COMIC REVIEW: DOCTOR WHO – THE ELEVENTH DOCTOR #1 / AUTHOR: AL EWING, ROB WILLIAMS / ARTIST: ALICE X. ZHANG, SIMON FRASER / PUBLISHER: TITAN / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
One of Steven Moffat’s core strengths as a Doctor Who writer (apparently we are not small children, therefore we’re unable to verify this) is that he can frighten the hell out of small children. Should he find himself out of a job when your children need to be frightened, you could show them Titan Comics’ idea of what Matt Smith’s face looks like instead. We’re not saying it’s bad artwork (on the contrary, some of the images in here are very well drawn), we’re merely saying that judging by the interior art, they couldn’t obtain the rights to Smith’s likeness. To be fair, the Tenth Doctor’s likeness in his own line of comics isn’t too great either!
One positive thing that has carried across both ranges is the quality of the writing (so far; as we’ve only read the first issue of either it’s early days yet). While you may have already read our criticisms of the Tenth Doctor’s storyline, the actual dialogue for both ranges feels very smart and well written; some of the lines here actually feel like they’ve been cribbed from Eleventh Doctor TV scripts. The story moves a lot quicker here, as we’re given a brief introduction that gives us the essence of what new companion Alice Obiefune is like before we bound headfirst into adventure. We’re a lot more excited to see how this tale finishes than the Tenth Doctor’s.
If you can get past the patchy quality of the art (which was almost a deal-breaker for us), you’ll probably enjoy this comic. But it’s easy to see why you might find it difficult to take seriously and it’s only the writing that goes any way towards redeeming it.
