Creative Staff:
Story: George Mann & Cavan Scott
Art: Ivan Rodgriguez & Walter Geovanni
Colors: Nicola Righi
Letters: Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
Witness the birth of the new Cybermen invasion, as the history of this aggressive Cyberiad is at last revealed! The Tenth Doctor takes a titanic machine into combat. The Twelfth Doctor finds an unlikely ally. The Ninth Doctor loses one of his own. And the Eleventh Doctor discovers something impossible!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
George Mann and Cavan Scott don’t give the reader a moment to breathe in this action-packed issue. The Cybermen, aided by Time Lord technology gifted by Rassilon, have commenced a mass conversion across time and space, affecting every incarnation of the Doctor.
On Gallifrey, Twelve flees with the remaining non-cyberized Time Lords to the only safe spot on the planet—Rassilon’s tomb.
In Earth’s prehistoric past, Eleven and Alice flee from cyberized Silurians.
On Sontar, Ten, along with Gabby and Cindy, stand on the brink of total war. The Sontaran Prime relinquished control of his warrior race to the Doctor in order to stop the incursion of Cybermen.
In 2006, on Earth, Nine, Rose, Jackie, and Captain Jack fled from the frying pan and into the fryer as the TARDIS control panel explodes and the ship begins to implode.
The comic jumps from each storyline with the skill of an expert acrobat, smoothly transitioning between the Doctors and using the switches to create a sense of speed and immediacy that mirrors what the characters experience in the story.
Mann and Scott do a fantastic job of plotting the piece, but I still want to see the Doctors interact. After all, that’s the fun of doing these multi-Doctor stories—seeing how each incarnation interacts with the other. I also wish that more was done with the companions. As I wrote in my review of issue two, it’s the companions who are the real stars of Doctor Who, and so far none of them have been necessary in this story, other than to serve as audience surrogates so the Doctor can explain what’s going on.
Also, as much as I hate to say it, the art is really spotty in this issue. There are times when the background, the characters, the acting and action are fine, but there are other times when the art looks rather slapdash, as if put together at the last minute, and the characters often look off-model, which is distracting. It’s a shame, because Walter Geovanni is one of my favorite artists, but his and Rodriguez’s styles don’t seem to be meshing well here.
In Summary:
While the plotting and pacing of Doctor Who: Supremacy of the Cybermen #3 is excellent, the art is very inconsistent in quality and the story hasn’t delivered what I was expecting—seeing the different Doctors work and interact together. The companions also aren’t getting the chance to shine that they should, and in general I kind of want to see more actual plot progression. This may be a case of just simply too much going on to tell the story, but we’ve got two more issues, so it may all come together. Dr. Josh gives this a…
Grade: B-
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Titan Comics
Release Date: 14 September 2016
MSRP: $3.99
