There are times when Doctor Who comics seem to be the ultimate storytelling form for Doctor Who. Such a malleable franchise deserves an equally malleable format. Comics are unrestricted by a television budget. Nor are they concerned with appealing to a larger audience than the one they’re guaranteed. Their stories can be as broad or as intimate as they want. As bold and new, or referential. Doctor Who comics can be anything.

No other line of Doctor Who comics exemplifies this better than The Eleventh Doctor series published by Titan comics. Their characters are rich, complex, hilarious, and charming. Their plots range from personal trials to epic battles (quite often both at once). Some concepts are simple and fun, while others are mind-bendingly brilliant. Most impressive of all - no matter how intense a story gets, there’s always room for a bit of silliness.

Number 13 in this Doctor’s third year of comic book adventures takes all the elements of Doctor Who that work best and brings them together with utterly gorgeous art by JB Bastos & Luiz Campello . The Doctor’s world has never looked more cleanly detailed, with not a single line out of place.

The story is a climax of sorts. The Doctor and Alice inhabit a world built on their memories, complete with a Gallifreyan skyline and sonic screwdriver buildings, with the two of them experiencing some pretty intense amnesia. The Doctor isn’t quite sure what he is, what he should be, or how to dress. His new wardrobe is mishmash of his old wardrobe, harkening back to Doctors past in a splendid way. Alice is with her mother, always thinking of the man from her dreams with the bow tie.  

A character losing one’s memory can often seem like a tired gimmick. More often than not the trope is used to change a character’s personality or a lazy effort of introducing conflict. Here, amnesia is both a tragedy of what was lost and a celebration of all the adventures we’ve had with these two phenomenal characters. Throw in an offshoot of The Silence controlling everything, characters surviving in the consciousness of a previously very dangerous sapling, and all the heart a Time Lord’s biology can muster, and you’ve got Doctor Who as you know it and love it best looking better than it ever has before.

As a televised serial, Delta and the Bannermen could have been a hilarious, delightful, Douglas Adams-esque romp with a dark side. Many of the elements are there. Completely alien beings transforming themselves into humanoids in order to visit Disneyland in the 1950s as part of a “Nostalgia Tour”, everyday people trying their best to work according to procedure in the face of utter strangeness, and intergalactic war taking place at a holiday camp in Wales. Unfortunately, it’s an uneven, overly violent, tonal mess, with delusions of depth.

As a novel, Delta and the Bannermen could have been an edgy sci-fi epic with fleshed out characters, deeply detailed mythology, real character motivations, high stakes, and humor. Where else but a novel would it be possible to explore Chimeron culture,  craft a romance between Delta and Billy that feels genuine, or uncover the psychology of why an assassin on vacation just can’t help but make a kill (there has to be more than his enjoyment of it)? Instead the novel adds very little to what was already an unbalanced story.

As an audiobook, Delta and the Bannermen has fun music, an effective soundtrack, and Bonnie Langford’s narration can be a delight when she’s really giving it her all and having a blast. However the weak story holds the entire production back. It is simply too difficult to separate the story from the audiobook to enjoy all the work that went into recording this otherwise pretty impressive audiobook.   

The setting of Delta and the Bannermen requires a soundtrack rich with popular music of the time. Characters openly reference songs like “Rock Around The Clock” and “Why Do Fools Fall In Love.” It would be hard to imagine the story without a few needle drops of those vintage hits. Somehow the producers were able to concoct generic, certainly royalty free, Rock & Roll tracks sufficient enough to capture that particular musical shade of the correct pop cultural tapestry.    

Not to say the music is all perfect. Perhaps the most entertaining piece of the score is what appears to be the main theme. A sweeping, swashbuckling suite that may have been more at home in a pirate story, but is equally thrilling here.

Telling a story about about genocide across the stars, especially when the antagonist is as murder-happy as Gavrok, gunfire and explosions are crucial. At no point does the artillery become a wall of pounding sound overpowering the music or narration. Every auditory element is layered to compliment each other, resulting in a sense of immersion.  

Of course the natural standout is Bonnie Langford as the storyteller. She is tasked with performing a variety of accents for more characters than necessary, and she does so superbly. While Mel may not be everyone’s favorite companion, Bonnie Langford is a first class talent, and she shines throughout the entirety of this book.  

Delta and the Bannermen, regardless of the form it takes, is a story with a lot of promise that never reaches its full potential. At least this version has a narrator who seems to be enjoying themself.

