Doctor Who: The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor by James Peaty, Iolanda Zanfardino, Pasquale Qualano, Brian Williamson, et al.

 Doctor Who: The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor

Collection published: 2019
Contents originally published: 2018
Acquired: March 2020
Read: November 2021

Writers: James Peaty, Jody Houser
Artists: Iolanda Zanfardino, Pasquale Qualano, Brian Williamson, Rachael Stott

Colorists: Dijjo Lima, Enrica Eren Angiolini
Letterers: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This volume seems pretty pointless. Do new incarnations of the Doctor need "roads" to them? What does that even mean? How can you set up a new incarnation of the Doctor? What it turns out to mean here is three standalone stories about the three previous incarnations of the Doctor, the three who had ongoings from Titan for the previous three years. So we get a tenth Doctor, Gabby, and Cindy adventure; an eleventh Doctor and Alice adventure; and a twelfth Doctor and Bill adventure. Each is fine, but I found the reveals in the tenth Doctor one not very convincing (the monsters look cool but that's it) and the story in the eleventh Doctor one confusing. I don't even remember the twelfth Doctor one. Some Titan writers have done impressive single-issue adventures (mostly the writers on the Eleventh Doctor series), but these are not of them.

Each story is followed by a short back-up featuring the same Doctor, but by the creative team of the upcoming Thirteenth Doctor book and set during an episode of the tv show. In each case, the Doctor sees a hand coming through a time portal, and then does nothing about it, continuing about his business. Having already read the first volume of The Thirteenth Doctor as of this writing, it's pretty pointless set-up, and I don't entirely buy that the Doctor would just ignore each of these time portals and go about his business. Sure, we know it has nothing to do with the events of "The Girl in the Fireplace" or "The Power of Three" or whatever, but how does he? But I do like some Rachael Stott art.

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 Thirteenth Doctor: The Many Lives of Doctor Who

Doctor Who: Roots by George Mann, James Peaty, I. N. J. Culbard, Ivan Rodriguez, Wellington Diaz, Klebs Junior, Leandro Casco, et al.

Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling, Vol 2: Roots

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Writers: George Mann & James Peaty with Vince Pavey
Artists: I. N. J. Culbard, Ivan Rodriguez, Wellington Diaz, Klebs Junior & Leandro Casco with Pasquale Qualano
Colorists: Triona Farrell, Stefani Renne & Thiago Ribiero

Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

Longtime readers of my reviews of Titan's Doctor Who comics will know that The Eleventh Doctor has consistently been my favorite of their three-then-four-then-three ongoings. For its first seven volumes, it was always written by Rob Williams and one other writer (Al Ewing for "Year One," Si Spurrier for "Year Two," Alex Paknadel for vol 1 of "Year Three"); they would typically cowrite the opening and closing story, and then alternate the stories in between, most of which were just one issue. I don't know how much collaboration there was, but they certainly seemed like a seamless whole, and the succession of done-in-ones allowed for a lot of variety. More than any other Titan ongoings, The Eleventh Doctor has felt like comics first and foremost, not a tv show on the comic page, much like the early years of Doctor Who Magazine's strip.

Year Three, alas, breaks the pattern. For the first time in the run of The Eleventh Doctor, we have a collected edition with no Rob Williams content, and this volume doesn't bring back Alex Paknadel from vol 1 of The Sapling, either. And to add insult to injury, the writer primarily used instead is George Mann. Now, Mann has gotten better than he was, even if he's not great, but I didn't find him very suited to the style of The Eleventh Doctor; neither is James Peaty, who handles the other of the four issues collected here. (There's also a four-page backup story by Vince Pavey.) Neither writer can get the short story down; in all of the examples collected here, the Doctor discovers a problem, and then defeats it right way, much too easily. Too long is spent on the build-up, keeping there from being an effective twist or turn at the climax; in Mann's "Fooled," for example, the Doctor just takes the villain's device and breaks it, and that's it; in Peaty's "Time of the Ood," things go similarly easy. Even when Mann has two issues, as in "The Memory Feast," we still have one-and-a-half issues of running around before we get to a quick resolution. (Overload the thingy, that good old Doctor Who standby.)

