Science's Less Accurate Grandmother: creator: mike collins

Showing posts with label creator: mike collins. Show all posts

18 December 2023

Cybermen: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 50)

Cybermen: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection: Collected comic strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Alan Barnes, Andrew Cartmel, Mike Collins, Steve Dillon, Martin Geraghty, Scott Gray, David Lloyd, Alan McKenzie, Mike McMahon, Steve Moore, Grant Morrison, Paul Neary, Steve Parkhouse, John Ridgway, Adrian Salmon, et al.

Collection published: 2023
Contents originally published: 1979-2005
Acquired: September 2023
Read: October 2023

As with the Daleks collections, I obviously had to read this out of sequence based on when it came out. Like with those, I just read the new-to-me stories. If I was integrating this into my marathon from the beginning, I'd just do the backup strips and read it after Dragon's Claws, saving the Doctor-focused strips for reading in the main volumes.

Deathworld, from Doctor Who Weekly #15-16 (Jan. 1980)
script by Steve Moore, art by David Lloyd

Some Ice Warriors get attacked by some Cybermen. David Lloyd draws the hell out of an Ice Warrior for the most part (somewhat less convinced by his spindly Cybermen), but this—like a lot of monster-focused DWW back-up strips to be honest—reads to me like the kind of thing that would be thrilling if you were ten, but is more of an interesting curiosity if you come to it as an adult.

Black Legacy, from Doctor Who Weekly #35-38 (June-July 1980)
written by The Original Writer [Alan Moore], art by David Lloyd

Look, okay, maybe it's by Alan Moore, but I just can't take a Cyberman story where one shouts "What? Who... No! Blood of my ancestors, NOOOOOOOOO...." seriously. Like, this just isn't how it works.

from Doctor Who Weekly #16

Stray Observations:

New-to-me strip content: a whole sixteen pages! But also we get some new commentary by Paul Scoones on Junk-Yard Demon, Exodus/Revelation!/Genesis!, and The World Shapers. I particularly liked getting to hear from Grant Morrison about The World Shapers (in an archival interview from 1987), and David Lloyd is always interesting. Kind of funny they can't even say "Alan Moore" in the commentaries. Does he appear like Voldemort if you say his name?
As a complete package, though, it's fairly attractive; I like getting one bumper volume better than the two slim Dalek ones. And there have been some great Cyberman strips in DWM history. I'm not sure I would count The Glorious Dead as a Cyberman strip even though it's got Kroton in it, but I guess it would be odd to leave it out of a book containing literally every other Kroton strip. The best one remains, of course, The Flood.
List of all other stories and what collections they were previously printed in: (see links below to read my reviews)

Junk-Yard Demon (in Dragon's Claw)
Exodus / Revelation / Genesis! / The World Shapers (in The World Shapers)
The Good Soldier (in The Good Soldier)
Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman / Ship of Fools / Unnatural Born Killers / The Company of Thieves / The Glorious Dead (in The Glorious Dead)
The Flood (in The Flood)
The Cybermen / Junk-Yard Demon II (in The Clockwise War)

This post is the fiftieth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Liberation 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:

24 April 2023

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:

29 March 2023

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:

22 March 2023

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:

18 December 2023

Cybermen: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 50)

31 May 2023

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

24 April 2023

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

29 March 2023

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

22 March 2023

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