We are already at the end of the 11th Doctor’s first year. Here are this weeks stories:
Give Free or Die
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Four Dimensions
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Conversion
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The Comfort of the Good
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Please discuss below - no need to finish it first, discuss as you go along but please add spoiler tags for anything that could be considered a spoiler!
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I really liked the art style and the concept of the story. I just don’t care about the Talent Scout. I think that this villain makes the whole Eleventh Doctor comics boring. 3.5/5
They are finally doing two-parters. Unfortunately, I am still not a fan of the writing of this. It started really good with Alice but now it feels like they are trying to be silly and bombastic in the wrong way. 3.5/5
The Comfort of the Good
An okay ending but nothing special. 3.5/5
That was The final part of the Eleventh Doctor’s first year. I know that I have been critical of it but I am hopeful that year two will be better. I like Alice and I hope they will use her strengths more in the future.
I loved Four Dimensions - such a clever use of colour across the panels and how the colours merged as the characters came back together. A simplistic story but told in an interesting way.
And, okay, the Jones = David Bowie stuff is so completely on the nose that they have the Talent Scout appear dressed as Jareth from Labyrinth (one of the best films ever).
The Free Comic Book Day story is short and sweet. It’s surprisingly centred on ARC and provides them with some character development. That said, it’s not very memorable, so this is a 6/10.
I like it when comic book writers and artists use the comic book format in creative ways to tell a story, and as @deltaandthebannermen said above, this one uses panels and colours cleverly. Alice is great, Jones still annoys me and this story managed to somehow be convoluted while also hardly developing anything. Still, a good read.
Jones is such an odd character - there was the potential of a companion who had the ability to remain unnoticed like a natural perception filter but then they just lean into the whole weird ‘dress up as a David Bowie tribute act’ and do very little else with him.
The getting fat bit in the last volume was vaguely fatphobic and came out of nowhere (how did he put on so much weight so quickly - it can’t just have been the alien donut he ate).
I don’t remember what happens with him so I’m intrigued to get to the end of this volume.
I didn’t enjoy Give Free or Die much - someone obviously thought a story about free stories being a way of spreading an alien virus was a cute gimmick for Free Comic Book Day but it was all just a bit too silly. Only gave this 4/10.
Read Conversion over the last couple of nights. Jones continues to the be enigma no one cares about but this was a pacey read with a fair amount going on.
The Roman setting was fun and I alway like Cybermen - it’s a shame this lot were little more than zombies. I have to admit I struggled to differentiate which Roman was which, especially the two Emperors.
The ending seemed a bit convenient but did at least draw on the Doctor having been the CEO of ServeYouInc.
I really liked the opening which mirrors Alice’s first story in terms of colour palette and events. Very clever (and likely something I missed on the first read - although that’s partly because I read each instalment weeks apart and interspersed with the other adventures with other Doctors because I have these as part of the ill-advised ‘Doctor Who Comic’. I’ve enjoyed these much much more by just focussing on one story across a matter of days.)
The conclusion to the Talent Scout arc is simple but fits - giving him what he wants.
The conclusion to Jones arc is less satsifying because I still don’t know what the point of Jones was ever supposed to be aside from sort of having David Bowie in the TARDIS. I liked his introduction and it seemed to have fun things to do but it never seemed to go anywhere and, if I’m honest, just drew attention away from Alice who was far more interesting as a companion even if she was another ‘ordinary’ companion. Jones just felt like a gimmick which never paid off.
I love the idea of free comic book day being used as an invasion. Objectively I don’t think it’s an 8/10, but I’m biased towards this story for one main reason; When I was still in London for free comic book day (2017-2019) I used to go to the London Forbidden Planet Megastore and well…
Interesting to see the Talent Scout and ARC’s origins, but the main thing is the art style and the format screw they do. The 10th Doctor comics did a good job at showing what Doctor Who would look like as a comic, mostly the same as the show but doing a few things they wouldn’t be able to like the notebook sections. The 11th Doctor comics on the other hand really play with the medium and do things that you couldn’t do in any other format. Almost reminds me of 11’s era a bit, playing around with a bit more high concept sci-fi in a fun way, it’s just a shame the story isn’t really much better
A very fun second to last story, I really liked the cybermen, even if it wasn’t them converting people, the entity still converts humans to join in with their cause. The peak into a slightly darker doctor that you get sometimes with 11 was here and was really good to see, especially seeing Alice and ARC’s reactions, and the sort of hopeless end leaves me wanting more.
I like the resolutions to all the characters stories, but the core plot itself feels a little weak to me. I do wish the Talent Agent was just a bit more interesting, I don’t know, generally I liked it though, and I prefer this finale to the 10th doctor’s first year