I also didn't find the engagement with the ongoing Sapling arc very satisfying. The Sapling himself is a blank slate of a character, the supposed memory crisis that the Doctor and Alice are experiencing doesn't really seem to make much of a practical difference, and though two of the three stories are about memory, they thematically are not up to much.

What does work is the art of I. N. J. Culbard. He's worked on two previous volumes of The Eleventh Doctor, but this is the first where he's made an impression on me, and it's a strong one; he draws three of the four issues here, and he has a somewhat Mike Mignolaesque style, even if it's all his own. Very atmospheric, pairs well with the coloring, and as The Eleventh Doctor does at its best, it feels like comics, not comics-as-tv (or tv-as-comics). I see that for the final volume he'll be back, and paired with Alex Paknadel, which should hopefully be an excellent combination.

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: Free Comic Book Day 2017

Doctor Who: The Terror Beneath by George Mann, James Peaty, Mariano Laclaustra, Warren Pleece, et al.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials, Vol 1: The Terror Beneath

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Writers: George Mann & James Peaty
Artists: Mariano Laclaustra & Warren Pleece with Fer Centurion
Colorists: Carlos Cabrera & Hernán Cabrera
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

"Year Three" of Titan's Twelfth Doctor ongoing has the umbrella title "Time Trials," but no kind of ongoing storyline is introduced in its first volume. Indeed, my guess is that the umbrella title is so vague because there won't be one, that kind of thing being much harder to weave into an ongoing that's beholden to what's happening on screen. (The twelfth Doctor was still on screen when these comics came out; "Year One" did have a minor ongoing plot, but "Year Two" didn't.) Like the last couple volumes of Year Two, the Doctor is still companionless here, but he does pick up one-off companion Hattie from The Twist for a perfectly okay outing about spooky underwater things in a seaside village. Mann has settled in as a serviceable writer of twelfth Doctor comics: rarely wretched, but in no way does the twelfth Doctor looking at the "camera" and saying, "I always thought the Jon Pertwee era was the best one" capture what the twelfth Doctor era was like on screen, which often pushed at the boundaries of screen Doctor Who to such an extent as to irritate me. Just try to be interesting, Mann! I do think Mariano Laclaustra is good at atmosphere, and he's probably this comic's best artist who wasn't Rachael Stott.

There's also a one-issue story by James Peaty where the Doctor lands in a town terrified by a floating smile. Warren Pleece turns in some excellent, disconcerting art, but the story itself is entirely predictable and obvious.

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 Eleventh Doctor: The Sapling: Roots

Review: Doctor Who: War of Gods by Nick Abadzis, James Peaty, Giorgia Sposito, Warren Pleece, et al.

With this, I am finally caught up on reviewing my Titan Doctor Who comics, so finally I can review something else! Until I read some more, anyway...

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 2016-17
Read: May 2021

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol 7: War of Gods

Writers: Nick Abadzis, James Peaty
Artists: Giorgia Sposito, Warren Pleece with Arianna Florean
Colorists: Arianna Florean, Adele Matera
Letterers: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

To be honest, this is wretched. A series that began by emulating Russell T Davies's "domestic" style has ended up embracing the "planet Zog" style of Doctor Who he used to rail against. The Osirians are doing some kind of evil space thing, and all space itself is under threat. Who cares? I found the dimensions of the threat murky and confusing (I swear three different issues ended with Sutekh being released from captivity), I don't care about Anubis or the actress lady, and the personal hook of Gabby and Cindy is pretty much nonexistent. Bad and dull. Giorgia Sposito is fine as an artist, but she's no Elena Casagrande or Eleonora Carlini. I wanted to jump off the book at this point, but some people claim Year Three is a return to form, and my library has it all via Hoopla, so I guess I'll give it a shot.

There's also a one-issue story set during vol 6, about Gabby going to London for the first time. I didn't find the idea that the Doctor would be all mopey about London because Rose, Martha, and Donna were from there very convincing (it seems to me that he has a lot more London memories from across 900 years of life, and we've never seen him react to a place like that before), and I don't think Warren Pleece's art is a good match for the tenth Doctor (loved him on The Eleventh Doctor, though), but aside from that it was a fine enough insubstantial story.

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 Third Doctor: Heralds of Destruction