Review: Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time, Volume 3 by Scott & David Tipton et al.

Comic PDF eBook, 92 pages
Published 2013 (contents: 2013)
Acquired May 2014
Read December 2014

Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time, Volume 3

Written by Scott & David Tipton

Art by David Messina with Giorgia Sposito, Elena Casagrande, Matthew Dow Smith, and Kelly Yates
Colors by Arianna Florean with Azzura M. Florean and Charlie Kirchoff
Letters by Tom B. Long

I found the ninth Doctor story here completely forgettable, but the tenth Doctor one is decently fun: Quarks and Dominators!

The eleventh Doctor one is where it all goes to shit. That's where the Doctor takes on Adam directly-- Adam the short-lived ninth Doctor companion who's been kidnapping the Doctor's companions systematically at the end of each of these chapters. Adam as a villain just being a hilariously fannish idea in the worst way. It just all gets terribly convoluted and uninteresting, and there are too many characters, and too much space-filling. And the last two pages are just genuinely awful in a way that's completely bizarre; like, how could anyone think this was a reasonable emotional resolution? Prisoners of Time had its high points, but this volume does not include many of them.

Next Week: On to my next reading project... a couple weeks of catching up with the Legion of Super-Heroes!

Review: Doctor Who: Sky Jacks! by Andy Diggle & Eddie Robson, Andy Kuhn, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, 108 pages
Published 2013 (contents: 2012-13)
Acquired May 2014
Read November 2014

Doctor Who, Volume 3: Sky Jacks!

Written by Andy Diggle & Eddie Robson and Len Wein

Art by Andy Kuhn and Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff and Adrian Salmon
Lettering by Shawn Lee

For the first three chapters, this is classic Doctor Who: the Doctor and Clara (yay!) end up in an infinite sky, where they fall in with the crew of a British bomber from World War II. It's a very cool, sprawling world, and it's very fun-- thanks especially to the art of Andy Kuhn, who eschews dull tie-in realism for a more cartoony style to good effect. His Clara Oswald may not look like Jenna-Louise Coleman, but she does look like Clara. There are a lot of cool visuals and neat ideas here, plus dogfights, and what's more exciting than that?

It all crashes down in chapter four, though, when it's revealed who's behind it all-- tying back in to Andy Diggle's first story in The Hypothetical Gentleman. (The book credits Andy Diggle and Eddie Robson with writing; I'd guess Eddie Robson scripted it from a plot by Diggle, whose presence on the book has been inconsistent at best.) Unfortunately, it's a maniacally evil Matrix, having escaped the destruction of Gallifrey. There's potential here-- the Doctor vs. the dead memories of his race-- but it comes across as an excuse for continuity (there are tie-ins to The Deadly Assassin, The End of Time, and "The Day of the Doctor") and really it could be the Doctor fighting any evil robot spider. I really like Eddie Robson as a writer, but this final chapter does not play to his strengths.

Finally, there's a short tale by Len Wein and Matthew Dow Smith: "In-Fez-Station!" The Doctor, Amy, and Rory fight the Slitheen while wearing fezes at the Fez Music Festival in Fez, Morocco. It's fun.

Next Week: Tony Lee returns (and so does Clara) as the TARDIS visits the Old West in Dead Man's Hand!

Review: Doctor Who: As Time Goes By by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Matthew Dow Smith

Comic PDF eBook, 90 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 2012)
Acquired May 2014
Read October 2014

Doctor Who II, Volume 4: As Time Goes By

Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov

Art by Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff
Lettering by Shawn Lee

Joshua Hale Fialkov takes over the writing duties on IDW's Doctor Who comic from Tony Lee for one volume, wherein the Doctor, Amy, and Rory land in Casablanca in 1941, and you might find much of what happens somewhat familiar... only I don't remember Bogart meeting any Silurians. This is pretty fun at first, especially thanks to the always-dependable Matthew Dow Smith on art, but I found that as the plot went on it got more complicated, and not in a good way, and thus the resolution came across as curiously cursory. Good, but not great-- admittedly, the best out of the four volumes of Doctor Who II (as the title page of this trade calls it).

