On a world where you shouldn’t be out after dark, the Doctor finds himself and Gus in a battle for their lives, where everything is on the line.
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Didn’t connect to this one much. The death at the end also felt rather needless. However, this story does create the charicter of Dogbolter, who is fun. And I’ll give bonus points to anything that contributed to the creation of The Maltease Penguine
3 Likes
Oh boy, goodness knows what’s in store at this point…
Verdict after Issue One - Well, certainly much less painful than the last two stories, so far. I’m surprised and a bit disappointed that we’re clinging on to Gus, and I’m not yet particularly invested in anything that’s happening. But the TV-worshippers did make me laugh, so I’m still on board for now.
Verdict after Issue Two - Okay, this is quite fun. The Wrecker is properly funny, and we get to meet Dogbolter! I’m familiar with this legend of DWM but have never read any of his stories. When he was referenced in the first issue, I assumed it was a throwback to earlier comics I’d not read, as somewhere in my brain I thought Dogbolter hailed from the Fourth Doctor’s era, alongside the Meep and co. Did a quick wiki-check and it turns out this is his first appearance! So I’m excited to follow his misadventures - a tropey but fun concept for a character, with an amusing sidekick robot. We seem to be approaching something resembling decent form now…
Verdict - Oh hey, that was an abrupt ending. Didn’t really feel like a whole story to be honest. I’d assume it’ll very much carry on where it left off in the next story, except I’ve made that mistake a couple of times already in this range, so who really knows. Bizarre structure (and the killing off of the ‘villain’ as soon as he’s properly introduced) aside, I did quite enjoy the humour of this one. And if it’s the end of Gus… well, I’m not exactly complaining.
3 Likes
I really enjoyed this one. I found it a lot of fun and full of humour — a great change of pace after some heavier, more unwieldy pieces. Good stuff!
4 Likes
Wait, I just rated this story on the guide and got a badge for rating all of the Fifth Doctor’s DWM run… how on earth do all the dangling threads resolve whilst also moving into a new Doctor?! We presumably won’t be picking up right where we left off after all. This whole range has the strangest, most mystifying structure, which really isn’t working in its favour - unless something in Sixie’s run really turns things around and ties everything up…
4 Likes
Now comes the end of the Fifth Doctor’s DWM adventures, and this is how it goes: not with a bang, but with an indifferent shrug of the shoulders. I’m normally averse to these types of stories anyway; I think I’ve been vocal enough for it to be known that my affinity is for the more serious, sombre, and scary rather than the silly, satirical, or sardonic—though there are exceptions on both counts.
Maybe it’s a poor taste in my mouth left by ‘4-Dimensional Vistas’, but I simply couldn’t get engaged by this one. That’s not to say it’s entirely without merit; I liked the insane robot somewhat and, as usual, there were a handful of visuals that stuck with me for their illustrative style and/or what they were depicting. But everything else? I can take it or leave it, personally.
I think what really soured things for me was the ending. I liked the song and thought it was an apt choice considering the circumstances, but I vehemently disagree with the notion that the Doctor would not only pick up a gun and use it to shoot someone in the head twice, but that he would do so without hesitation for someone he only just met, someone who, by all accounts, is themselves a killer. My only recourse is to dismiss it as an unreliable narrator, what with the Moderator being the one telling the whole story, but, even then, that is not how I wanted the Fifth Doctor’s final story to end. As with the previous story, a 5/10 might still be pushing it, but that’s what it gets.
3 Likes
how on earth do all the dangling threads resolve whilst also moving into a new Doctor?!
Despite the other shortcomings, I think this is the most frustrating part of the Fifth Doctor’s DWM run. ‘4-Dimensional Vistas’ was trying to do so much (and fell remarkably short of doing it well) only for this story to throw together a completely unrelated finale with its own tone and setting when, in all honesty, the range would’ve benefited from a more thorough epilogue or even a direct sequel to linger on what the hell was going on!
This whole range has the strangest, most mystifying structure,
I agree with this especially. ‘The Tides of Time’ was such an epic of an opener, and the first of the Stockbridge duology was a wonderfully small-scale outing, only for each subsequent story to take increasingly perplexing missteps, be it through a change in art and design, a suddenly frenetic method of storytelling, or a complete abandonment of narratives altogether. I think this story stung as much as it did because this run began with such strength!
4 Likes
I couldn’t agree more with all of this. Looking back over my posts as I read yours, I realise I nearly always said something along the lines of ‘I’m intrigued to see where this is going/how they resolve it/how things tie up/what happens with this character’, and in every single case the answer is ‘absolutely nowhere, it’s all forgotten about’. Incredibly frustrating in my opinion.
4 Likes
I know I’ve read this before but it’s a story I never remember anything about.
Reading it again, I know why.
It’s awful.
It’s a complete mess of settings, characters and the flimsiest of ‘plots’ and caps off an era of a Doctor’s comic strips with a story which encapsulates the fact that the writers of these either didn’t know what story they wanted to tell and/or didn’t really understand Doctor Who or the character of the Fifth Doctor.
This strip is called the Moderator. We don’t realise who he is till the final part. He isn’t involved in the story until the very last few frames where his one contribution is to kill Gus - another DWM comic strip companion (like Sharon) who arrives with an interesting character that isn’t utilised in any way shape or form and then leaves.
There are some slaves. There is a manufactured war? (Maybe, not sure). There is Dogbolter and his obsequious robot assistant who I think are manipulating things. There is a comedy alien who is calling his mother and gets cut off. There is another comedy alien who spots the TARDIS. There are some other people worshipping some big pyramid things which are bigger on the inside (I think) but they get blown up.
