot of conflict in Younger & Wiser, which is basically the Doctor and Benny just chatting.

from Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1994

Plastic Millennium / The Seventh Segment, from Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1994 & Summer Special 1995
stories by Gareth Roberts, art by Martin Geraghty and Paul Peart, letters by Elitta Fell

The first of these is fun, a stylish Martin Geraghty–drawn story about the seventh Doctor and Mel (in her DWM debut, I think) taking down some Autons. It's not very complicated, but the art really sells it. The second is also carried by the art—or rather, the art is the best part, because I found this noir pastiche featuring the fourth Doctor and the first Romana utterly impenetrable.

from Doctor Who Magazine #557

Monstrous Beauty, from Doctor Who Magazine #556-58 (Nov.-Winter 2020)
story by Scott Gray, artwork by John Ross, colouring by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This Time Lord Victorious tie-in brings back the ninth Doctor and Rose, and plunges them into the "Dark Times" of the ancient Time Lords' war against the vampires (see State of Decay). Scott Gray is usually good value, and John Ross a strong artist, for sure, but something about this didn't sing. I think the stakes are ultimately too abstract. There's not a lot of sympathetic characters here, so ultimately it's kind of hard to care about any of this. Looks great, though (Ross does very well by Christopher Eccleston; actually, so does Gray), and I appreciated the very obscure (but footnoted!) callback to Tooth and Claw from the End Game collection. The DWM universe gets its tentacles everywhere!

Dr. Who & the Mechonoids, from Doctor Who Magazine #578 (July 2022)
story by Jacqueline Rayner, art by Russ Leach, colour by Mike Summers, lettering by Roger Langridge

Maybe this would have been funny if I had more than a dim memory of one Cushing film, or if I got the reference to the actor "cast" as the one-off male companion here. But I didn't and it wasn't.

from Doctor Who Magazine #579

Fear of the Future / The Everlasting Summer, from Doctor Who Magazine #579-83 (Summer-Nov. 2022)
story by Jacqueline Rayner, art by Russ Leach, colour by Mike Summers, lettering by Roger Langridge

Unfortunately, I don't think Jac Rayner (or, perhaps, her editors) ever got to grips with the format of the six-page DWM strip, especially with the reduced panel count. The first story here is too slight even at six pages: Dan sees vaguely bad things, the Doctor realizes why, the end. The second story, on the other hand, like Rayner's last attempt at a thirteenth Doctor epic (Hydra's Gate), attempts to squeeze in too much and thus is basically impossible to follow. Which is a shame, because all the thematic ideas she gives in the backmatter sound great... but what's on the page is a confusing jumble of ideas, too many of them. Russ Leach will never go down as one of the DWM greats, with a strong tendency toward confusing panel transitions and weak storytelling skills. I get that COVID was at fault in very real ways, but #570-83 is surely the weakest run of the strip in the history of the mag since... well, I was going to say the early McCoy strips, but skimming back over my reviews, those were at least inconsistently enjoyable, whereas these are consistently unenjoyable. Maybe since the mid–Colin Baker run (#100-19)? But even those had John Ridgway!

Stray Observations:

• Alas, the original idea Scott Gray recounts in the notes for Are You Listening? and Younger & Wiser, that they'd be told in different orders from the perspective of the Doctor and the alien city Xenith, is better than what we got. Similarly, it's hard to read the notes on Monstrous Beauty and not wish that Scott Gray had got to write the eighth Doctor and Destrii story he'd originally pitched.
• Reading Plastic Millennium only a day or two after Business as Usual, I couldn't help but thinking the Auton and plastic factory here ought to have been the same one as in that story.
  
• I've charted the DWM strip's influence on Russell T Davies in the past; the line from Plastic Millennium to "Rose" seems pretty obvious!

This post is the fifty-fifth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers statistics about the history of the strip. Previous installments are listed below: