Giant Freakin Robot

This week brought us all kinds of Doctor Who action, at least as far as the pages of comic books are concerned. We saw The Eleventh Doctor, an uneven narrative experience to be sure, deliver what might be the strongest issue in its run, or at least a nice piece of the best arc they’ve explored thus far. Now Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, which has been the high point of the continuing titles published by Titan Comics, drop another new issue, number eight.

The Doctor, along with his latest travelling companion, Gabby Gonzales, is still stuck in the grim, desolate environs of no-man’s land at the Somme in World War I. As if that isn’t hazardous enough to give you pause, they’re still being pursued by a gaggle of Weeping Angels. Behaving contrary to their usual method of operation, the Doctor finally figures out why they’re acting like they do: they feed on potential energy, but in the slaughterhouse of this heretofore unimaginable conflict, their source of sustenance is being stolen and they’re starving, desperate.

Last fall, questions swirled about whether or not Jenna Louise Coleman, who plays the latest companion on BBC’s long-running Doctor Who, was going to remain on board the TARDIS with Peter Capaldi’s Time Lord or branch out and explore other career options. She ultimately signed on for another season of adventures through time and space, but now showrunner Stephen Moffat reveals that she was originally going to leave.

Before last season’s Christmas special, there were reports that Coleman was moving on afterwards. There was, of course, contradictory information that said she was staying, and the actress herself played coy, not saying one way or another. As it turns out, Moffat says she was supposed to leave, but not when people necessarily thought.

Over its run, which his now nine issues deep, Titan Comics’ Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor has been an inconsistent, up and down affair. Every time it appears that it’s headed in the right direction, it takes a step backwards. That said, the last couple of issues have followed a notable upward trajectory, which continues with the latest installment, “Rise and Fall.”

The Doctor’s latest companion, Alice, is still reeling from thinking her mother was back from the dead, a nasty trick played on her by the Talent Scout, part of the nefarious Serve You Inc. that the team have encountered a number of times. In fact, it may be one too many times now, as they’ve finally gone too far. Of all the things we know about the venerable Time Lord, we’re well aware that he doesn’t abide people fucking with his friends or hurting the ones he loves. Now they’re out for a little payback, and to put a stop to Serve You Inc. once and for all.

While we won’t likely see new episodes of Doctor Who on TV until much later this year, Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth incarnation of the venerable Time Lord shows no signs of slowing down on the pages of Titan Comic’s Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor. In fact, the latest issue, #5 in the continuing run, delivers the fastest paced adventure we’ve see yet from this title.

This issue picks up where the last one left off. The Doctor, along with badass, revenge-minded Amazon warrior Rani, and Prinyanka, the daughter of one of the Doctor’s old time travelling buddies, search for a way to defeat the ancient Indian death cult that is currently trying to crash a continent sized spaceship into the surface of the Earth, killing millions of people in the process. That’s the kind of thing secret death cults are prone to do we guess, but someone has to feed the necro-cloud we suppose.

While Doctor Who may be on the Twelfth incarnation of the venerable Time Lord on the TV, numbers Ten and Eleven (and soon to be Nine) are still very much alive and kicking in the pages of Titan Comics various continuing series. Thus far the three versions of the character have been kept separate on the page, but there’s something big in the works, as there is a three-way crossover planned.

Scheduled to drop this summer, David Tennant, Matt Smith, and Peter Capaldi’s Doctors will come together for one big adventure in the TARDIS. Written by Paul Cornell (Wolverine, Batman & Robin, as well as tons of TV work a few Doctor Who novels), this is going to be a five-part affair.

This issue of Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor, #8, “The Infinite Astronaut, as well as the previous one, have made a big deal about this being a two-part affair. What this really does is drive home the difference between this Titan Comics title and the other two current Doctor runs—The Tenth and Twelfth Doctors. Both of those comics have, thus far in their youngish runs, only unveiled their arcs across multiple issues, even as many as five or six to fully wrap a story up. This is one of the biggest fundamental differences, and with such a truncated narrative approach, it’s been difficult to get as invested in The Eleventh Doctor as the other two. And while this two-parter is a move in the right direction, it’s not a particularly big step.

We find the Doctor, and his band of weirdo misfit travelling companions—future past rock star Jones, the creature known as ARC, and, of course, former librarian assistant Alice Obifune—in the same situation as they were when the last issue ended. They’re in the middle of a never-ending space war that they need to stop before it costs any more lives or engulfs the Earth—and you know how the Doctor feels about war.