Doctor Who: The Many Lives of Doctor Who by Richard Dinnick et al.

 Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor: The Many Lives of Doctor Who

Published: 2018
Acquired: March 2020
Read: November 2021

Writer: Richard Dinnick

Letterers: Sarah Jacobs and John Roshell
Artists: Mariano Laclaustra, Giorgia Sposito, Brian Williamson, Arianna Florean, Claudia Ianniciello, Iolanda Zanfardino, Neil Edwards, Pasquale Qualano, Rachael Stott

Inker: Fer Centurion

Colorists: Carlos Cabrera, Adele Matera, Dijjo Lima, Enrica Eren Angiolini

This story (which is a volume 0 to Titan's Thirteenth Doctor series) takes place while the twelfth Doctor is regenerating into the thirteenth. As this happens, they think about various aspects of their life, leading to a series of mini-stories about all the previous Doctors. I will be honest, I pretty much hated it, mostly thanks to the narration of the Doctor. The twelfth Doctor's speech at the end of "Twice Upon a Time" was ponderous enough; it didn't need this added to it. "Earth. You have a fondness for it. Especially London," they'll think to themself, and then we get a third Doctor adventure. No shit! "Remember Gallifrey. Your home planet?" As the book goes on, they seem to get increasingly strained. "You're not ill all that often. And human medicine isn't really your thing." Is this really stuff intrinsic to the Doctor that they need to be reminded of?

The mini-adventures are fine, but pretty insubstantial, and kind of over-stuffed with continuity callbacks. I get that Titan was trying to capitalize on the thirteenth Doctor hype, and needed some stuff to draw attention to its new offerings, but both this and The Road to the Thirteenth Doctor seemed pretty pointless. The best way to introduce a new Doctor is just to introduce a new Doctor! They don't need all this palaver.

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: A New Beginning

Doctor Who: Operation Volcano by Andrew Cartmel, Christopher Jones, Ben Aaronovitch, et al.

  Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor: Operation Volcano

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

Writers: Andrew Cartmel, Richard Dinnick, John Freeman, Paul Cornell
Artists: Christopher Jones, Jessica Martin, John Stokes

Colorists: Marco Lesko, Charlie Kirchoff

Executive Producer: Ben Aaronovitch
Letterers: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This is Titan's first and last The Seventh Doctor volume (they have by this point stopped optimistically putting "Vol 1" on every title page), collecting a three-issue miniseries. The miniseries is written by Andrew Cartmel and illustrated by Christopher Jones (who illustrated Titan's Third Doctor series); Ben Aaronovitch is credited as "executive producer" but there's no indication of what this might actually mean even though he gets first billing on the cover! Anyway, I went into this not quite sure what it would be like. On the one hand, I suffered through Cartmel's attempt to recapture this era in his execrable Big Finish Lost Stories; on the other hand, I recently read Cartmel's early 1990s DWM comics for the first time, and found them really interesting and striking.

This is somewhere in between. Cartmel's not interesting in pushing the boundaries of Doctor Who or comics like he was thirty years ago, but this does a much better job of pastiching his own era than the Lost Stories did. It's a fun, if somewhat underdeveloped and simple story, about the Doctor, Ace, and the Intrusion Counter-Measures Group (of Remembrance of the Daleks fame) dealing with a crashed alien spaceship in the Australian outback. It has a sense of scale tv wouldn't have attempted in the 1980s, but I did feel that something thematically interesting could have been done that didn't happen here. Christopher Jones does a lot to enliven the material; he's a good tv tie-in artist, in that he can do both likenesses and action well.

The collection includes some other things, foremost among them the "Hill of Beans" back-up strip about the Doctor and Ace meeting Mags the werewolf from The Greatest Show in the Galaxy again... with the gimmick that the story is illustrated by Jessica Martin who played Mags! Since her acting days, she had actually become an independent comics artist. It's okay; it's a bit jumpy and incomprehensible at times, which I blame on both writing and art. My guess is that sci-fi action does not play to Martin's strengths as an illustrator. But hey, I do like Mags, and this probably does better by her than her incompatible reappearances in Big Finish's trilogy.

