Too many Doctors in the kitchen.
Creative Staff:
Story: George Mann and Cavan Scott
Art: Ivan Rodriguez and Walter Geovani
Ink Assists: Nelson Pereira and Rob Lean
Colors: Nicola Righi
Letters: Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
The penultimate chapter of the Doctor Who event of 2016! Things get worse for the Doctor – across four separate time zones! The ninth Doctor gets too close to the enemy. The tenth Doctor’s companions offer a terrifying sacrifice. The eleventh Doctor digs deep and gives back with interest, and the twelfth Doctor is faced with the most momentous choice of his life!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Conventional wisdom states that it’s always darkest before the dawn. If that’s true, then we’re in for one hell of a sunrise, because events have definitely turned dark in the universe.
Rassilon, the former president of Gallifrey, returned with an army of Cybermen. Using Time Lord technology, the Cybermen embark on their most ambitious plan yet: cyberizing the totality of time and space. The only thing standing in his way is the Doctor. Or, rather, four Doctors.
While Twelve deals with Rassilon personally, Eleven struggles against cyberization in Earth’s prehistory. Ten commands a Sontaran army, and Nine tries to save Jackie Tyler from the Cyber threat in contemporary London. The three former incarnations of the Doctor each face their darkest moment, and they each get angry. An angry Doctor is a terrifying Doctor, but it also means that he’s more prone to making mistakes. We’ll see how that plays out in the rest of the series, but right now each Doctor seems intent on taking the Cybermen down with him, no matter what the cost. It will be scorched earth across time and space.
Each incarnation struggles alone, unaware of the larger picture. On the one hand, that’s pretty cool as it illustrates the temperament and character of the Doctor, no matter which face he wears, but on the other, it’s disappointing not getting to see them interact with each other. I’ve said this in my previous three reviews, and I imagine I’ll say it in the next one as well, but part of the fun of a huge inter-Doctor story is seeing them play off each other. It feels like I’m being cheated out of something that would be great fun.
I’ve also mentioned before how the companions get the short shrift in this mega event. Gabby and Cindy get a moment to shine, but Jackie and Alice are just kind of there in the background, not contributing anything and acting more like a narrative tool to drive the Doctor to make desperate moves.
I also have a serious issue with what Gabby and Cindy do in this issue. Without spoiling anything, the two go off to do something monumentally dangerous, and Ten doesn’t even bat an eye. Way back when Jackie accused the Doctor of using his companions—of inspiring them to take risks they shouldn’t because they want to impress him or live up to his example. There’s a measure of truth to that, but the Doctor also tries to protect his friends. Here Ten blatantly uses Gabby and Cindy and doesn’t even put up a mock resistance. One could argue that his acquiescence is born of desperation, but it doesn’t come off that way. Perhaps that’s because of the breakneck pace and alternating storylines, but it struck me as being out of character.
On a tangential note, there are times when the Doctor doesn’t look like the Doctor. Ten suffers from this the most, but there are panels when the characters look off-model. There’s a definite lack of consistency here to the point where you get three different depictions of the same Doctor on one page. That inconsistency took me right out of the story, and it’s a shame because the artists are very talented people whose work I’ve enjoyed in the past. This seems to be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen. Their styles simply don’t mesh here.
In Summary:
Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen continues at a breakneck pace, telling a sprawling story that spans all of space and time. Unfortunately, the pace works against it at some points, and the art is very inconsistent, making a story that possesses a great deal of potential, but often fails to meet it. I hate writing that, because I admire the work of many of these writers and artists, but this just isn’t coming together for me. Dr. Josh gives this a….
Grade: C+
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Titan Comics
Release Date: October 19th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99