“I’m written by Andy Diggle now. Andy Diggle is cool.”
Okay, the Doctor doesn’t exactly say that — maybe metaphorically, but not literally — but Diggle is cool, and a good fit for this series.
Written by Andy Diggle
Illustrated by Mark Buckingham and Charlie KirchoffThe Doctor is back!
Welcome to a new, exciting era for everyone’s favorite Time Lord, as New York Times bestselling writer Andy Diggle (The Losers) pilots the TARDIS as the ongoing series architect.
Joining him for this first arc is Eisner Award-winning artist Mark Buckingham (Fables), who also will provide covers for the series.
Geronimo!
While a comic should always try to work as a comic first and foremost, whether or not it is based on a comics-first property, writer Andy Diggle is able to use the Doctor’s television-based background as stepping stone and not a crutch. The comic is cleverly paced — place a title sequence between the first and second scenes, and this could easily be an episode of Doctor Who up until the first commercial break (if you watch it on BBC America, that is). That Diggle is able to do so without making the story seem at all decompressed is impressive, and a sign of his solid plotting skill. Then there is the matter of the Eleventh Doctor’s voice, which is, quite simply, perfect. Diggle has clearly been paying attention since the Eleventh Doctor made his debut, making mental and perhaps even physical notes of the way he speaks, the way he thinks. When translating a character from a medium such as television to a silent and static (technically) medium, dialogue is imperative. We might not notice so much when the Doctor is written out of character in a one-off episode because, hey, it’s still Matt Smith; in a comic or, God forbid, a novel, any poor use of voice will instantly be noticed, fully pulling the reader of the comic or book they are reading. Being no rookie, Diggle knows this, and has clearly made sure to lose neither the character that is present in the show’s script or the life that Matt Smith brings to the role. Amy and Rory aren’t quite as solidly formed, despite some touching dialogue near the beginning of the issue, but that Diggle is able to conjure the sound of Matt Smith’s voice in the reader’s head makes for a damn good start. Many who pick up this comic will be fans of the show first and foremost, and it’s through nuanced and refined cues such as these that ensure those readers stay, not through derivative work that gives the reader essentially the same thing they saw on the television a few nights back filtered through a lack of imagination (though I suppose some people like that kind of rot).
The story itself reflects a common theme the show, before it was all about wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, in blending more old-fashioned supernatural elements with the glamour of sci-fi. Diggle takes a halmark of the occult-based stories, the spirit medium, and rethinks it in the vein of science fiction — albeit set in the past, rather than the future, as opposed to typical sci-fi. As much as some might try to make it so, though, “Trait X has actually been Trait Y all along!” is not a story in and of itself. Instead, Diggle focuses on the topic as a story, rather than as a twist — fancy that — and asks “Okay, if X is Y… then what?” It isn’t enough to find out that we, and everything we believed in, is wrong. There need to be ramifications. In so many words, a twist is not an ending but a beginning, something we find out before the first “commercial break,” as it were, and Diggle seems to be one of the few writers who gets this in an era of storytelling obsessed with twist endings.
Mark Buckingham is one of the artists associated with the British Invasion of American comics, particularly the imprint Vertigo, and it’s because of this, he’s a perfect fit for a Doctor Who comic — well, that and the hard to dispute claim that he is one of the finest artists of his generation and of comics in general. In this issue he works with colorist Charlie Kirchoff, who has worked on the majority of IDW’s Doctor Who comics, and plays to his strengths perhaps better than any other artist to work with Kirchoff yet. Buckingham has never been an overbearingly detailed artist to begin with, but with Kirchoff he steps off even more so than usual. By sticking to a few thick, bold lines, Buckingham leaves plenty of room for Kirchoff’s brush-like colors to shine. The combination of Kirchoff’s colors with a line-heavy artist would result in an over-rendered look, a pretty picture with no life in it. Instead, Buckingham’s sparse technique works in tandem with the colorist’s style to result in comic art that is simultaneously grounded in realism and full of motion, two qualities that are often mutually exclusive in lesser comics artists. It isn’t perfect, of course — a handful of panels seem still and expressionless — but for the most part the results are fantastic, and create a model that other licensed comics based on live action properties might consider following.
More than a few people who couldn’t care less about what is in between the covers of this comic will pick it up. That’s the power of a popular franchise. Those of us who are discerning when it comes to licensed properties, even (and perhaps especially) those we love, have nothing to fear from this new Doctor Who series — well, at least not from this first issue. With the comic franchise in Andy Diggle’s capable hands for the time being, fans of the man in the big blue box can count themselves lucky… especially if, like me, you have not been too pleased with Moffat’s recent handling of the show. But that’s neither here nor there.
Final Verdict: 8.0 – Buy it!