I literally didn’t understand a word of it and the Doctor is, yet again, just thrown from one situation to the next never gaining the upper hand in anything and just, frankly, never feeling like the Doctor. Oh and then, in anger, he grabs Gus’s gun and fires at the Moderator. (A couple of panels later we discover he didn’t shoot the Moderator dead and actually transported him to a hospital but the two frames of the angry looking Doctor and the gun firing actually came close to making me angry as it was seemingly willfully misunderstanding the character of the Doctor).
The DWM strips up to the point, with obvious exceptions like The Tides of Time and The Star Beast, have seemed determined to thrust the Doctor into situations where violence is commonplace. The strips have seemed to delight in grotesque, violent characters like the Moderator or the gangs in End of the Line. For all that fans railed against the direction early New Adventures took with trying to seem adult, or even the flack Season 22 got for its on screen violence, it surprises me that more isn’t made of what has been, rather gleefully, depicted in the comics.
And when I see general received wisdom being that TV Comic didn’t understand Doctor Who and just used the character’s name in stories where he behaved very un-Doctor-like, I would, again, point people to these comic strips and argue that TV Comic understood the Doctor far better than these strips did.
I know the DWM strips get a lot better and eventually translate Doctor Who into the comic strip medium successfully and consistently, but with some exceptions, I really haven’t enjoyed the DWM run from The Iron Legion to The Moderator and after Stars Fell on Stockbridge, I think this run of stories may possible be the worst the comic strip ever gets.
0.5/5 and it can thank me for the fact I can’t set it to 0.
5 Likes
I dont really have experience with the medium outside Doctor Who, but from the nearly 700 comics I have read I think that comics are somewhat unique and “echo chamber”-y in the types of stories they tell and the tropes within the medium. You absolutely dont have to have any of the following in a comic series, but they seem commonplace, “not Doctor Who”, but in line with the stereotypical idea of a comic.
There’s some superficial stuff. Most woemen, especially villans, not originating in the show being scantaly clad. Names being generally “low effort” things that get the point across (Emperor Adolfus, “haven” for an Indian space station, etc). Action heavy stories, individual sections of dialoge being rather brief (to fit within the pane), stories that offten wrap up on the quick side, etc. That’s all “comic stuff”.
But yeah then there’s the bigger stuff. I feel like a lot of an arcs meat can offten take place between issues, especially charicter work. I was really struck by this with Titan’s Year 1 11th Doctor run where I would read the charicter summaries for Arc and whats-his-face and constantly learn new crutial details that just weren’t in the story. Superhero-esque plots/worlds that make… well “comic super hero” violence/action common place as you said. It’s stuff like that which won’t just hurt a Doctor Who story but any story.
Some ranges, like Titan’s Y1 10th Doctor, do rise above it with me, and DWM’s latter 8 and Izzy stuff has some great charicter work. But most dont. And even what I consider a decent comic range offten hovers around a 3 star average and not 3.5. My average comic stats per Doctor all sit in the 2s (but that does include terrible comedy strips).
Some people certainly love the comics. I remember somebody relatively recently claiming they thought comics were the best medium for Who. But, in the best possible way, I think those are the opinion of a comic book fan and not a Doctor Who fan. Comics are just their own little world, and people who like that world like it but otherwise its built a community that trims a lot of storytelling many would consider essential and with certain tropes/architypes. And I think the absolute state of ordering comics in the 21st century is proof comics just live in their own community.
But all that’s to day that comic fans won’t complain becouse they’re fans. While others wont really complain[1] becouse its just comics doing their steryotipical idea of comic stuff. And that’s like chosing to watch a nature documentary then complaining about how they talk about animals a lot.
unless its consistently really terrible like TV Comics. DWM is mixed ↩︎
2 Likes
This was so bad… The Fifth Doctor’s run was even worse than the Fourth Doctor’s. Had these writers ever watched Doctor Who? Also, why don’t they use any companions in these comics?
4 Likes
The lack of companions was probably a rights things.
But you’re not wrong about the quality of these. The only two I liked were Tides and Stars. The rest were terrible, both in story and artwork.
4 Likes
What an utterly disappointing conclusion to a short era. I was surprised to see this as Dogbolter’s introduction, since I know him from BF audios. But apart from him, very little here makes any sense.
The Moderator feels like the outline of a much longer story compressed into three instalments. There are enough interesting ideas here to support a proper six-part adventure, but instead everything is rushed past before it has a chance to develop. Apart from introducing Dogbolter, who would go on to become a memorable recurring figure, this is a disappointing and oddly unsatisfying conclusion to the Fifth Doctor’s short comic-strip era.
4/10 = Underwhelming
6 Likes
Going to add this here as the last Fifth Doctor comic. Just watched the Stripped for Action for the Fifth Doctor.
It is anywhere near warts and all but it does address the fact that the loss of Dave Gibbons on the strip lead to a period of unrest in the strip which wasn’t really sorted until the Sixth Doctor strips started (which is when John Ridgeway joins). Alan Barnes and Gary Russell don’t have anything good to say about Gus and I did find it interesting that a lot of the strips are glossed over (no real mention of Stockbridge Horror except the change of artist halfway through; no mention of Shayde or that team of psychics). It seems we can put 4-Dimensional Vistas down to basically the editor, Alan McKenzie telling the writer he liked the Monk and the Ice Warriors!
After watching the Fourth Doctor edition of this series which falls over itself to be effusive and adoring of the strip (with Gary Russell praising the ‘characters’ and how they’re written which (frankly) I could write an essay on how much I disagree with as a take - and how they merge Doctor Who and comic strips ‘perfectly’ - again, very much not an opinion I agree with) this Fifth Doctor edition is far less celebratory.
3 Likes