Star Trek: Encounters with the Unknown by Jeffrey Moy, W. C. Carani, et al.

Star Trek Classics #3: Encounters with the Unknown

Collection published: 2012
Contents originally published: 2000-01
Read: April 2026

Written by Nathan Archer, Janine Ellen Young & Doselle Young, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, Kristine Kathryn Rusch & Dean Wesley Smith

Pencils by Jeffrey Moy, David Roach, Robert Teranishi
Background Assists by Philip Moy

Inks by W. C. Carani, David Roach, Claude St. Aubin

Colors by Dan Brown (with Nick Bell)

Letters by Ryan Cline (with Jenna Garcia) & Naghmeh Zand

Like Enemy Unseen, this "Star Trek Classics" release on Hoopla from IDW takes a Wildstorm trade paperback from the 2000s and rebrands it. While Enemy Unseen collected several otherwise unrelated Next Generation stories, this one collects four Voyager stories, three double-length one-shots and one three-part miniseries. I was surprised that the obviously intentionally vague title Encounters with the Unknown is actually pretty applicable to all four stories even though it feels like it could be applied to almost any Star Trek story if you squinted hard enough!

The first story is "False Colors," whose basic premise is that Voyager encounters what seems to be a Borg ship, but turns out to be something else entirely, and then Seven, Chakotay, and Tuvok must infiltrate it in the guise of Borg drones... leading to Seven possibly starting her own little collective. Like Perchance to Dream from Enemy Unseen, it reads like it's written by someone who is new to the comics medium: lots of word balloons, few visually interesting things near the beginning, the kind of stuff that might make for a fine episode of the tv show but is dull on the comics page. When the interesting conceit of the story finally turns up—would it be ethical for Seven to establish a "collective" of her own if it helps protect Voyager? how would she feel if she did?—it's not really used in an interesting way, the characters don't seem to actually face a dilemma due to it.

I felt like the whole comic might have been constructed around the idea of the shocking cover image of Seven as a Borg—which to be fair, was similar to how several actual Voyager episodes were developed.
from Star Trek: Voyager: False Colors #1 (script by Nathan Archer, art by Jeffrey Moy & Philip Moy and W. C. Carani)

The second story in this volume is the one story I can say I've wholeheartedly enjoyed across both volumes of Star Trek Classics that I read. "Avalon Rising" is about the Doctor being sent to an alien planet to recover an artifact blocking transporters; the planet is in a medieval time period, and its knights and squires interpret the Doctor as a wizard from a distant land, a role he ends up leaning into. It's delightful stuff: visually interesting (artist David A. Roach proves every bit as adept with this Doctor as the one he normally illustrates) and the dialogue and character arc for Bob Picardo's Doctor are pitch perfect (the writing is by the unknown-to-me wife-and-husband team of Janine Ellen Young and Doselle Young). It's the kind of premise you could image them doing on screen, but they never did, reminiscent of some screen episodes (sort of a mix of "Heroes and Demons" and "Muse" and "Living Witness") without being derivative of them. Neat conceit as the Doctor retells stories of Voyager's adventures through a medieval lens, a nice heartwarming ending. Honestly, one of the best Star Trek comics I've ever read.

Unlike any other story in the volume, this one was clearly constructed around interesting visuals suited to the comics medium.
from Star Trek: Voyager: Avalon Rising #1 (script by Janine Ellen Young & Doselle Young, art by David Roach)

Next comes "Elite Force," which I guess must be an adaptation of the videogame of the same name. Despite writing by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, stalwarts of space adventures comics in general (e.g., Legion Lost) and Star Trek comics in particular (e.g., Early Voyages), I found this hard to grab onto; the "Hazard Team" characters just don't give us enough to care about. Plus (and this isn't their fault) two stories about derelict Borg and scavengers in one volume is too many!

This guy's entire personality is "dumb jock."
from Star Trek: Voyager: Elite Force #1 (script by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning, art by Jeffrey Moy & W. C. Carani)

Lastly there's Planet Killer, a three-part miniseries about Voyager coming across another iteration of the same weapon as in "The Doomsday Machine" from the original series. The beginning is too slow and obvious considering the reader already knows what's up even if the characters don't; the second issue wastes half its pages on Harry Kim laboriously recapping "Doomsday Machine" for some reason; the third issue is very rushed, with a lot of stuff happening in reported speech or narration, instead of on the page. Like "False Colors," too talky for a comic, and despite some good efforts by artists Robert Teranishi (who I don't know) and Claude St. Aubin (who did strong work on DC's R.E.B.E.L.S. a few years after this), the action sequences lack the necessary intensity to make the premise work. The guest character feels like an afterthought (contrast them to Commodore Decker in the episode this story very closely mirrors).

Probably the best part of the art were all the ship-in-danger shots; very well done.
from Star Trek: Voyager: Planet Killer #3 (script by Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch, art by Robert Teranishi & Claude St. Aubin)

So, on the whole, aside from "Avalon Rising," there's little here I'd call "classic." (Oh, also my Hoopla edition has a mistake where what's included as the first page of "False Colors" is actually the first page of "Elite Force." I think the first page of "False Colors" is missing as a result.)

