Titan Comics has gathered together well-known Doctor Who writer Paul Cornell and illustrator Neil Edwards (Assassin’s Creed) to produce a five-part, weekly series across the summer. It features the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors with either their Titan Comics companions or, in the case of the Twelfth Doctor, Clara. It also features another Doctor – no prizes for guessing who.
The first part of this story is an excellent Time War-set sequence on the planet Marinus and the Voord as well (for more modern Whovians, google The Keys of Marinus). This is worth the cover price alone for the staggering quality of the artwork and the immediately intriguing storyline.
The story half is a very different beast. The Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors all end up in a café where Clara is busy trying to work with the other companions to stop their respective Doctors meeting up. By the time this has all happened, it’s too late and we have multi-Doctor madness. Given all it does (on the surface) is to get the three incarnations together, it all feels rather sluggish compared with the first part of the story. There are a lot of pieces to come together and the various dynamics all need exploration. Perhaps the story could have started with the various modern Doctors working alone but in the same direction? Maybe we should just let master storyteller Paul Cornell tell the story his way.
Overall this is still a good read and it is hard to judge the opening episode fairly without the benefit of the later parts. Is it worth buying? Yes it is. Is it a classic? Not yet, but we have hopes for the next four parts.
FOUR DOCTORS #1 / WRITER: PAUL CORNELL / ARTIST: NEIL EDWARDS / PUBLISHER: TITAN COMICS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