The Seventh Doctor's tenure in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine had been kind of a mess.  The days during his television tenure were often one-offs delivered by a variety of different writers and artists.  There was rarely a consistent look or a consistent tone.  The best period was really right after the show was cancelled and people who had been involved in the show turned to the comic to continue the adventures of the Doctor and Ace...but once the Virgin books kicked in, those people became occupied with that venture, and the comics again became kind of messy, and they tried so hard to make it fit the continuity of the books that they would often write stories that required some knowledge of what had been going on in the books just to make some confusing detail make any sense. So when the  1996 TV Movie premiered and the magazine was given a brand new fresh Doctor to lead the strip...they managed to assemble a small team that could focus, and they actually made something that was fun to read again. 

Endgame represents the launch of Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor in the strip, and the opening story really showcases writer Alan Barnes and artist Martin Geraghty's plan to put a new stamp on the strip, one that has decided to sever ties with the Virgin line of books (which pretty much came to an end right after the Eighth Doctor took over as well) and it's continuity. They delve back into the strip's own rich history, with the Doctor returning to Stockbridge and reuniting with Maxwell Edison, we see the return of Shayde in the book.

There is also the introduction of another resident of Stockbridge, Izzy Sinclair, the girl who becomes the Eighth Doctor's companion for a good chunk of his run in the comic.  Izzy is a really well-written character, who comes to life immediately as someone who the kind of folks that were probably reading a magazine based on what was then a defunct sci-fi show could relate to.  Izzy is an awkward sci-fi nerd who's adopted and whose closest friend is the middle-aged alien hunting geek Max Edison. 

I think that what certainly sets this book apart from the bulk of the Seventh Doctor run, is that it kind of feels like a season of the show. I'm a big fan of the Big Finish audios that McGann has been doing since 2001, and as such, I've become a big fan of his interpretation of the role.  The comics collected in this book were written before he really gotten a chance to bring that interpretation to life, so they based this version of the character entirely on his one appearance on TV.  What strikes me s that they did such a good job bringing him to life, with a little more depth than the TV movie actually offered up...and they somehow got it pretty close to what McGann eventually really did with the role.  To me, this book plays sort of like a decent first season for his Doctor.  It may be a little rough around the edges, but Barnes stories are pretty solid, the artwork is gorgeous, and there is a decent running storyline featuring the Threshold (a villain which was introduced during the final strip featuring the Seventh Doctor), and we get other great additions like Fey Truscott-Sade, and the great fake out twist that comes for the story that pretty much brings this batch of comics to an end.

Ultimately, there may be a few areas where some fine tuning could have helped, but this is a vastly better set of comics than most of what came during the Seventh Doctor's tenure. The strip felt like it got some of it's mojo back under the Eighth Doctor.  It helps when you've basically been given a Doctor with only one appearance and you have carte-blanche to just do whatever you want with it. There must've been a real sense of freedom after being shackled to the Seventh Doctor and his book line. And it really shows. 

Comprising of no less than five “unpainted pewter miniatures” for the Nottingham-based company’s “Doctor Who: Exterminate” skirmish game, the “Twelfth Doctor and Companions Set” contains plenty of models with which to keep tabletop fans of Peter Capaldi’s tenure as the traveling Timelord happy. True, the sculpt chosen for this incarnation of the Doctor is arguably somewhat contentious, as it’s seemingly based upon ‘The Hybrid will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey…’ BBC publicity poster issued for the December 2015 story "Hell Bent", and thus includes both his character’s debatably divisive sonic sunglasses and electric guitar. But it’s a striking pose, well-suited to a model which represents a confident thinker, not a fighter, and is so wonderfully cast that it proves a straightforward joy to paint; albeit the shades do cover up the Doctor’s infamous “attack eyebrows”…

Sadly, the stance of Clara Oswald’s figure is a little unassuming and sedentary, given that it’s taken from the companion’s ‘swangsong’ story “Face the Raven”. Sporting a grey and lace jumper, with her arms limply hanging at her sides, there isn’t really a great deal of dynamism going on, and this is especially disappointing for an ‘assistant’ who has brought such energy and vigour to the TARDIS console room. Having said that though, the official paint-job on the miniature, as found on the back of the packaging, really does demonstrate just how great a likeness the sculpt is of actress Jenna Coleman.   

Infinitely more action-packed are the models of the Paternoster Gang, with Madame Vastra’s ‘sword almost at the ready’ stance proving my particular favourite. Rather than depict the female Silurian wearing her Victorian dress and veil, “Warlord Games” have instead shown the warrior from prehistoric Earth at her fighting best and ably attired in the costume worn by the character in “Deep Breath”. From a painter’s perspective, this apparel is an absolute dream to paint, with the reptile-like humanoid’s green scaly skin contrasting well with the dark purple leggings and sleeves.