The White Dragon (From Stockbridge to Beyond Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 52)

The White Dragon: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Martin Geraghty, Scott Gray, Russ Leach, Jacqueline Rayner, and David A Roach

Collection published: 2024
Contents originally published: 2020-22
Acquired and read: March 2024

It's finally here... but one can't help being disappointed. While The Mistress of Chaos gave us eighteen months' worth of comics, which came out to eighteen strips, The White Dragon is over two years of comics... yet only fifteen strips. The factors involved are no one's fault, of course, but it's disappointing that Jodie Whittaker was the incumbent Doctor for four years yet received the smallest run of strips since Eccleston; it's also disappointing that these volumes have been getting progressively slimmer since The Crimson Hand and that this one couldn't extend to collecting all of Jodie's run.

I have read all of this before, but distribution of DWM in America was particularly erratic during this era, and I read many of these stories stretched out over months or even out of sequence; I think I got one of the later issues of Hydra's Gate before the first. In particular, I was pleased to get to read The White Dragon in one go.

The Piggybackers, from Doctor Who Magazine #549-552 (Apr.-July 2020)
story by Scott Gray, pencil art by Martin Geraghty, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

The Doctor and the fam land in America during the Cuban Missile Crisis; aliens are of course afoot. You can always count on Scott Gray for a decently put together story with interesting visuals and nice moments, and marry him to Martin Geraghty, and of course it's a recipe for success. I enjoyed this story, particularly the titular piggybackers and how they looked. Geraghty does some great work throughout (right from the first page, with the "Duck and Cover" riff), but I did feel like it didn't totally come together; there's an attempt to subvert expectations that kind of left it fizzling out at the end when it ought to have been exploding. The climax is over very quickly. I do like how careful Gray is to give everyone something to do; not to spend all my time ragging on the show, but it was rarely so deliberate during this era.

from Doctor Who Magazine #560

The White Dragon, from Doctor Who Magazine #559-62 (Jan.-Apr. 2021)
story & art by Scott Gray, colour art by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

Scott Gray bows out of DWM with the third story that he both wrote and illustrated; I enjoyed both of his previous goes, but this is the best of them, and it's a good way to bow out. No big torturous epic involving the history of Gallifrey; just a sharply done celebrity historical in an interesting location with a cool guest star and a bunch of nice moments for Ryan. (Ryan spent a lot of The Piggybackers mute, so it's good to see him get a meaty part here to balance things out.) This to me is pure DWM, one of those stories I find it hard to comment on because it doesn't do anything flashy but it does everything right. A story of kung fu is perfect for Gray's cartoony dynamism, and this story has a lot of great visuals and good beats. If the tv show ever did a Bruce Lee episode, we would be lucky if it was half this good.

from Doctor Who Magazine #571

The Forest Bride / It's Behind You!, from Doctor Who Magazine #570-72 (Dec. 2021–Jan. 2022)
story by Jacqueline Rayner, art by Russ Leach, coloring by Pippa Bowland and Mike Summers, lettering by Roger Langridge

I get that the strip is working under constraints here. As Rayner spells out in the extras, there had to be fewer pages, fewer panels per page, and even fewer words per panel! (The last one surprised me; does that let them pay Roger Langridge less?) But whatever the reason, I found these weird, unenjoyable stories. The writing clearly struggles with the space alloted; in The Forest Bride, the Doctor knows all about someone's daughter, but going over and back over the strip, I can't figure out where she actually learned this. The conclusion is too cursory and quick to work. Similarly, I didn't really get what It's Behind You! was going for; there's just a bunch of scrambling about and then the story's over. Even though it's a premise clearly tailor-made for jokes about pantomime, there are almost no jokes about pantomime, just fairly pointless action. And if you've heard Oh No It Isn't!, you'll know this isn't because Jac Rayner doesn't know how to makes jokes about panto.

I don't think Russ Leach's art is quite supporting what Rayner's writing is doing. In the notes, Rayner talks about the creepy vibe she wanted for The Forest Bride, but I didn't think the art gave it that, especially the coloring, which is all too bright and cheerful. (On part two, the coloring is credited to Pippa Bowland, but there is no credited colorist for part one.)

from Doctor Who Magazine #575

Hydra's Gate, from Doctor Who Magazine #574-77 (Mar.-June 2022)
story by Jacqueline Rayner, art by Russ Leach, colour by Mike Summers, lettering by Roger Langridge

Unfortunately, giving Rayner and Leach a bigger canvas doesn't result in better work. This four-part story is a bit of a jumpy struggle; I think they're trying to make it all work with economic storytelling, but too often it's just confusing. "Yaz has found the Legionary!" Hang on, was she looking for one? Since when? It's not just the writing, but also the art; I had to reread a sequence on the last page of part one several times to figure who was speaking and where a kid had come from, and in part four there's a bit where a robot loses its head but the Doctor catches it in a net I kept going back over to puzzle out. Again, things seemed terribly underexplained, and the climax rushed, introducing a new jeopardy only to resolve it instantly more than once. Reading Rayner's notes in the back, I think there's a good story here, but it probably needed eight pages per installment and a lot more panels per page to tell it.

