I am very sick of snow yet the pavements are absolutely clear in Elgin. I'm so glad not to be struggling in the Central Belt.
There have been no snow days at work although the sensor for the fire alarm was triggered and we had two evacuations yesterday morning. I had planned a few weeks ago to go to Aberdeen this weekend to buy comics but I'm not risking train cancellations. Or the biting cold.
In fact, I haven't bought comics for a couple of months. I think late December was the last time. I haven't really got much space left for longboxes and with the nearest shop over sixty miles away- Elgin has a Funko pop-up with the odd back issue- I had decided to move to trade paperbacks.
One of the series I couldn't get even semi-regularly in Aberdeen was Doctor Who: the Lost Dimension so I got the trades in Elgin's Waterstones store.
This is a crossover series for Titan's Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor titles, in the vein of the previous Four Doctors and Supremacy of the Cybermen. Titan have also published miniseries for the Third, Fourth and the Eighth Doctors. I've followed the three "Nu Who" titles since they began but I've enjoyed Al Ewing's and especially Robbie Morrison's story arcs best.
Miniseries writers George Mann and Cavan Scott have co-authored five audiobooks for the Twelfth Doctor; Mann also wrote the War Doctor novel Engines of War. Scott co-created the sinister Forge for Big Finish audio plays ( a kind of precursor to Torchwood) and wrote Capaldi-Who novel The Shining Man. They're competent and unflashy writers but I'd have to say a bit dull, really, also.
Lost Dimension Book 1 begins with the attempted rescue of Capt. Jack Harkness and UNIT's Tara Mishra ( companions of the Ninth Doctor- my least favourite) by a female Iron Man lookalike. The scene then shifts to St Luke's University in Bristol and the sweetly-named Terrance Dicks Library. (Love a library. In one now.) A Gallifreyan bowship crashes into it and its armoured pilot is revealed to be Jenny, The Doctor's Daughter.
Coming to a Big Finish boxset near you, this year...
White hole anti-energy a la Crisis on Infinite Earths turns UNIT's Kate Stewart and Osgood into zombies in Bristol. Elsewhere, the Eleventh Doctor and Alice the library assistant ( Love a library assistant) discover that the Void where the Daleks once hid (Army of Ghosts) is consuming space itself. There are cameos for the Third and Fifth Doctors too.
Rose and the Ninth Doctor meet Madame Vastra and Jenny Flint in 1886 in a quarantined Silurian colony and the Fourth Doctor makes a cameo appearance. Meanwhile, the Tenth Doctor, Gabby and Cindy materialise on a space station anchored near a cluster of neutron stars. This becomes the source of the anti-energy during an invasion by Revenge-era Cybermen (circa 1975.)
The Eleventh Doctor and Alice visit ancient Gallifrey and the Doctor becomes a proto-Tardis test pilot nicknamed the Other ( c.f. several Virgin New Adventures in the Nineties!). We also learn how Jenny built her Iron Man armour and found the bowship from TV's State of Decay.
The highlight of Book 2 was, for me, a space war between the Krotons and the Quarks. From the ranks of Rubbish Sixties Monsters, these adorably shoddy robotic races are among my earliest memories of The Patrick Troughton years. Here, their interdimensional combat is ended by the Fourth Doctor and Romana.
This is followed by an interlude featuring the Doctor's "bespoke psychopath" River Song, liberating an archaeological treasure from another Silurian colony. Doctor Song is at her most ruthless and dangerous here and lacks the vulnerability with which Alex Kingston made the character redeemable.
Back in the main storyline, Doctors Eight and Nine materialise at St. Luke's and all the incarnations of the Doctors join forces to prevent the Void from engulfing everything. We discover that the decree "Silence will fall" is actually the mission statement of the Eleventh Doctor's proto-Tardis and the story concludes in a very similar fashion to 2013's The Day of the Doctor.
So, a couple of mysteries from the tv series and tie-in books are resolved but the whole thing felt quite ho-hum to me. This sprawling saga lacked the wit and invention of the DWM monthly strip. However, the image of the Eleventh Doctor swallowing the cosmos reminded me of the mind-boggling "Kozmic" visions of Al Ewing's recent Ultimates series for Marvel. By and large, the cartoony artwork is not unappealing- although the War Doctor is unrecognisable.
Thought this might be the War Chief, chief
But there were far too many continuity Easter Eggs and cameos- the fatal temptation of so many fan writers. These graphic novels would be all-but-impenetrable to young fans of the tv series, or any of our school comics club attendees. Both volumes require familiarity with subplots from a novel series that's twenty years old and reference television episodes that are forty to fifty years old! And while, at my age, I get the references, as a fan and a reader there's simply no panache in the writing or any surprises beyond the "Other" gag. A strange series of marketing decisions delivered by workmanlike writers.
After I posted this, initially, I questioned what Doctor Who comics are for. Big Finish is the biggest producer of tie-in fiction now- and the quality ( or my interest) varies wildly. The attractions of the aural medium are 1) hearing the originators of characters perform years later- although BF have been recasting deceased actors for a few years now and 2) a limitless effects budget, realised through the imagination of the listener in tandem with the scripts and post-production.
In comics, similarly, the effects budget is limited only by the imagination of the creators and their scripts. Departed or truncated characters ride again- or they could, given the limits of licensing deals. If they are publishing for Whovians, Titan could be telling stories of the First and Second Doctors; the War Doctor; the animated Shalka Doctor; even Infinity Doctors.
The best of Who comics- the early Dr. Who weekly strips and those in the monthly magazine- often departed from the established tv format of the time and were sui generis. Pandering to the worst excesses of the US comics business model- "event" storytelling and a plethora of "first issues"- serves no one well.
I will doubtlessly trade-wait Titan's Seventh Doctor miniseries but my expectations aren't high.
Coming up: The Missy Chronicles and The Crowmarsh Experiment.
All images are presumed copyright of their respective owners.
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