New Adventures Of The Tenth Doctor #14- The Spiral Staircase Part 2

Written by Nick Abadzis
Art by Rachael Stott and Leonardo Romero
Lettering by Richard Starkings
And Comicraft's Jimmy Betancourt
Colorist Hi-Fi
Published August 12, 2015 by Titan Comics

Millennia ago the Gods left the Earth. That’s when the Cult of the Black Triangle formed. Generation after generation its members have waited, keeping both the faith and the secret. Now their time has come. The Gods have returned. But will the cult members get rewarded as they think they should? The Doctor, Cindy and Black Triangle gang are transported up to the alien’s ship where they come face to face with the Seeker, an artificial intelligence whose sole purpose is the destruction of all evidence that the Gods ever existed.

For some reason I thought that this was going to be the last issue in the story arc so I was a little disappointed and also excited when I reached the final page and realized there was still more to come. Here we are four parts in and writer Nick Abadzis has everything clicking along perfectly. There are plenty of characters in this storyline that are new but at this point you feel like you know them and understand their intentions and motives. To keep things fresh he changed the perspective on us for part of this book. A few pages in Cindy takes over the narration.  Set up like she is sending texts to her best friend Gabby back down in New York, she describes the attitudes and actions of the cult members and the Doctor as they argue and fight over what to do next. It works as a segue or montage to help show the passing of time onboard in an interesting way.

The Cult of the Black Triangle members were first convinced that Dorothy Bell was their Goddess incarnate. After that they decide that the being who brought them onto the ship must be their God. But it turns out it isn’t even a living being but a program that searches the universe seeking out all the left over artifacts from when the Gods were prevalent. Once found, it destroys them. As with many other stories, these aliens masqueraded as the Egyptian gods we are so familiar with.

Some of my favourite stories, whether they be comic books, novels or even television episodes, hinge on the “something familiar is actually not what you thought.” Doctor Who has done this so many times that you actually have to stop and think for a moment before you can find an item that hasn’t been twisted in that way. And even though it has been done quite a bit, I still love it.  This story is a take on the Egyptian mythology, that the Gods were actually aliens. A concept that has been done before, notably it formed the entire basis of the movie Stargate and the subsequent spin off TV show Stargate SG-1. The show even gets a mention from one of the characters during this issue. But of course classic Doctor Who fans know the idea goes back a lot further than the early 90’s. The Tom Baker story The Pyramids Of Mars quickly comes to mind with the villainous Sutekh. In many ways this might be a sequel to that story, or at the very least a new chapter. Speaking of new chapters, now that I know that this story isn’t done yet, on to the next one!

Bonus Strip: A Rose By Any Other Name by Rachael Smith

The Doctor is getting fat from eating too much ice cream so Rose The Cat decides he should regenerate to get over his lost love and lose some weight. After a couple of really funny bonus strips this one didn’t do much for me. The plus side is that the previous two were good enough that I don’t automatically dislike them anymore.