Stray Observations:

• Liberation of the Daleks didn't say "Doctor Who Magazine Graphic Novel" in its indicia, and that this is #32 to The Age of Chaos's #31 indicates Liberation doesn't count. But in this era of triple dipping (the Abslom Daak strips have appeared in Nemesis of the Daleks, Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, and soon Return of the Daleks), I can't help but worry this means someday we're going to get a "Doctor Who Magazine Graphic Novel" that does have Liberation in it...
• For some reason, part two of The Piggybackers is six pages instead of the usual eight. I don't think we can blame COVID for this, based on the dates.
• We'll never know (well, hopefully we will someday, but I imagine not in the short term) what plans Gray might have had had he stayed on the strip: who was Mother G? Rereading The Piggybackers, I feel like he was setting up some stuff here too. The US's Brideport is compared to the UK's Stockbridge, and the story ends with the Doctor making a comment about how Abner Endicott was going to keep watch over the town, which felt unusually significant. Was this all going somewhere? Anyway, my bonkers theory is that Mother G was Mother Goose!
  
• If you read the extras hoping for some insight into Gray's departure from the strip, you won't find it here. But I suppose we've got one more graphic novel with his content forthcoming, whenever Monstrous Beauty ends up being reprinted, so he's not done yet.
• The departure of Ryan and Graham (between The White Dragon and The Forest Bride) gives them 26 strips as main companions, which ties them with Peri and Fey for eighth-longest run. (Yaz's run, which will top out at forty when she finally leaves after The Everlasting Summer, puts her in third, behind only Izzy and Clara!)
• Russ Leach's comments on Hydra's Gate actually cover his entire run on the strip, so I imagine we won't be hearing from him in future volumes.
• Martin Geraghty mentions in his notes that it's January 2024 as he writes them, which seems like an astonishingly quick turnaround for a book that was shipped by the end of February!
• This volume gives almost every contributor cover credit, even the inker and two colourists. Interestingly, it does so in alphabetical order, as opposed to the usual precedence/prominence technique used on previous volumes. This makes it one of few DWM graphic novels to give first billing to a non-writer on the cover, and the first to do so in a very long time. (The others, fact fans: The Iron Legion, Dragon's Claw, The Tides of Time [all Dave Gibbons], Voyager, The World Shapers [both John Ridgway], and End Game [Martin Geraghty]).
• I didn't notice until I shelved it, but even though this collection doesn't have the cover design the graphic novels have used since 2012, it does (unlike Liberation) maintain the spine design.
  

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

Mistress of Chaos (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 47)

Mistress of Chaos: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Scott Gray, John Ross, Mike Collins, and David A Roach

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 2018-20
Acquired: January 2021
Read: March 2023

And here it is: I come, at long long last, to the end. I began way back in November 2020; two years and four months later, thirty-one collections later, five hundred and forty-eight strips later,* I am finally done! It's been quite a journey, but that's probably content for a separate post. First, we have to talk about this volume in particular.

The Warmonger, from Doctor Who Magazine #531-34 (Dec. 2018–Feb. 2019)
story by Scott Gray, art by John Ross, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

So the caveat to everything I am going to discuss here is that I am not really a fan of the Jodie Whittaker era on screen, as the writing and direction make what are—to me at least—frequently baffling choices that eliminate the possibility of drama and character development. I struggled with Titan's Thirteenth Doctor comics, which I felt emulated the parent show very well... by being sort of boring and aimless and not knowing how to handle having three companions.

Which is to say, that I like what Scott Gray does here and in the volume's subsequent stories, which is tell the same kind of entertaining strip stories he always tells, just with a new set of characters. I always liked the potential of the thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Graham, and Ryan, but the show rarely delivered on it. Gray, though, is always good at incorporating strong character beats into his writing, and as ever, we get that here, as the TARDIS delivers the four of them into a warzone. Yaz is strong-willed and idealistic; there's a great scene where she stares down some looters. Graham and Ryan are well-meaning but a bit comic; they get some fun material here when they're separate from the Doctor, especially when Ryan flirts with a robot news reporter. (Gray is good at splitting the fam up into different combinations across these stories.) The Doctor is impish, impulsive, steely, and radically compassionate. There was this idea nascent in early thirteenth Doctor stuff that she would be compassionate to the point of being dangerous but I'm not sure it always worked on screen; I actually reckon that aside from Gray, the two stories to capture the thirteenth Doctor best are Paul Cornell's lockdown tales "The Shadow Passes" and "The Shadow in the Mirror." In the latter, the Doctor extends a very dangerous but ultimately successful forgiveness, and we see something like that in her solution to this story's crisis.

from Doctor Who Magazine #533

The place where this story clearly diverges from its screen counterpart is in its use of a returning villain. While series 11 very much eschewed any returning elements at all, this brings back Berakka Dogbolter. While she only appeared for the first time back in The Stockbridge Showdown in #500, she's the daughter of long-running foe Josiah W. Dogbolter, taking us all the way back to DWM's 1980s "golden age." It's a nice move, I think: the Doctor may be different, the set-up may be different, the screen version may have a very different style, but the reader of the DWM comic knows that it's still the same story that began with The Iron Legion.

