The Highgate Horror (Panini Graphic Novel)

Written by Mark Wright, Jonathan Morris, Steve Lyons, Jacqueline Rayner, & Scott Gray

Artwork by Mike Collins, John Ross, David A. Roach, Adrian Salmon, Roger Langridge, Dave Gibbons, John Ridgeway, Dan McDaid, John Ross, Martin Geraghty

Paperback: 180 pages

Publisher: Panini UK LTD

The Twelfth Doctor's comic adventures continue in Panini's second volume, The Highgate Horror, which sees the final set of adventures for Clara on the strip, and a special 20-page adventure celebrating the history of the Doctor Who Magazine strip itself. 

The opening one-shot is "Space Invaders!" which was originally printed between two stories featured in the previous volume.  Since it is only one part and doesn't play into any big arc or anything, I wonder why they didn't just place it in the previous volume.  That collection only had about four stories anyhow. But I digress, it is a simple and fun little adventure, not too deep, but fun.  And it has a nice nod to the Simpsons, as there is an alien that looks kind of like Bart Simpson that gets eaten up by a monster in one panel. 

The second story, "Spirits of the Jungle," has a bit more meat to it, with a big crazy jungle adventure with robots and monsters to battle. It's got good art, a fun story, and lots of crazy Doctor Who-ness to enjoy.  The titular story "The Highgate Horror" has great art, a decent story, and monster, a solid character known as Jess...but I think it has a rather unsatisfying conclusion, which is a shame.  The Doctor basically tells the monster to go away and the disappear into a void, it doesn't really work. 

Clara and the Doctor then travel to a planet where techno-savvy folk has decided to live out their dreams of living in the middle ages, complete with Dragons...unfortunately the Dragons have been freed from their computer control and are now free to rampage against the villagers. I think this was an entertaining story, but even by Peter Capaldi standards, the Doctor seems TOO grumpy throughout.  Just annoyed with everyone and everything from the word go.  This story is followed by a shorter one-off involving Houdini trapped in a computer program, which is light goofy fun. 

Clara's final adventure in the strip involves a trickster time traveller known as Miss Chief, who causes all sorts of havoc and a Halloween fest, and gets Clara (who is dressed as a witch) sent back in time to face off with Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General, all while playing a time travel game with the Doctor in order to save her.  It's a fun adventure, and sends Clara off with a high note, giving her some good stuff to do, and ends with her raising enough money to name an I.T. room after Danny Pink.  Danny, despite his death, is quite present in this book. Appearing as hallucinations and computer programs. His memory lived on in the strip better than it really ever did in the show! But at any rate, while they can never do a true exit for companions and Doctors in the strip when they get such a thing on TV, they often find a nice way to say goodbye to those characters in the strip, with some little hint or nod that lets you know that they won't be in the strip anymore. 

The final story in this collection is "The Stockbridge Showdown," which was a special 20-page comic strip (as opposed to the now usual 12 pages), which was printed in the 500th Issue of Doctor Who Magazine.  As such, this story is a massive celebration of the strip's DWM history, featuring a bunch of the Magazine's own additions to Doctor Who lore, with places from Stockbridge (first seen in the Fifth Doctor's era and revisited often in the strip) to Cornucopia (a more recent addition from the Eleventh Doctor's era), and featuring comic-original companions from the first DWM companion Sharon, as well as Maxwell Edison, Majenta Pryce, Destrii, Izzy, and Frobisher!  The plot involves a takedown of Josiah W. Dogbolter, a villain from the Fifth and Sixth Doctor eras, who has teamed up with a villain of the Eleventh Doctor, Chiyoko.  To add even more fun to the mix, this strip is drawn by a variety of artists. With pages drawn by the first artist for the magazine, Dave Gibbons, as well as the man who drew the entirety of the Sixth Doctor's run, John Ridgeway, as well as the artists that remain with the strip today, many of whom really took off during the Eighth Doctor's run and beyond. Scott Gray, who has pretty much run the strip since the Eighth Doctor's days (either as lead writer or as the Editor), wrote a great celebration of a strip that has had many successes for many years. It's great to see so many of the strip's original creations and great artists put together such a fun celebration of the strip itself.  The show has a long and stories history, and the strip does as well, particularly the Doctor Who Magazine version of the long-running strip, so this 500th issue celebration is well deserved. 

This is a better collection than the first Twelfth Doctor volume.  It has a better variety of stories and includes a great celebration of the strip itself in that final story.  It's nice that they took a break from the big epic arcs, and just told a bunch of fun stories again, and if you want to dip into the Twelfth Doctor adventures, I'd say you get more bang for your buck by purchasing this collection over his first.  There's no real story arc to follow, just random adventures...so starting here is worth it in my view. If you have a love for the Doctor Who Magazine strip, then "The Stockbridge Showdown" alone is worth it!