Next Week: The Doctor, Amy, and Rory discover that resistance really is futile in Assimilation²!

Review: Doctor Who: It Came From Outer Space by Tony Lee, Matthew Dow Smith, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, 138 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 2011)
Acquired May 2014
Read September 2014

Doctor Who, Volume 3: It Came From Outer Space

Written by Tony Lee, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Matthew Dow Smith, and Dan McDaid

Art by Josh Adams, Matthew Dow Smith, Paul Grist, Blair Shedd, Mitch Gerads, and Dan McDaid
Colors by Rachelle Rosenberg, Charlie Kirchoff, Mitch Gerads, Kyle Latino, and Dan McDaid (with Deborah McCumiskey)
Lettering by Shawn Lee and Neil Uyetake

Tony Lee managed to surprise me with the first few pages of this collection, with the prologue to "Space Squid," a cute little montage of adventures with the new TARDIS crew: the eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Kevin the Robotic Tyrannosaurus. But then it becomes a tedious space station runaround, made worse by Lee's decision to name all the station crew after cast members from Castle, guaranteeing you get knocked out of the story every 2-3 pages. I liked Josh Adams's artwork in the prologue, but in the story itself, it's stiff and overly posed, like he's traced too many reference photos that don't quite fit the circumstances of the story.

Next is "Body Snatched" with the ever-reliable Matthew Dow Smith on art. Seriously, this guy is good, and if any artist gets carried over to Titan's Doctor Who comics, it had better be him. The story itself should be fun-- the Doctor and Amy switch bodies-- but of course it's more a television premise, where you'd get to see Matt Smith play Amy and Karen Gillan play the Doctor, and so it feels squandered here, and the plot that surrounds this is unnecessarily convoluted.

The rest of the book is a set of shorts, which are on the whole entertaining. Lee and Paul Grist's "Silent Knight," a textless story where the Doctor teams up with Santa, is fun. Joshua Hale Fialkov and Blair Shedd's "Run, Doctor, Run," where the Doctor lands on an Escher-like world (though not Castrovalva-like) is gorgeous to look at and fun enough for its length. Matthew Dow Smith (on writing and not art) and Mitch Gerads provide "Down to Earth," a decent tale with gorgeous art of the Doctor and an alien hiding on Earth. Finally, Doctor Who Magazine stalwart Dan McDaid crosses the pond for "Tuesday," a zany alien invasion story framed by a letter from Amy to her mum. McDaid gets these characters, in both writing and art; I'd love to see a full Doctor Who comic series by him.

Next Week: The Doctor, Amy, and Rory must remember this, a kiss is still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh, the fundamental things apply, As Time Goes By!

Review: Doctor Who: When Worlds Collide by Tony Lee, Matthew Dow Smith, & Mark Buckingham

Before we get started, I should note that my review of the Doctor Who audio drama The Highest Science is now up at Unreality SF.

Okay, so like I said yesterday, on Tuesdays from here out, I'll be reviewing books in what I call my "reading projects"; books I read on some kind of regular schedule. First up is the series of Doctor Who comics from IDW that I read issue-by-issue over breakfast from June to December 2014. I've already reviewed some of them, but I left off with The Ripper; next up is:

Comic PDF eBook, 90 pages
Published 2012 (contents: 2011)
Acquired May 2014
Read September 2014

Doctor Who: When Worlds Collide

Written by Tony Lee

Art by Mark Buckingham & Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff
Lettering by Neil Uyetake, Chris Mowry & Shawn Lee

There are two stories here, curiously undifferentiated in the collection. The first, only an issue long, has the Doctor, Amy, and Rory playing soccer with Anglo-Saxons, and it is not as fun as that description ought to imply.

