Review: Doctor Who – Prisoners of Time #1
Cover by Francesco Francavilla
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, and to celebrate IDW is putting out a twelve-issue series celebrating all things Who. That series, Doctor Who – Prisoners of Time, will feature each incarnation of The Doctor and his companions. The first issue naturally stars the First Doctor, and delivers an enjoyable story for Who fans new and old.
Writers Scott & David Tipton have a tough task to tackle. On the one hand, this book is a celebration of 50 years of history. On the other hand, it has to be accessible both to fans who have only seen the 2005 series and to brand new readers. The opening pages of the comics introduce the concept of The Doctor, of his many regenerations and of the different personae that each has played. They also introduce the fact that The Doctor always travels with a companion or two, a bit that looks like it will be central to the overall arc of the miniseries.
With that bit of housekeeping done, the Tiptons dive right into an adventure of the First Doctor. It’s here where they assume a bit of foreknowledge, particularly about the companions. One gets a sense of them from their dialogue and how The Doctor speaks to them, but proper introductions are never really made. It’s several pages before any of them are given names, and The Doctor refers to one of them by several different names throughout. It’s a gag that he never gets the man’s name right, but it also means that, for the uninitiated reader, his name remains a mystery.
That said, the lack of specifics on the companions in this issue doesn’t affect the enjoyability of the story. It’s a tight little tale, with The Doctor and his traveling partners visiting the late 19th century and encountering some familiar alien foes. The story moves quickly, and wraps up relatively neatly at the end. Despite the neat packaging, it also carefully establishes the overall threat for the miniseries, but without hitting the reader over the head with it. A major theme of Doctor Who, at least in the modern era, is the idea that, while The Doctor may travel with someone most of the time, he is still a character who is fundamentally alone. Based on the cliffhanger of this issue, that idea should play a central role as the series progresses.
Simon Fraser’s art does a good job evoking the likenesses of the actors without it looking like he’s drawing from photo reference. If anything, he captures the characters’ personalities more than their physical features, and it works quite well. They all have a certain lumpiness to them, for lack of a better word. It’s easy to imagine the softness of their skin were you to reach into the drawing and touch them. Part of that is also certainly a product of colorist Gary Caldwell’s work, adding warmth to the characters and depth to their surroundings.
If the first issue is any indication, Doctor Who – Prisoners of Time is going to be a fun adventure. New fans will have a chance to become acquainted with previous Doctors and their worlds, and old fans can reminisce about times gone by. Here’s hoping the Tiptons and Simon Fraser can keep the momentum of the first issue going for the rest of the year.
January 31, 2013
It’s also a bit odd that the 1st Doctor makes a deliberate visit on a friend in the issue, even calling ahead so their arrival is prepared for, considering he and the 2nd Doctor had absolutely no control over where the TARDIS landed. That was why Barbara and Ian, seen in the story, were stuck traveling with him. They wanted to go home but he had no way of navigating the ship. It wasn’t until the 3rd Doctor’s tenure that the TARDIS was fixed enough (apparently partially by the Time Lords) that he could at least occasionally go somewhere he intended to be.
February 3, 2013
Good point, Alan, and that’s not a minor detail. It was crucial for the show’s original premise. I cringe when people entrusted with fleshing out a favorite fiction franchise’s history blow it in a way that suggests they either don’t know or don’t care about the history to which they’ve been entrusted.
When the 2nd Doctor visited the Brigadier in “The Five Doctors,” he himself commented on how “for once” he’d gotten it to go where and when he wanted. I could excuse this comic book’s error as a similar rare instance of the TARDIS working as intended if not for the calling ahead part.
February 3, 2013
Not only that, Travis, but that was a 2nd Doctor who had already parted company with Jamie and Zoe, which meant that it was during the time he was running a few missions for the Time Lords before he began his exile, so his TARDIS likely had SOME repair by that point (as lated “confirmed” by the novels and audios).
February 4, 2013
HA!
I actually contemplated adding that but refrained from it. Several details like that from “The Five Doctors” provide the clearest on-screen support for the popular speculation for what happened between the end of the Second Doctor’s run and the start of the Third’s.