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!
If you’ve previously read the book and want to join in the discussion, that’s great too!
Participating in the Comic Club will earn you a badge 
The School of Death: Hate the new Sea Devil design. Also, while the story is fun to read, it does end up dragging on and on…
The Fourth Wall: What can I say? It’s a comic where the Doctor breaks the fourth wall! The Boneless reveal was a welcome surprise, but apart from that, The Fourth Wall is mostly confusing (and not in a good way).
Robo Rampage: A simple little strip, really don’t have much to comment on here.
The School of Death was available in my local library system, so I was able to join this time for the comic club. I have previously read and own Year One for the Twelfth Doctor digitally, with The Swords of Kali being my favorite story from Year One.
I really enjoyed The School of Death. I felt it captured the Twelfth Doctor and Clara’s dynamic and personalities well. The Sea Devils were fun to have again, and I enjoyed the reference back to TV: The Sea Devils, with the Doctor’s interaction with them as the Third Doctor.
Other elements that were fun were having the Doctor surprise Clara in the bath, the one-off “companion” of Sonny, the art of the prehistoric area of the Sea Devils in the caverns, Clara and the students getting to use telekinesis, and the inclusion of UNIT with Kate Stewart and the Osgoods. 9/10
For The Fourth Wall, I had to look up who the Boneless were, as I could not remember. This is a fun if somewhat experimental idea. I have only dabbled in comics a bit so the Doctor’s impassioned speech at the end did not move me. 6/10
Robo Rampage was nice and brief, tying back to TV: Robot. But other than that, not much substance. 7/10
I have generally been enjoying the 12th Doctor comics the most out of Titan’s output, and this is no exception.
Loved The School of Death. It has a great art style and well-rounded characters. Sonny the Swordfish is a new favourite companion! And the Sea Devils - cool redesign and they felt truly dangerous! UNIT was wasted and Clara saves the day in another deus ex machina moment.
The atmosphere is like Classic Who but the action is closer to New Who
Oh, and I noticed that Clara’s colleague glimpsed at the start looks a lot like fellow Whovian Christel Dee - and her name is Christel Dean, so it has to be a deliberate nod. The same goes for the UK Prime Minister, who’s named Claremont. What does the name Claremont have in common with a boarding school? X-Men writer Chris Claremont.
The Fourth Wall was another fun one - breezy and without a deeper plot, but it did some fun things on a meta-level and with the Boneless. The little references to Marvel Comics superheroes were fun.
And Robot Rampage was the first FCBD story I genuinely enjoyed. Short and sweet but with a fun premise and a good use of Osgood and the K1 robot.
I agree and have enjoyed them much more than the 11th Doctor comics even though the 11th Doctor is my favorite.
Interesting. I still have only read year one of 11 and 12 but I thought that 12 had the weakest first year.
I have a hard time with Twelve Year One because the art a lot of times is very, very ugly. Specially that first Kali story.
The School of Death: I love this one. It just feels like it fits right in with their tv stories, both Clara and Twelve are very well written, it’s fun, the art is very pretty, probably one of my favourites from all the titan comics. I do prefer the original sea devil design but these look very good too
The Fourth Wall: uses it’s gimmick very well, a fun little adventure
Robo Rampage: again, a fun little story
If nothing else this is going to be a fun one, disappointed in myself I put it off so long
I don’t think anyone’s pointed out the fact that the Van Volk Twelve faces at the start of School of Death is the same Van Volk from the start of Fractures!
A fine story but the way it’s told is just so fun I can’t give it anything less.
Plot-wise, eh, sea devils infiltrating humanity and trying to destroy Scotland. It’s a solid premise, but we’ve seen stories like it before. The execution however puts this over the edge.
The opening scene feels very much like a cold open from the show, teasing the threat and killing off a character to bring our main cast in, and then we get the one-two punch of Twelve making HHGttG and comic references while making light work of a villain, and Clara turning down a guy in the greatest way possible.
The setting here is great, a remote scottish isle for elites feels very real. The prime-minister being an alumni is initially set up as an offhanded comment which works great for establishing, but then also becomes a part of the plot really smoothly. The general tone of the school is also a great contrast to our two leads.
And then there’s the stuff outside the school. Twelve in the bar is just a laugh, and Clara discovering the hidden underground base is really fun and brings back memories of Hungry Earth/Cold Blood from the art.
And then the ending, it feels a bit rushed but it’s so fun. Everything with David Cameron the legally distinct Prime Minister is a blast, the quips from UNIT are all great. Twelve’s picture for Kate in his phone has made me laugh twice already and I’m writing this review immidiately after reading.
It’s an alright story with a great execution.
The interior is a little off, but it’s pretty damn close
Look, I know I’m biased, but this is just really fun.
Firstly, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I absolutely adore a format screw, or a clever use of medium. Comics attacking people was sort of done in a free comic book day story, but that was super short and more using it as a reference to free comic book day than using the medium to its fullest. Here though it’s done spectacularly, a mad mashup of Fear Her and The Unbelieveable Gwenpool, diagetic comic panels, the doctor breaking out to see the ‘world’ beyond the walls, communiating with Clara from inside the comic, it’s all just a blast.
The return of The Boneless too is interesting, love a monster coming back and being used in ways that are both interesting and expanding on their original concept, and that’s sure done here.
And then we come to my bias. I love the Forbidden Planet megastore in London, hell, at time of writing this review I was there just last week, a story set there is obviously going to entice me. But even moreso than that, you can just tell that the artist love that store as much as I do, there’s careful attention paid to make it look as close as it can to the original and I appreciate that so so much.
Rachael Stott, thank you so much for making this comic for me.
A fine little FCBD affair, but this doesn’t really do much for me.
Twelve reads a bit mean in this story which I wouldn’t expect of a Season 9 Twelve… Then again, he’s travelling on his own, could see this being just post Season 8. Even still though.
The art of the K2 robot is really fun, and I do love a good callback, but I think it’s dispatched far too easily and there’s not really any tension, it’s hard to have any in a short like this, but that’s why these stories often go for humour or something else, or devote more time to taking down the threat.
There just isn’t much to grab me here beyond the ‘Hey look it’s that thing I recognise’, which, to be fair, it is that thing I recognise, and that is fun, but that doesn’t work on it’s own.
Also Osgood says that the K1 incident was towards the beginning of his ‘Third Incarnation’. Could read that as being because UNIT never met One, but at the very least the Brigadier met him in The Five Doctors, so it just feels like a really strangely out of character moment for Osgood.
I read that as meaning after his third regeneration (since that is the specific word she uses) so his fourth incarnation, but it did make pause when I read that too
I thought it could be that too, but she specifically says ‘at the start of your third regeneration’, so it wouldn’t make sense for her to be talking about after it