Of the new series Doctor, three were introduced by Mike Collins and a fourth by Martin Geraghty, both of whom have a very realistic style. Here, we get the dynamic John Ross on art, and he very much nails it: his likenesses are less direct but also very strong. He juggles a lot of elements in this story, and the reader is kept on top of all of them. I've liked his stuff all long, but his material in this volume is surely him at the top of his game.

So yeah, like a lot of Scott Gray's stories, there's not something I can point to that makes it a work of genius, but it is a well-executed piece of strong Doctor Who. Good characterization, neat worldbuilding, dynamic ideas.

from Doctor Who Magazine #535

Herald of Madness, from Doctor Who Magazine #535-39 (Mar.-July 2019)
story by Scott Gray, pencil art by Mike Collins, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This is a fun historical story about the Doctor and fam crashing a gathering of astronomers and such, focusing on Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. I don't have a lot to say about it that I didn't about the previous story, but again, Gray does a great job of putting together an interesting story with good reversals that splits up the regulars to strong effect. Yaz gets a good bit, where she pretends to steal someone's soul with her phone, but really they all across strongly.

Mike Collins is always good, but after reading this I kind of wondered if they didn't give him Jodie's debut because his likenesses for women are not quite as good as his ones for me (he always kind of struggled with Amy in particular), and now the lead character is a woman.

from Doctor Who Magazine #540

The Power of the Mobox, from Doctor Who Magazine #540-42 (Aug.-Oct. 2019)
story & art by Scott Gray, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

Scott Gray takes on his first multi-part story as an artist. The Mobox have appeared in a few previous DWM stories, most notably Ophidius and Uroboros, but they've never looked better than they look here, as somewhat Kirbyesque creations... but one of their strengths is they're not monsters, they're people; I came to really like R'Takk, the grumpy but well-meaning Mobox captain the fam encounters. The Kirby tone for all tech here really works; honestly, more Doctor Who artists should do this, because it's a good fit for the sensibilities of Doctor Who.

There's a great cliffhanger where it looks like the Mobox disintegrated Graham and Yaz, but long-time DWM readers will remember that Mobox store what they de-materialize inside them and can bring it back. When I first read this story in DWM in 2019, I did not remember that fact from the earlier Mobox stories almost two decades prior, but this time I did (having read the relevant stories less than a year ago), so nicely done, Scott. As always, each character gets a moment to shine, and Gray puts them in a different combination every time.

from Doctor Who Magazine #544

Mistress of Chaos, from Doctor Who Magazine #543-48 (Nov. 2019–Mar. 2020)
story by Scott Gray, art by John Ross, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

The finale to this set of stories brings back Berakka from The Warmonger and the Herald of Madness from, well, you know... and finally brings us to the planet Segonus that gives this series of posts its alliterative title! The Doctor discovers that the Herald of Madness wasn't a reflection of her... but actually her.

Again, filled with strong moments; I like Gray's steely thirteenth Doctor, who goes after Berakka when she realizes Berakka is trying to ruin her reputation. There are creepy baddies and a good role for Graham and excellent art from John Ross once more. Clever stuff as always, and James Offredi is on fire here as a colourist. Of course, the realms of logic and chaos are distinguished from each other, but they're also very distinct from the real world too.

My main issue is that "evil Doctor" stories are always tricky: the bad Doctor has to convince as the Doctor, and this doesn't always happen. Gray gets closer than most, but one never really feels like the chaos Doctor and the logic Doctor are possible future Doctors. The idea that they reflect different key aspects of the Doctor's personality comes through better in the commentary than in the actual story, where it feels more abstract. I did really like the resolution, though, and the story's closing moments—a montage of people highlighting the good the Doctor does, complete with Sharon cameo—is a fitting one for this particular Doctor, who is often positioned as a source of hope in the darkness.

Like I said above, this set-up for Doctor Who never worked for me on screen, but Gray reveals the potential that was there all along and really makes it sing.

Stray Observations:

• If you're the kind of person who cares about these things, note that The Warmonger, The Power of the Mobox, and Mistress of Chaos all take place during the same time period, which must be what Ahistory calls "the mazuma era," around the time of Dogbolter and Death's Head in the 82nd century. I don't think there was ever any kind of even loose dating given for Ophidius and Uroboros, but the presence of the Mobox empire here would seem to place them in the same era as well.
• Surely it ought to have been The Power of the Mobox!, right?
• Three different versions of Jodie Whittaker in a series finale? Whatever the tv show can come up with, Scott Gray always gets there first!
• Three of the four stories feature a mysterious "Mother G," who knows the TARDIS; she tells the Doctor what the "G" stands for in Mistress of Chaos, but we don't get to hear that answer ourselves... and the Doctor doesn't believe it. Well, I look forward to seeing where Scott Gray goes with this in what will surely be a key thread to his long run on the thirteenth Doctor's comics for the next two-and-a-half years!
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: David A Roach Appreciation Society triumphant! That's right, he finally garners cover credit for a volume where he is a "mere" inker. We did it!

