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Comic Book Review


Book Cover

Doctor Who
The Tenth Doctor #2.12

 

Writer: Nick Abadzis
Artist: Giorgia Sposito
Colourist: Arianna Florean
Publisher: Titan Comics
RRP: UK £2.65, US $3.99, Cdn $4.99
Age: 12+
32 pages
Publication Date: 13 July 2016


The Doctor has taken Gabby and Cindy on a vacation to New Orleans, at the height of the Jazz Age, where Gabby took the chance to unwind, and Cindy fell in love – fast – with local musician Roscoe Ruskin! When several musicians were struck by a mysterious illness, robbing them of their ability to play, the trio investigated the cause – and discovered that the Nocturnes are back! The time travellers are forced to learn a tragic lesson when the origins of the Nocturnes are revealed – and someone pays the ultimate price! Have their journeys in the TARDIS finally proven too dangerous…?

This rather peculiar issue is not the comic I was expecting.

It begins with what feels like it could be the final battle against the monstrous chief Nocturne – that’s an indication of how dramatic it is. However, the big “FWOWWM” a few pages in is the sound of the creature escaping, rather than it being destroyed.

With Cindy rendered unconscious, the Doctor and Gabby set off in the TARDIS to follow it… but not to the Disco-era New York City of 1978, as Titan’s publicity (online for the previous issue and at the back of that same issue) had led me to expect. Instead, they move only a couple of days forward in time to the city of Chicago, where the Nocturne and its unwilling servants are hoping to take advantage of state-of-the-art recording studios.

Along the way, there’s a rare admission from the usually happy-go-lucky Tenth Doctor. “Sometimes there are no good choices,” he tells Gabby. Contrary to her assumption, he doesn’t always win. “I watched my own world burn.” This sets things up for a downbeat ending, as the turn of events hits the TARDIS crew hard.

However, the most surprising aspect of this issue appears after the main episode: an exciting one-page prologue to the multi-Doctor mini-series Supremacy of the Cybermen, featuring the First Doctor and Susan! Written by George Mann and Cavan Scott, it is rendered in era-appropriate black and white by artist Dan Boultwood, and it truly knocked my socks off – an emotional response that the Cybermen would not understand!

7

Richard McGinlay

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