When the police force find a police box impressed into the chalk, they assume it man-made with modern machines, except from the fact it’s five hundred million years old. A mystery beyond comprehension, and to make it worse, that’s when the Doctor turns up.
Rate and review below:
I enjoyed this one — but it absolutely gets too complicated and overstuffed! I was fighting for my life rather at the end…
“Are you lying to me?”
“Vworp?”
Verdict after Issue One - After the mega scale of The Tides of Time and the almost-bottle charm of Stars Fell, this feels like it’s going beautifully down the more comedic route. The Doctor’s little monologues and erratic rushing around are really entertaining and while it’s a side to Five that we’re not especially used to (I’m really enjoying seeing him with no companions by the way), it really does work. I’ve absolutely no clue where this is going but if he’s right that the TARDIS is independently using its sentience then I’m very much down for this sort of story.
Verdict after Issue Two - I think this artwork is nothing short of beautiful. The ‘close-ups’ (for want of a better word, what are these called in comics?) of the Doctor are something remarkable. The story is tense too, it feels like a halfway house between the previous two stories, and I’m very much here for that, even if all the humour of the first part has vanished.
Verdict after Issue Three - Okay, this really is wild. I have absolutely no clue what’s going on but I’m loving it. Shayde, going deep into the TARDIS, the Thing (that’s not THE Thing, but also it totally looks like it and this is Marvel and we just had a Spiderman gag so feels a bit odd if I’m honest…) It’s chaos but in the best way.
Verdict after Issue Four - This is getting kind of confusing. Gallifrey is back and with it, the highest stakes. But it’s less pacey and engaging, particularly with Shayde and the mysterious creature out of the picture. Also, is it me or has the art massively changed? There are multiple panels where the Doctor looks completely out of proportion, while the images of Cain and his allies look more like caricatures than previous characters in this story… (Edit: The wiki says there are two artists, so maybe this is the case…)
Verdict after Issue Five - What a bizarre turn of events. The trial is a fun device (and would have felt original ahead of Colin’s era) although it was the first time I felt the characterisation of the Doctor wasn’t totally accurate. His thought bubbles show genuine distress and worry and yet he just blunders around talking about cricket and fishing - I just didn’t quite buy that. As an ending, it’s fine, and hopefully the level of satisfaction will increase as this arc progresses. I’m still very much enjoying it, but the latter half of this story doesn’t hold up to the first half, nor the two stories before it.
Really interesting reading your thoughts on this one @mellis903 as I’ve just read it and don’t agree with any of your takes 
.
Oh, I don’t know if that’s accurate! We both mentioned the weirdly proportioned bodies, and I agree the Doctor’s characterisation was off - just less vehemently than you! In terms of the type of story, the fact it feels totally different to the show doesn’t really bother me at all because, why not? It can be anything after all! I agree it’s messy, and the second half of it did really disappoint me. But I enjoyed the first half - the Doctor fannying about a bit didn’t bother me until the stakes increased!
I think my biggest issue with a lot of these early DWM strips is that the Doctor is always having things happening to him but with very little Doctorish reaction on his part. He just seems so passive and particularly in this one, so languid and unbothered by it all. There’s no dynamism to the characterisation or artwork.
You are right, I can’t deny it. There’s a very conspicuous absence of gravitas.
I’m not quite sure what to make of this one. On the one hand, the return of Shayde , a few standout illustrations in the first half, and a few standout moments (a figure latching onto the outside of the TARDIS is haunting, and the design of the Elemental in the end was great) along with a nice integration of ‘Stars Fell on Stockbridge’ are all points in its favour. But, on the other hand, an abrupt change in visual style halfway through and a very ambitious story left me a tad discombobulated…
It’s certainly admirable what the story was attempting, but I’d say this one is less than the sum of its parts, intriguing and visually appealing though those parts may be. I did, however, enjoy my time with it and, ultimately, thought it worked well in enough places to earn a steady 7/10.
This was kind of interesting to begin with, but I felt like it just got stranger and stranger, and I feel like it lost me somewhere in the second half.
I was interested to see so many people here dislike this, because I rather liked it…
The Stockbridge Horror is an imaginative, atmospheric and thoroughly entertaining adventure. It balances mystery, horror and high-concept science fiction far more successfully than the Fifth Doctor’s comic debut, and finally feels like this era has found its stride.
That Spidey cameo is wild, though! That obviously means that we have to put every Spider-Man story onto the guide! I will fight for this! Spidey is canon in the Whoniverse!
7.6/10 = Very Good
Yeah and there are even more conections between Who and Spidy
Daleks in Lego Batman
Batman and Spiderman
So we have to add 80 years of Batman stories too!
Get to it Shauny!
I think it’s interesting how Doctor Who magazine tried to build its own mythos within the mythos of Doctor Who. The arc seems a little rougher than their twenty-first century output, but it’s still somewhat interesting.