The rest of the volume is made of what I can only assume is the title story. It's one of those tales where time zones get all mashed together, and to be honest, I find those tedious if they have no more substance than that-- Doctor Who long ago passed the point where temporal juxtaposition was innately interesting. Thankfully, this one does have a little bit of something to offer, mainly an army of temporal duplicates of the TARDIS crew, Sontarans on flying carpets, and a robotic dinosaur named Kevin. Also, Matthew Dow Smith's artwork, which is one of the real high points of IDW's Doctor Who stories over all. When Worlds Collide isn't great, but it's an above-average adventure for the range.

Next Week: The Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Kevin return in... It Came From Outer Space!

Review: Doctor Who: Final Sacrifice by Tony Lee, Matthew Dow Smith, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, 138 pages
Published 2011 (contents: 2010)
Acquired May 2014
Read July 2014

Doctor Who, Volume 3: Final Sacrifice

Story by Tony Lee, Jonathan L. Davis, Matthew Dow Smith, and Al Davison

Art by Matthew Dow Smith, Kelly Yates, and Al Davison
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff, Phil Elliott, and Al Davison
Lettering by Robbie Robbins & Neil Uyetake

I guess if you cared about Lee's original companions, you'd care about this book, but I don't and I don't. The situation here is contrived by a seemingly-omnipotent and poorly-motivated enemy, solely to teach the Doctor some kind of lesson that I don't really understand the purpose of. The end piles on crazy revelation after crazy revelation. Plus Torchwood is in this, which I guess is good for you if you like "The Time Machination" (I didn't) or if you thought what this story needed were a group of pointless characters to stand around.

There are some short stories in the back, which are decent: some are better in concept than execution, but I like the art in all three (and in the main story, too, actually; Matthew Dow Smith is great at capturing likeness but keeping it stylized). There's a lovely moment where the tenth Doctor dreams of the eleventh.

Review: Doctor Who: Fugitive by Tony Lee, Al Davison, and Matthew Dow Smith

Comic PDF eBook, 134 pages
Published 2010 (contents: 2009)
Acquired May 2014
Read June 2014

Doctor Who, Volume One: Fugitive

Written by Tony Lee

Art by Al Davison and Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by Lovern Kindzierski and Charlie Kirchoff
Letters by Chris Mowry, Robbie Robbins, and Neil Uyetake

The tenth Doctor's comic book adventures continue-- like The Forgotten, this seems to be set somewhere between "Journey's End" and "The Waters of Mars." It's comprised of two stories. The first, "Silver Scream," sees the Doctor meeting Archie Maplin (ugh) in 1920s Hollywood, only there's a dastardly plot afoot to drain hopes and dreams from aspiring actresses (of course there is). This is a decent runaround, and Tony Lee does a good job of capturing the voice of the tenth Doctor. The real highlight is the way that Lee and artist Al Davison create some arresting images: the cliffhanger at the end of chapter 1 is divine, and its reprisal is a cool reversal. Then, there's a section done in the style of silent film-- you could only do this in comics! And it's hilarious. One of the two bad guys seems to be dealt with off-panel, but otherwise I enjoyed this.

"Fugitive" is the kind of story I expected to roll my eyes at: the Doctor is captured by the Shadow Proclamation (from "The Stolen Earth") and put on trial, with Brother Lassar a.k.a. Mr. Finch (from "School Reunion") as the prosecutor, and he ends up on a Judoon spaceship (from "Smith and Jones") on the way to the prison world of Volag Noc (from "The Infinite Quest") with a Sontaran, an Ogron, and a Draconian (the events of Frontier in Space are referenced a lot).* But it actually really worked! I don't really see why Finch was necessary, but the rest of the elements come together nicely-- when the Doctor ends up on the run with his fellow prisoners, there's a lot of fun to be had to with the interactions between the four different prisoners, as they move from one deadly situation to another. And the Doctor is made to think about the repercussions of his actions in Frontier in Space in a way that actually ties in nicely with the kind of contemplation the tenth Doctor seemed to be doing late in his life. I wasn't really into Matthew Dow Smith's art at first, as his style is very distinctive, but I soon grew to appreciate it-- he's great at doing action while still capturing the characters, which is a too-rare skill in tie-in comics. All in all, this collection bodes well for IDW's Doctor Who output.

