REVIEW: DOCTOR WHO THE NINTH DOCTOR #2

WRITER:Â Cavan Scott
ARTIST:Â Blair Shedd
PUBLISHER: Titan Comics
Release Date: 06/17/2015

I used to buy Predator comics, the first couple of storylines were drivel but then there was a brilliant 2 parter set in World War 1. Watching predators getting a lungfill of mustard gas was something you were never going see in the cinema. Superman fought the Aliens, Robocop fought Terminators and Batman fought everyone! Comics were the place if your budget and imagination made Hollywood squeamish. A licensed comic should blow your mind showing you things you“ll never see on the little and large screen. They shouldn’t just regurgitate the source material, at its weakest. Which is exactly what this does. Doctor Who Weapons of Past Destruction at best is the perfect definition of adequate.

For example, the comic opens with Rose plummeting through the time vortex itself with the Doctor and Captain Jack trying to materialize the tardis around her and failing. Exciting stuff…but it’s not. We know Rose is going to be fine, we know the Doctor will save her. The drama shouldn’t come from what’s presented, because you know that situation will be resolved, we“ve seen the TV show so the focus should shift to fun and clever, how it“s done should become more important than what the result is inevitably going to be. Here the Doctor just presses a few buttons and says the tardis will find her. Ok. Next scene.

Cavan Scott knows how to write the characters, they’re all fine, the Doctor does sound like Christopher Eccleston, Captain Jack and Rose sound like who they are supposed to be when they aren“t busy spouting exposition. But the story comes across as the one you watch and forget about by the time the words ”˜NEXT WEEK“ floats up on the screen.

The art is weird, it would be better suited to a Thunderbirds comic as everyone looks very wooden. It’s not bad it just isn’t very lively, which it needs to be for a comic about the Doctor. Imagine an arms fair that sells weapons of mass destruction, but it’s in the middle of a supernova and the weapons are used to make attacks in time! Can you imagine that? Because Blair Shedd, the artist on this, can’t. His version of a pan dimensional market for super science fiction weapons looks more like Bootle car boot sale if a handful of cosplayers wombled through.

I“ve never read a new Doctor Who comic and I“m probably not going to again.

BUT this did one thing the tv series doesn“t, fail to entertain me.

[yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]