Okay, Panini, where's my The Everlasting Summer collection? #549-52, 559-72, 574-77, and 578-83 would add up to about the right amount of content for a graphic novel. And then I think Monstrous Beauty would go well with Liberation of the Daleks.

* Well, kind of.

This post is the forty-seventh in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers issues #215–18, 223–27, and 235–54 of Transformers UK. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
42. The Phantom Piper
43. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2
44. The Clockwise War
45. Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War
46. Skywatch-7

The Phantom Piper (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 42)

The Phantom Piper: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Scott Gray, Martin Geraghty, Staz Johnson, Mike Collins, et al.

Collection published: 2018
Contents originally published: 2017-18
Acquired: December 2018
Read: December 2022

The introduction of Bill to the comic strip (but, alas, not Nardole) brings a new consistent writer—our man Scott Gray of course—and with it, another ongoing story arc. It's interesting: though a number different writers have had ongoing runs since Johnny Morris, I think Gray is the only writer to have an ongoing run concurrent with tv episodes. Is this easier to do if the strip's editor is the actual writer? Probably.

The Soul Garden, from Doctor Who Magazine #512-14 (June-Aug. 2017)
story by Scott Gray, pencil art by Martin Geraghty, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge 

Bill makes her debut in this story, where the Doctor reencounters Rudy Zoom (of the twelfth Doctor's own debut story) on Titan... alongside Samuel Taylor Coleridge!? This one has isn't great but it is solid: good interplay between the characters, somehow Coleridge fits right in, great surreal sequences (I often hate "dream logic" in stories, but it actually works here). I think the plant stuff lost me a bit, to be honest, but overall this one is fun.

from Doctor Who Magazine #516

The Parliament of Fear, from Doctor Who Magazine #515-17 (Sept.-Nov. 2017)
story by Scott Gray, pencil art by Staz Johnson and Mike Collins, inks by Staz Johnson and David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

It's interesting to see a writer retrod old ground with the benefit of development. Scott Gray last took the Doctor to the American West way back in Bad Blood, almost twenty years ago. This is similar in some ways, but the Doctor no longer goes around making insensitive comments about native peoples, and there's an interesting bit where it's a "celebrity historical" where the Doctor himself doesn't know the celebrity, because he's the kind of person left out of most history books. I am a bit skeptical of Doctor Who plots where I am supposed to think someone's gone "too far" in trying to not be genocided, but overall this one really works: good jokes, good characters, a serious topic well covered, great art from Staz Johnson. I don't think Bad Blood was awful or anything, but this was a nice return to old ground with good results.

from Doctor Who Magazine #518

Matildus, from Doctor Who Magazine #518 (Dec. 2017)
story & art by Scott Gray, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

Not only can he write and edit... he can draw! Scott Gray makes his DWM art debut after over two decades as writer in a decent one-part story. Good capturing of and focus on Bill, and I'm always down for a return to Cornucopia (sorry Stockbridge, but it might be my favorite DWM recurring setting), but the story itself is a bit slight even for twelve pages. Great aliens, though, and a good sense of place.

from Doctor Who Magazine #523

The Phantom Piper, from Doctor Who Magazine #519-23 (Winter 2017/18–Apr. 2018)
story by Scott Gray, pencil art by Martin Geraghty, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

If The Stockbridge Showdown gave us the bright side of DWM's long history, The Phantom Piper gives us the dark. Both in the sense that Showdown revisited happy times and places, while Phantom Piper takes us to an era of conflict and despair, but also in that returning to the setting of The Child of Time, the strip struggles to maintain forward momentum. Child of Time was a complicated story, and Phantom Piper has a lot of exposition about it to communicate: about Chiyoko, about Alan Turing, about the Galateans. Plus it also needs to fill you in on the Phantom Piper itself, and I found that there were rather a lot of characters here that I struggled to keep track of. So while I'm usually glad the strip mines its own history, this attempt to do so felt like a lot of backstory and explanations more than an actual story of its own.

Part of the reason is probably that the strip, having gradually extended from eight pages to ten to twelve, abruptly drops back down to eight, leaving little room for moments of characterization. Bill in particular feels a bit pointless here. The Piper is a creepy-looking villain, and there are some neat sequences where it shows the lost war (which we saw in Apotheosis before the Doctor changed the timeline)... though its look isn't too far off the villains of The Eye of Torment. The first Scott Gray epic I struggled with, alas.

Stray Observations:

• James Offredi, who's been coloring the strip all the way since #356 with only a few breaks here and there, becomes the first colorist to pop up in the commentaries. It's great stuff! Coloring is one of those things I never really notice as a reader, it's not in your face like writing and pencilling/inking, but it clearly has a significant effect on the reading experience, which is well-discussed here. (I am not sure I would know a fine coloring job from a great one without someone explaining it to me.) Offredi is good, and it's neat to hear from a different voice.
• I can't remember the last time a DWM artist didn't finish out a story they started drawing, it's been so long. Was it The Stockbridge Horror way back in #70-75? Surely not! Staz Johnson illustrates part one of The Parliament of Fear himself, gets inked by David A Roach for part two, and then is replaced by Mike Collins for part three. Johnson and Collins are both good artists, but they have very different styles, though Roach's inks ease the transition.
• There's no mention in the commentary of why we went down to eight pages, or even that it happened at all, but this is the era where the magazine as a whole lost word count and changed focus. Not even two years since the extravagant celebration of the comic, and now it feels like it's under attack.
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: Oh, sure, give the colourist cover credit... but not the inker of ten strips out of twelve!

