While Alice heads back to London to do the adulting, the Doctor, John Jones, and Arc deal with two warring alien factions . . . and then the mysterious and miraculous return of someone close to Alice brings her back to the team.
Written by Rob WilliamsCover by Mariano Laclaustra
Illustrated by Warren Pleece
Colored by Hi-Fi
Lettered by Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy BetancourtINTERGALACTIC WAR BRINGS THE LONDON SKIES TO A SHUDDERING HALT! The day after tomorrow – and the Vrezian Confederacy and the J’arrodic Federation have brought their ‘honorable’ air-war to Earth. They’re not here to invade, and they’re being exceptionally considerate about collateral damage, all things considered. But human air travel is at a standstill, our culture is collapsing, the skies are clogged with toxic smog… And UNIT can’t do a thing, as the aliens vaporize the weapons stockpile of any country that dares interfere. The deadlock needs a peaceful and clever solution – let’s hope the Doctor is up to the job! And in the middle of it all… Alice is given a shocking offer she dare not refuse!
Written by Al EwingCover by Boo Cook
Illustrated by Warren Pleece
Colored by Hi-Fi
Lettered by Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy BetancourtTO INFINITY AND BACK TO END A COSMIC WAR! Interstellar dogfights still rage in the skies over London!When Alice is forced into a high-stakes solo challenge that could end the conflict, she’ll need to muster everything she’s learned on her travels with the Doctor in order to succeed – and even that might not be enough!Has the Doctor made a grave mistake – or is it all part of a larger plan?Plus! We’ve heard of the fearsome Amstrons of the Great Wheel throughout the series… But what is their shocking secret, revealed this issue?!
Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way: I do not like Warren Pleece’s art on these two issues. There’s nothing distinct in his facial shapes; everyone has the same oval base shape for their face. It’s a cookie-cutter approach to drawing that does nothing for characterization. Couple this with a love of rather large bulbous noses (particularly on the Eleventh Doctor), and you get a very jarring art change that can easily turn off even longtime readers of the series. No one looks like they did previously, and there’s nothing recognizable of Matt Smith (save for the hair) in Pleece’s Eleventh Doctor artwork at all. Pleece does smooth things out and get a little closer to the Matt Smith look in the second of these issues, but it’s still far from ideal.
Doctor Who comics are the only ones I read that change out art teams regularly, almost from issue to issue. It’s a practice that continues today with the “Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor” comics, but there’s certainly more consistency in the change; artists stick around for a story arc. As I remind myself, this was Titan’s first Doctor Who series, thus I can write this off as growing pains for how the publisher wants to manage things. And when comparing this series to the current Thirteenth Doctor series, they’ve certainly learned their lessons: artists from issue to issue retain uniformity in the basics of their artwork while still putting their own individual spin on things.
I will give Mr. Pleece credit for one thing: a stunning spread in issue #8, “The Infinite Astronaut” showing Alice and John’s journey into a mysterious infinity. His loose hand creating organic swirls, coupled with iridescent, vibrant colors from Hi-Fi, personifies beauty and wonder, giving Alice’s emotional reaction later when she returns from the trip added weight.
I wish I could say that a stellar script saves the day with these two issues . . . but I can’t. We fall back onto several plot tropes seen before in Doctor Who, and science fiction in general: warring alien factions, the return of someone beloved from the dead, and things not always being what they appear. There’s enough to keep the reader entertained but not enthralled. You can think of it as the blockbuster summer movie of the series: big fights, big action, but no deep character moments. And that’s okay. Sometimes you just need to see monsters beating the daylights out of each other. Sometimes you want a Pacific Rim instead of The Shape of Water.
Continued belowAl Ewing brings everything full circle in the final third of “The Infinite Astronaut” with connecting the mysterious SERVEYOUInc. to the main story, but I also feel like we should be knowing a little bit more about this company that’s been presented as the glue to hold this entire series together, especially now that we have hit the halfway point.
But more bothersome than script and artwork that look to have just phoned things in are the myriad of errors and omissions in continuity throughout these two issues. Some of these are so blatant that they are just inexcusable, particularly from two writers who have been the only writers for the series.
- John Jones seems to have developed quite the appetite for . . . an appetite, but it’s not explained why such a personality change.
- The “Vrezian Confederacy” mentioned in the solicit for issue #7 (“The Eternal Dogfight”) is mentioned only at the start and then never heard from again, as it is the Amstrons that end up being presented as one of the two warring alien parties in the dogfight
- Alice implies that she didn’t know the Doctor only two months ago in “The Infinite Astronaut” but this story is set in 2015, at least four months after Alice’s eviction notice.
- The SERVEYOUInc. gentleman that appears in “The Infinite Astronaut” comes straight from “What He Wants” but the Doctor references a last meeting in Louisiana. That last meeting actually took place in Mississippi.
- The Doctor calls Alice’s mother “Ava” instead of “Ada.”
By far, “The Eternal Dogfight” and “The Infinite Astronaut” are the weakest entries in this series, featuring script and artwork that did not take the time to do proper research. Let’s hope now that we have SERVEYOUInc. back in the picture, with the Doctor and company off to the corporate offices, we can get things back on track.
Next week, it’s another two-parter with issues #9 and #10, “The Rise and Fall” and “The Other Doctor.”
If you’d like to read along with me this summer, all issues of the series, single and trade, are available on Comixology. If you are in the United States or Canada and your local library has access to the Hoopla Digital service, you can make Alice happy by borrowing single issues and trades from the series via your local library.