Finally, it contains two things I've reviewed elsewhere, so I won't go over them again: the Seventh Doctor strip from 2018's Free Comic Book Day issue and the First Doctor story "In-Between Times." Except that I will complain that the FCBD issue is a prologue to Operation Volcano but for some reason collected all the way at the end of this volume!

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 Road to the Thirteenth Doctor

Doctor Who: A Confusion of Angels by Richard Dinnick, Francesco Manna, and Pasquale Qualano

  Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials, Vol 3: A Confusion of Angels

Collection published: 2018
Contents originally published: 2017-18
Read: November 2021

Writer: Richard Dinnick
Artists: Francesco Manna and Pasquale Qualano
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

Like Dinnick's previous The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials volume, this one is an over-egged continuity pudding. Like in that volume, he starts with two things that do kind of go together: the Weeping Angels and the Heavenly Host (from "Voyage of the Damned") are both angelic villains. But also like The Wolves of Winter, it just keeps adding stuff, because then we have the Judoon, and then also Margaret Slitheen, and I'm not really sure why, as nothing really goes together, and everything is done short shrift. I found it all pretty dull.

On top of that, the artists seem to be phoning it in, down to using the bridge of Star Trek's USS Voyager, complete with a prominently displayed Intrepid-class MSD! Slapping a Photoshop filter on it just isn't enough, dudes.

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 2018

Doctor Who: The Wolves of Winter by Richard Dinnick, Brian Williamson, Pasquale Qualano, et al.

Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor: Time Trials, Vol 2: The Wolves of Winter

Collection published: 2018
Contents originally published: 2017
Read: September 2021

Writer: Richard Dinnick
Artists: Brian Williamson & Pasquale Qualano with Edu Menna & Marcelo Salaza
Letters: Richard Starkings and Jimmy Betancourt

This contains two stories, the first Titan adventures (other than the 2017 Free Comic Book Day Special) to include Bill after four volumes of one-off companions. The first is pretty over-egged, featuring Vikings, the Ice Warriors, the Flood (from "The Waters of Mars"), and the Haemovores (from The Curse of Fenric). None of the components gets the space it needs to be interesting. I couldn't keep track of the Vikings; the Ice Warriors were similarly dull; the inclusion of the Flood felt pointless; and the Haemovore idea came in so late it did a major disservice to one of my favorite classic series stories.

The second story, "The Great Shopping Bill," seems like it should have been fun, but Pasquale Qualano's art completely fails to communicate the setting. It's supposed to be a delightful intergalactic supermarket, but it looks like a couple of shelves.

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: Branches

Review: Doctor Who: The Eye of Ashaya by Andy Diggle, Josh Adams, Joshua Hale Fialkov, Horacio Domingues, Ruben Gonzalez, et al.

Comic PDF eBook, 110 pages
Published 2013 (contents: 2012-13)
Acquired May 2014
Read November 2014

Doctor Who, Volume 2: The Eye of Ashaya

Written by Andy Diggle, Joshua Hale Fialkov, and Richard Dinnick

Pencils by Josh Adams and Horacio Domingues with Andres Ponce
Inks by Marc Deering, Josh Adams, and Ruben Gonzalez
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff and Adrian Salmon
Lettering by Shawn Lee and Tom B. Long

Lady Christina is one of Doctor Who's better "one-off companions," which maybe says more about Michelle Ryan's appearance and performance than anything else. The Eye of Ashaya reunites her with the Eleventh Doctor, along with an Amy and Rory who clearly hail from during Series 7A, when he was always picking them up and dropping them off-- this story actually begins with them in an airport! The way Christina is involved in a space heist is a bit contrived, and Andy Diggle's decent script is let down by Josh Adams plasticky, posed artwork, which fails to make any of the characters look remotely attractive.

The second tale here, "Space Oddity," pits the Doctor and a lone cosmonaut against the Vashta Nerada on an orbital station. It's not scary-- I don't think Richard Dinnick or the artists really exploit the way the comics medium can be used for horror-- but it is fun. The last story is "Time Fraud," which really undersells the potential return of the Time Lords, and features a weird tie-in to Torchwood: Children of Earth for some reason.

Next Week: Clara Oswald joins the IDW comics in Sky Jacks!