David Tennant is back… er sort of in “Doctor Who The Tenth Doctor” # 1 from Titan Comics. This is an interesting adventure into New York that marred by spending far too much time with a new supporting cast, and a extremely dialogue heavy script that couldn’t hold my interest.
WRITTEN BY: Nick Abadzis
ART BY: Elena Casagrande
PUBLISHER: Titan Comics
PRICE: $3.99
RELEASE: July 23, 2014
I’m a huge Whovian. I’ve followed The Doctor through thick and thin since the reboot and was positively overjoyed to see this series from Titan. I’ve sorely missed Ten and would give anything for more but Nick Abadzis’ script sadly misses the mark and fails to remind me of the Ten I love.
It’s not that The Doctor doesn’t sound like himself, it’s that he doesn’t have much to say in an issue filled with dialogue. There is no way introducing readers to the supporting characters of the story will invest them in the adventures that await. Remind us of the charm of The Doctor. While the story doesn’t require any requisite knowledge of previous events, it take far too long to get started.
The dialogue is so over abundant and superfluous that you’ll often forget who’s speaking if it isn’t The Doctor. It all feels very monotone and draining. But does a nice job at developing new character, albeit too much.
Elena Casagrande’s work is stellar. She has a great handle on the human form and draws the sprawling metropolis of New York City with relative ease. Yet, she doesn’t really dive into much of the fun stuff here. The aliens she does pepper in feel in place inside Doctor Who mythology but fail to stand out because they feel so subdued until the final page of the book.
In a lot of ways this is the Doctor Who comic fans have always deserved but it doesn’t really have itself figured out yet. The Doctor is incredibly light, and the scope of his adventures isn’t quite communicated. I mean the scope of New York is hardly on display, and for this world, scope is everything. You’re traversing time and space, so at least take me out of the Laundromat and subway tunnels.