This post is the forty-second in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
    

Doorway to Hell (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 40)

Doorway to Hell: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Mark Wright, Staz Johnson, Mike Collins, David A Roach, and John Ross

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2016-17
Acquired: December 2017
Read: December 2022

The twelfth Doctor has settled down for a time, stuck in one time and place. His new companion is a young, college-age black woman, to whom he acts as a bit of a teacher. Plus, his oldest enemy is trapped with him.

No, it's not series ten... it's DWM issues #501 to 511! It is a bit amazing how much this is like what would be done on screen a year later. "Great minds," one supposes, but it's a set-up that really works in both cases.

Reading the comic, I have come to look forward to those periods where the television programme is off screen for protracted runs. Even though the comic is usually solid when the show is on, the energy of a complete run with its own connections and themes makes it greater than the sum of its parts—and it's most often these sequences that reward rereading in collected form.

The Pestilent Heart, from Doctor Who Magazine #501-03 (Aug.-Oct. 2016)
story by Mark Wright, pencils by Mike Collins, inks by David A Roach, colour by James Offredi, letters by Roger Langridge

This is the story that has to reunite the twelfth Doctor with Jess Collins from The Highgate Horror, strand the Doctor in the 1970s, and establish a new status quo. Its strength is definitely its first installment, where Jess goes after the enigmatic Doctor she remembers from Highgate Cemetary; the later-era Peter Capaldi Doctor is perfectly presented here, funny and acerbic. Once the plot gets underway I found it all a bit less interesting, to be honest, and when the bird creatures appeared in a grave, I was a bit confused until I realized they were totally different bird creatures to the ones in a grave from Jess's first story!

from Doctor Who Magazine #504

Moving In, from Doctor Who Magazine #504 (Nov. 2016)
story by Mark Wright, art by John Ross, colour by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

Now this is where this run and its premise begins to sing. This is told in the form of four three-page vignettes, as the Doctor interacts with each member of the Collins household: father Lloyd, mother Devina, son Maxwell, and of course Jess. They're all nicely executed bits of characterization, but the best of all is the Doctor arguing about superheroes with Max. "Detectives aren't clever! What's clever about solving crimes after they happen? 'Ooh, look at my amazing powers of hindsight!'" John Ross is usually tapped as DWM's action man (see last volume for a prime example), but he's amazingly deft with the character work here: good facial expressions, really captures Capaldi's performance and brings the whole family to life. This is the kind of thing only the strip could do, and all the better for it.

from Doctor Who Magazine #506

Bloodsport, from Doctor Who Magazine #505-06 (Dec. 2016–Winter 2016/17)
story by Mark Wright, art by Staz Johnson, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This is a fine story. Solid but unspectacular... alien hunters come to London, the Doctor must persuade them to depart. It's the exact kind of thing that benefits from the overarching set-up, because Jess and Max and the blundering cop are what make the story work, as real people around the Doctor trying to get out.

from Doctor Who Magazine #507

Be Forgot, from Doctor Who Magazine #507 (Jan. 2017)
story by Mark Wright, layouts & inks by David A Roach, pencil art by Mike Collins, colour by James Offredi, letteting by Roger Langridge

I like that Christmas strips have become a thing, but not too regular of a thing so that they don't feel repetitive when the graphic novels are read in quick succession. I am, however, not sure what I think of this one. You think the Collinses' neighbor is being controlled by a monster, but it turns out to be a hallucination brought on by grief. It's trying to say something important... but is this how grief and mental illness work? Feels a bit cheap. But I did like the last page a lot, where Devina throws a Christmas party for the whole street.

Doorway to Hell, from Doctor Who Magazine #508-11 (Feb.-May 2017)
story by Mark Wright, art by Staz Johnson, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

It all comes to a (premature, I would claim; more on that soon) end with this story, a nice little epic where the Roger Delgado Master goes after the twelfth Doctor, mistaking him for a new incarnation after the third. There are two great cliffhangers, good character moments, nice dialogue, impressive hellish art from Staz Johnson, and a nice coda. It's all very well done, and DWM makes one of its rare bids for depicting a key tv-continuity moment with the regeneration of the Master. I liked it, and like all the stories, it's better because of its context.

from Doctor Who Magazine #509

I said above that this run is a lot like series ten. There's another way it's like series ten: its set-up feels like it could have been a storytelling engine for a lot longer than it was. I always think we needed a second series of the Doctor and Bill at St. Luke's; I would have liked to have had at least one more story of the Doctor with the Collinses. It very much seems like there ought to have been at least one more "regular" adventure at least between Be Forgot and Doorway to Hell.