* There's even a Charley Pollard reference, which is maybe completely gratuitous (it would perhaps be less so if it was clear what the Doctor was actually on trial for), but I love Charley so I don't care.

Faster than a DC Bullet: Sandman Mystery Theatre, Part X: The Blackhawk and The Return of the Scarlet Ghost

Comic trade paperback, 221 pages
Published 2010 (contents: 1996-97)
Borrowed from the library
Read March 2011

Sandman Mystery Theatre: The Blackhawk and The Return of the Scarlet Ghost

Writers: Matt Wagner, Steven T. Seagle
Artists: Guy Davis, Matthew Smith, Richard Case, Daniel Torres
Colorists: David Hornung, Daniel Torres
Letterers: John Costanza, Gaspar Saladino

The first story contained here, "The Blackhawk," continues Sandman Mystery Theatre's recent trend of including characters from DC universe. Janos Prohaska, however, is no superhero and never is-- he's the future leader of Blackhawk Squadron, an international group of fighter pilots resisting the Nazis. In this story, Janos has come to America to seek funding for his resistance efforts, and Wesley Dodds finds himself drumming up said funding, while as the Sandman, he is investigating Janos for his involvement in (of course) a series of mysterious murders.

Plot-wise, it's definitely one of the better SMT stories, with a well-executed mystery. It also finally completely dispenses with the subplot about Dian not wanting Wesley to be the Sandman; in this story, she acts as "Sandy" for the first time, actively assisting the Sandman with one of his plots. Oh, and it's got a good Lieutenant Burke subplot. I'm gonna miss that guy; Wesley Dodds pops up in JSA stories, but I sure bet he doesn't. The art is even pretty all right; Matthew Smith is the least terrible fill-in artist the series has had, and when he's joined by Richard Case on inks, he gets even better. His Dian is kinda ugly, okay, but he nails Wesley in a way that most artists on this series do not.

The next story is all weird and metafictional. "The Return of the Scarlet Ghost" reveals that the Sandman's exploits have become so well known that he's become a character in pulp magazines-- the kind of magazines this comic book strives to emulate! It's a neat idea, though it's undercut by the fact that in no previous story has anyone ever said, "Hey, you're the guys from those stories!" while in this one it happens all the time. Of course, there's death threats and murders in the publishing biz, but that's all a side show to a story about adaptation and appropriation. Not only is the Sandman fodder for pulp fiction, but some of the publishers are starting to do comic books about him! There's even an interlude where Wesley and Dian read one of the comics-- a harsh-but-relatively-accurate parody of how the Sandman was written by Joe Simon & Jack Kirby-- and make fun of their fancifulness. (I think this must've been intended to take those adventures-- especially the Sandman's kid sidekick, Sandy the Golden Boy-- out of continuity, but later comics have used both the SMT characterization of Wesley and Dian and the existence of Sandy and the Simon/Kirby gold-and-purple costume. But having both SMT and the Simon/Kirby stories be "canon" is just awkward. Does this mean the comic artist just happens to accurately predict the existence of Sandy? Let's just ignore it.) The story even ends with them making a none-too-accurate film out of the whole thing. Minus the Sandman!

It's fun, and I also enjoyed the subplot about Dian trying to make it as a writer of pulp fiction. The mystery itself is so-so, but enough about the story is entertaining that that doesn't really bother me. I am really ticked off, though, that this is apparently the last reprint of Sandman Mystery Theatre that DC is doing; not only were there another eighteen issues after this, but this volume ends on a tremendous cliffhanger that I will apparently never read the resolution to!