Comic Club: Event 2 - Supremacy of the Cybermen

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1 Like

Okay, this one I really, really liked. A fun, exciting crossover event and a good anniversary celebration for the Cybermen. I liked this better than Four Doctors and most of the other stories between it and this event. To me, this one is almost flawless.

Supremacy of the Cybermen is a fun, fast-paced, and ambitious crossover that celebrates the Cybermen’s legacy while incorporating elements of Doctor Who’s ongoing TV continuity. The multi-Doctor structure is refreshing, the scale of the Cyber threat is well executed, and the action is engaging. However, the story stumbles in its final act, relying on overpowered resolutions and an unsatisfying reset button that undercuts the stakes. A worthy anniversary special, but one that could have stuck the landing much better.

Please feel free to read and like my full review:

3 Likes

I both liked and disliked this story. I thought that overall it was fun to read. It felt quick, and it was interesting to jump to all the different Doctors. I did not like that they never met. I almost felt a bit cheated by that, as it is one of my favourite parts of multi-Doctor stories. The ending felt a bit hasty, and I would have liked it to be a bit more fleshed out. Overall, a fun time but nothing spectacular.

2 Likes

I actually liked that this did the multi-Doctor thing a bit differently. They were all a part of one big adventures that spanned multiple time periods and locations. It’s a bit of a twist on the usual multi-Doctor story.

4 Likes


Looms mentioned!!!

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I absolutely adore this comic, 9/10 for me, but I’ll go more in depth in a review tmrw

3 Likes

Wonder if this is where Chibnall got the idea for the Cyber-Masters?

3 Likes

I doubt it. From what I understand, he has no real interest in the EU. He admitted to not listening to BF audios, so I can’t imagine him reading comics. But I could be wrong of course.

3 Likes

Just another coincidence then.

2 Likes
Supremacy of the Cybermen - 9/10

A near perfect cyberman story for me.

In my option, there’s three core elements that make the cybermen great, and by extention are needed for a great cyberman story:

  1. Conversion: The threat of conversion is extremely important. If you’re not terrified of conversion, might as well be a robot.
  2. Inevitability: The cybermen should be able to come from anywhere, a ‘natural’ next step in human evolution.
  3. Unstoppable: The cybermen can be beaten, they can be defeated, but they can never be vanquished. Going back to point one, they should be almost a fact of the universe.

Supremacy of the Cybermen has all three of these in spades.

Conversion is a major factor in all four of the split stories we’re presented with here: Nine watching Rose being converted and killing Jack, Ten having to fight to prevent the cybermen from seizing a cloning factory which would let them infinitely reproduce, Eleven getting pseudo-converted himself, and of course Twelve seeing Gallifrey having been converted.

Inevitability is less of a factor here, the cybermen already existing in all the timelines we see, but there’s something to be said for their conversion of other species, the seed being planted that not only could humanity succumb to this, but as could the Silurians.

And of course, how Unstoppable they are.

Nine in an apocalyptic London as the Cybermen have taken over, Ten fighting for his life, siding with the sontarans, being forced into an actual war, and succumbing to his worse impulses, Eleven watching as the Cybermen have taken over from the dawn of life on earth, failing to prevent them from lauching out into the stars, and Twelve, at the head of it all, seeing how it was all done, watching the conquest of time from where it’s begun.

The cybermen presented here truly are unstoppable, and I adore it.

Each Doctor’s story takes a different route in showing the attempts to stop the cybermen, and each doctor but one fails. The scale of the story is magnificent, and I think the fact that the doctors never end up meeting adds a lot to that scale as well.

The only thing keeping me from rating this a 10/10 is the ending. Some interesting designs for a cyber controller and potential far future cybermen is unfortunately not enough to distract from the fact that the story concludes with a big old reset button. On the one hand it did kind of have to, with how large scale it is, but the fact there’s no consequences for it whatsoever does leave you somewhat unsatisfied.

That said, every single moment before that point works.

3 Likes

Oh also one small thing I didn’t mention in the review, but Gabby and Cindy having made it out of that pod crash had to have been a last minute editorial change right?

They only show up twice again before everything’s reset, and both times it’s a wide shot that (to me at least) feels like they were added into rather than being there the whole time (the second one less-so with the framing, but even still, they had an extra month for that, being from #5 not #4)

2 Likes

He has listened to some BF but specifically the wilderness ones

3 Likes