Stray Observations:

• Sometimes Roger Langridge is credited with "lettering," other times with "letters." This must not bother him, as he's the one who has to write it each time, so if it did, he could fix it! (Similarly, sometimes James Offredi is credited with "colour" and other times with "colours.")
• Jess remembers the Doctor used to travel with Clara, of course, but as per "Hell Bent," he does not. So when she brings it up, he's confused... but oddly not curious. I guess in some way, he knows it's something he's better off not knowing, but it does read a bit off. That said, there wouldn't be a way to bring Jess back without this bit of awkwardness.
• Staz Johnson is the first new artist to debut in DWM in quite some time, the first since Paul Grist way back in #414, ninety-one issues prior. This is the longest gap between new artists in DWM history, beating out the previous record when Tim Perkins debuted in issue #130, the first new artist since John Ridgway forty-two issues earlier. He is, on the other hand, the first DWM artist not to contribute to the commentaries that I can remember! (At least, since the detailed commentaries were introduced.) He's done some work for DC and such, but I know him best as one of the primary artists of the later, black-and-white years of the Transformers UK comic strip.
  
• Don't confuse Be Forgot the Christmas comic strip written by Mark Wright with with "...Be Forgot," the Christmas short story co-written by Mark Wright. I guess if you have a good title, you can't afford to turn it down even if you've used it before!
• Wright talks about suggesting era-appropriate actors to Staz Johnson to model characters on; Katya, the Master's henchlady in Doorway to Hell, is clearly Jacqueline Pearce!
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: The rare DWM graphic novel where everyone who worked on it gets cover credit!

This post is the fortieth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
    

The Highgate Horror (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 39)

The Highgate Horror: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Mark Wright, David A Roach, Mike Collins, Jacqueline Rayner, Martin Geraghty, et al.

Collection published: 2016
Contents originally published: 2015-16
Acquired: January 2017
Read: December 2022

The strip continues its use of rotating creative teams throughout the twelfth Doctor and Clara era. Since The Crimson Hand, the strip has always tried to do an ongoing strand when the show is off the air for protracted periods of time, but it is less consistent about if it tries to do this when the show is on. Yes, ongoing stories for the Eleven/Amy and Eleven/Clara runs, no ongoing stories for the Twelve/Clara run. I wonder what determines this? Well, presumably Scott Gray knows how to make the magic...

Space Invaders! / Spirits of the Jungle, from Doctor Who Magazine #484 & 489-91 (Apr., Sept.-Nov. 2015)
stories by Mark Wright and Jonathan Morris, art by Mike Collins & David A Roach and John Ross, colour by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

These two stories perhaps exemplify the fault with the rotating creative team approach. This isn't to say that the stories are awful or anything—I feel a bit bad picking on them, to be honest—but they are also not up to much. Space Invaders! has a fun premise of the Doctor and Clara being in a gigantic space storage facility, but I don't feel like it does anything fun with it, as it basically becomes a fight between them and a giant monster. Similarly, Spirits of the Jungle is crammed with ideas and action, but the ideas are mostly just there; the story doesn't really do anything of note with the idea of a living jungle, or Clara encountering a Danny Pink simulation, or what have you. The fakeout ending is all too obvious: this is an area where the regular page length of a DWM strips lets the twist down. Clearly the story isn't going to wrap up on page three! It would be more effective to trick the reader into thinking it's a two-parter, and then having a cliffhanger at the end of part two.

from Doctor Who Magazine #492

The Highgate Horror, from Doctor Who Magazine #492-93 (Dec. 2015–Winter 2015/16)
story by Mark Wright, art by David A Roach with Mike Collins, colour by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This is a solid enough story. Lots of atmosphere as the Doctor and Clara battle vampires in a spooky cemetery, aided by future companion Jess. But the ending—as I feel like is often the case with these two-part stories by inexperienced comics writers—seems to come out of nowhere. Like, it's ten pages of solid horror, and then the Doctor's like, "oh this previously unmentioned time thingummy can fix all out problems." But David A Roach really nails it, of course.

The Dragon Lord, from Doctor Who Magazine #494-95 (Jan.-Feb. 2016)
story by Steve Lyons, art & colour by Adrian Salmon, lettering by Roger Langridge

"Adrian Salmon, draw dragons." Well, of course it looks great. But to be honest I found the story a bit of a muddle, and got lost, especially as the Doctor seemed very angry for reasons that I never really grasped.

from Doctor Who Magazine #496

Theatre of the Mind, from Doctor Who Magazine #496 (Mar. 2016)
master of ceremonies: Roger Langridge, lighting by James Offredi

Roger Langridge has been a recurring artist on DWM since Happy Deathday in 1998, and the main letterer of the strip since TV Action! in 1999. But Langridge is also an accomplished writer of comics, something I know from his short, lamented, but very good 2010-11 run on Thor. Here for the first time in seventeen years at DWM, he writes as well as draws... and the the result is excellent, the first strong strip in what was shaping up to be a bit of a lackluster volume. The Doctor meets old friend Harry Houdini... and of course battles aliens. Langridge has a great grasp of character voice, some good gags and imagery, and real economy of storytelling. Everything here shines in both writing and art. His caricatured style is good for capturing Peter Capaldi, of course, but I was also surprised to realize that he probably does the best Jenna Coleman of all the DWM artists?

