Doctor Who- Old Friends
Writer- Jody Houser
Cover Artist- Veronica Fish
Artists-Roberta Ingranata and Rachael Stott
Looking back over Jody’s first couple years as the Doctor it’s a
pretty fair assumption that her tenure thus far was pretty split down the
middle with the show’s fans. Give or take 5 or 10%. At times, it seemed that
there were too many companions. I know over the longevity of the show there have
been as many companions, but it seems like now they are not given enough screen
time as they (imo) should. What I mean is, every companion, even The Doctor, didn’t
feel as complete as they should. However, the comic Doctor Who: The Thirteenth
Doctor volume Old Friends from Titan Comics should help be able to help us see
a little but more as to what makes these characters tick and give us a little
more than what we see on our television screens.
I was instantly drawn into this issue by the very cool looking
cover art. It’s a very simple design of Jodie in front of the Tardis with her
sonic glowing. As I open it, I notice that the inside artwork doesn’t match the
cover art. A bit disappointed with that. But not enough to put the issue down.
The main characters have a weird shadowing on their noses that makes them look
a bit bulbous. It sort of reminds me of the old W.C. Fields movies. Let’s see
how the story goes. The story in this issue is your standard inter-planetary
caper. The story starts out on the planet Devivian. The Doctor is almost
immediately accused of stealing a sacred artifact. Long story short, they
quickly ran off, made it to the Tardis, and left. I really wish they would have
went into more detail about why they were there etc. Not just “Hey You”, run, escape
in Tardis. At one point they went from “They’re gaining on us Doctor” to them
already being at the Tardis. Reminded me of just cheap filler to get to the
next story arc. But they did touch base on it later.
One of the main issues I have with Doctor Who: The Thirteenth
Doctor- Old Friends is how closely the dialogue is with the actual
televised show. Some of it just seemed comical and not in a funny way. There
was one frame that bothered me for some reason. On page 34 she says “Never
really know what to expect with that one” as she is looking at her Sonic. Why
is she looking at her Sonic? She wasn’t looking at it in the frames before or
after and there was nothing done to provoke a sonic scan. There was also what
seemed like a lot of open space. What I mean is that there was a lot of frames
that either had no dialog or barely any at all. I think they could have helped
give the story a little ore needed depth by filling some of those gaps.
It regards to the actual dialog, it seems any chance to have serious
discussion seemed to be replaced with bad jokes and constant attempts to make
The Doctor feel more current and a bit wacky. As for the story itself, it was just
ok to me. I think the casual or newer Doctor Who fan would enjoy it. To sum it
up, while I personally did have a couple problems with the content, I didn’t
hate it. As I stated in the beginning, I loved the cover art by Veronica Fish
and I thought the background artwork was absolutely stunning. It was the actual
character artwork I didn’t care for. Though I could see that the artist was
trying to go super realistic, most of the times it made them look more like a
caricature than anything. I also loved that they told a story about The
Corsair. I’ve wondered about that character since the episode “The Doctor’s
Wife”.
I do like that at the end of this particular issue, they give you
a brief history about the character of the Corsair. As I said above the
character was first mentioned in the episode called “The Doctor’s Wife” written
by the awesome Neil Gaiman. It’s kind of funny (to me at least) I remember when
I had first seen them show the Corsair’s tattoo of the ouroboros it made me
think of the episode of Red Dwarf of the same name. lol
You should always remember one thing about any comic or graphic
novel, they are up to the individual’s interpretation. This one is no
different. If you’re a comic book fan, more specifically a Doctor Who comic
book fan, check it out for yourself. Come to your own conclusion and form your
own opinion. That’s the thing about our fandom, we don’t have to have the same
opinion on it as long as we are respectful to each other about it. I think that
if we all had the same opinion and views on Doctor Who, it would have been
cancelled and never regenerated years ago.
Allons-Y!!!!
Riley C.