Less colourful, but just as vibrantly posed, is Jenny Flint, whose weapon wielding-posture looks particularly fierce and suitable for a tabletop fighter. Considering that the formidable hand-to-hand combatant is dressed entirely in black, this miniature’s excellent attention to detail is crying out for a delicate dark grey dry-brush in order to highlight all the lacing, stitches and seams on her bodice and boots.

Lastly, is this marvelous boxed set’s version of the Sontaran nurse, Strax. Perhaps somewhat disappointingly unarmed, the violent manservant’s stance is no less impressive due to the distinctive glowering expression on his potato head, and his raised imperious fist. Indeed, it’s quite clear that the clone would be very willing to cause someone a horrendous mischief with his rolled up newspaper, should a person be unwise enough to provoke him.

For those interested in using these models specifically for the “Doctor Who: Exterminate!” tabletop game then there’s a distinct advantage to have already bought a copy of the miniature game’s starter set, as all of these characters’ official Recruitment and Adventure cards are included within that box rather than this one. As a result, if you want to play “Timey-Wimey”, “Sontaran Blaster” or “Sword” during a battle then you’re going to need to own the main game…

Emperor of the Daleks is a set which essentially wraps up the end of the Seventh Doctor's tenure as the regular Doctor in the strip, and the stories collected within this book are pretty much a mess. I must say the constant attempt at keeping continuity with a book series not everyone (including myself) was reading was problematic. Essentially to understand some of the things that happen to the characters in the strip, you needed to be thoroughly read up on the novels. For instance, Ace suddenly disappears with no explanation, so at the start of this book, she is just replaced with Bernice Summerfield, who was created in the Virgin New Adventures series. There is no clear intro for Bernice in the strip, she is just there. If you were only reading the comics, you were getting half the story, and it becomes fairly clear that the strip, despite its longevity and popularity, was now playing second fiddle to some upstart series of novels.

I liked some of the stories in this set, and it should be said that while my experience with the character is entirely from some Big Finish adaptations of the NA novels and this strip...I like Benny as a character. But the lack of introduction of her in the strip (and the lack of explanation as to where Ace went) is definitely a problem. And the fact that Ace comes and goes throughout the book and acts contrary to how she was before she disappeared. 

The big meat of the book is the titular "Emperor of the Daleks" which appears in the middle of the book. This big sweeping story is such a clunky read due to it's obsession with trying to clean up continiuties (what happened to Davros between Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks as well as that army of Daleks forgotten about since Planet of the Daleks) and working in the Sixth Doctor and Peri and the Seventh Doctor and Benny...as well as the unwelcome resurrection of Abslom Daak and the Star Tigers who had a great end in "Nemesis of the Daleks" from an earlier comic volume...that it seems a shame to bring them all back for a messier end.  The strip became run by fans so deeply into the continuity that it forgot that part of what makes Doctor Who fun is that it is constantly moving forward and having NEW adventures.  Even as a fan who loves the minutiae of the continuity and connecting dots, I found "Emperor of the Daleks" to be a rather tedious read.  Connect all those dots if you want in your head, but trying to actually spell it out for everyone is a total bore. 

There is also the full-colour anniversary story "Time & Time Again" and the one-off from a special issue titled "Flashback" both of which feature appearances from past Doctors and show a love for continuity that is less interesting if you aren't so deeply into the nooks and crannies of the franchise.  Admittedly these were comics printed in a magazine geared towards just that audience, but that doesn't really make them fun adventures to read. Write a reference book instead of a comic if that's what you are into. 

After the final story in this collection, they moved on from the Seventh Doctor as the lead of the strip, and actually tried something new for the long running strip, which is to have a different Doctor star in each installment.  At a time when the show was off the air and showed no signs returning, that kind of made sense, particuarly as trying to make all the contiuity with the books work seemed to not be working out for the Seventh Doctor. The Seventh Doctor to the strip for one last tale before the the Eighth Doctor would take over, and I look forward to reading that adventure (and the other Doctor tales that filled that gap) when it gets collected in it's own volume.

This final volume of the Seventh Doctor's run is a mixed bag.  Fans of the Virgin New Adventures or of the strip in general may want to check it out, but casual readers beware. While I admire that at the time they had wanted to try and make sure the continuity with both the TV series and the books that were effectively trying to be the legitimate continuation of that series fit...I don't think that experiement proved too successful, and this collection is the proof of that. I don't really care for much in this volume, and I think it is easily skipped.