Witch Hunt, from Doctor Who Magazine #497-99 (Apr.-June 2016)
story by Jacqueline Rayner, pencil art by Martin Geraghty, inks by David A Roach, colours by James Offredi, lettering by Roger Langridge

This story I had a dim memory of reading as it came out (which was not true for the other stories here, most of which I had completely forgotten)... and I was surprised to find Clara's last DWM adventure an absolute delight. A Halloween-themed fundraiser at Coal Hill School goes horribly wrong when Clara—dressed as a witch—is sent back to the era of the witch hunts and hunted by the real Witchfinder General! It looks great of course (Clara in a simple black witch outfit is perfect) and is packed with lots of great moments: "curses" start working... but the Doctor is able to use that to his advantage by picking up a penny and giving himself luck. Clara in prison is a tour-de-force of illustration from Martin Geraghty and David Roach. There's lots of whimsy here mixed with real peril, especially when the Doctor must face down Miss Chief, a seemingly omnipotent entity who just really really gets on his nerves, the kind of enemy that Peter Capaldi's Doctor sparkles facing down. Lots of good gags, strong character moments. Jac Rayner is rapidly emerging as a new talent on the DWM strip.

from Doctor Who Magazine #500

The Stockbridge Showdown, from Doctor Who Magazine #500 (July 2016)
story by Scott Gray; art by Dave Gibbons, Roger Langridge, Adrian Salmon, Dan McDaid, John Ross, and John Ridgway; pencil art by Mike Collins and Martin Geraghty; art & inks by David A Roach; colours by James Offredi; lettering by Dave Gibbons and Roger Langridge

Five hundred issues of DWM... commemorated by a twenty-page strip featuring Sharon, Max Edison, Izzy, Frobisher, Destrii, Majenta Pryce, (kind of) Chiyoko, Dogbolter, and Hob! With art by all the most prominent current members of the DWM art team, but also bringing back Dave Gibbons and John Ridgway! Like, what can you say against or even for such a celebratory jam? It also gets in references to DWM's two dead companions, Sir Justin and Gus... and the Gus moment is the emotional heart of the strip. "No one ever remembers Gus. Except me." This is what I think elevates it, not just using the strip's history as a source of continuity, but delivering a surprise character moment. "You see, I'm not on your list, Dogbolter... you were on mine." Finally, 413 issues later, the Doctor brings Dogbolter to justice.

from Doctor Who Magazine #500

It's got lots of nice moments beyond that. It's great to see a sure-of-herself Izzy, and the bit where she points out that of course she's reconciled with her parents is great; it's nice to see her and Destrii getting along; it's good to see Destrii at all (though we don't know what she's been up to) and Majenta Pryce using her powers for good. Max gets his moment in the spotlight, and we even get to visit DWM's other mainstay of a setting, Cornucopia. The way each artist is assigned their own two-page spread is very well done; we finally get to see Dan McDaid draw Majenta again, for example.

A well-earned and well-done celebration of five hundred issues. I mean, c'mon... they got Dave Gibbons to come back!

Stray Observations:

• I think I'm getting good at pegging when David Roach is collaborating with Mike Collins and when he's not. Their styles are very sympathetic, but there's some slight differences when Roach isn't inking over Collins's pencils.



from Doctor Who Magazine #497


• At thirty-eight issues, Clara has the third-longest run of any comic strip companion, behind only Izzy and Frobisher, and just edging out Amy. Not sure I would have guessed she had the longest run of any tv companion! But it kind of makes sense; there were some big hiatuses in Clara's tv tenure. (Note that this doesn't mean she appeared in all thirty-eight issues of the era, just that she was the companion for that period.)
• Scott Gray totally ignores the fact that Dogbolter was seemingly killed off in Death's Head #8. Look, I know, but it was written and illustrated by Dogbolter's creator! And he ignores that Hob became a vengeful killing machine in The Incomplete Death's Head #6-12. I can't imagine why!
• Maybe it would have been overegging the pudding, but I could have done with a couple more cameos at the last-page celebration of Max's birthday on Cornucopia. C'mon, throw in Horatio Lynk and Amy Johnson!
• Okay, it feels a bit churlish to complain about this, but whenever the strip celebrates its own history, it feels to me like what it celebrates is not the entirety of that history, but just 1979-87 and 1996-present. Sure, 1987-95 was not the best era of the strip, but it often seems like Ground Zero didn't just erase the New Adventures strips, but everything involving Sylvester McCoy's Doctor at all. I'm not saying that Olla the Heat Vampire needed to pop up here... but, I dunno, give us a Muriel Frost or House on Allen Road appearance? The strip continued to introduce original characters and concepts during that run, and surely someone out there is nostalgic for them! And it's not like this period is one Scott Gray is unfamiliar with... he debuted on DWM then!
  



from Doctor Who Magazine #500


• Say it again. Dave Gibbons! John Ridgway! Wow! They both have still got it.
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: Second billing! Of course, he's not "just a tracer" in this one...

This post is the thirty-ninth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Doorway to Hell. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment