WHO KNOWS: Titan Comics 10th Doctor #2
David Tennant’s Doctor Returns In Titan Comics’ DOCTOR WHO: The Tenth Doctor #2!
As Gabriella Gonzalez flees a monstrous version of herself through a Brooklyn subway train,
she is not alone… beside her runs the Doctor, the Last of the Time Lords!
When we last left our intrepid duo, The Doctor had blown into Gabriella’s increasingly insane life, where laundromats explode with water cyclones and the residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn are seeing monsters. Gabby wants to be an artist, but her father has got her working in the family businesses, and it’s there that she and her friend Cindy first encounter the madness that has come to their neighborhood. In this second issue, we get an explanation for what’s going on – and I suppose this is sort of a spoiler – that firmly places our villains in the science fiction category rather than the horror genre. This isn’t that much of a surprise, as while there could be some interesting stories to tell with the Doctor in a religious setting and Hispanic culture, Doctor Who rarely dips too much into the spiritual. This history of the show is full, however, of stories that start out with something that seems supernatural and is then revealed to be extraterrestrial in nature, and this falls squarely into that camp.
Not that the residents of Sunset Park know that, aside from Gabby of course. After setting up Gabby’s world and giving us some really well-defined secondary characters in the first issue, we get only a single page where we see any of Gabby’s family here. Instead it’s time to run with the Doctor, who at first is just trying to save Gabby and move on, leaving her out of it, but finds his own investigation of events bringing him back to her. This, of course, leads to the time-honored experience of joining the Doctor for an adventure that we all know and love so well, even if, as here, one’s chances of living through the experience are questionable.
This second issue raises the tension, establishes our baddies and explains their plan, while leaving our heroes in mortal danger, as any good Doctor Who story should do. Oddly, I had a sense of the Original Series here in terms of structure, with this issue and the first giving me a sense of watching the old episodes and their cliffhanger endings. That’s not a bad thing by any stretch, and given the episodic nature of the comic book format was probably inevitable, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. As in the first issue, the strengths here are the writing and the art, with Nick Abadzis’ story being both an exciting adventure with the Doctor and a story of a strong young woman who is trying to figure out her place in the world. The explanation for the subway monster is not what I expected, and that’s a good thing, leading us to our villains, who don’t particularly care that they are facing the Last of the Time Lords. As much fun as the show has had with the Doctor’s reputation, it’s always good to meet a bad guy, or guys in this case, who really could care less who he is… just that he’s in the way.
And of course I’m liking Elena Casagrande’s art. I know that in the review of the first issue, I said that I wished that her Tenth Doctor looked more Tennant-y, but it really didn’t bother me here, with her lovely expressions and movement and action. I still wish that she had more than 22 pages to tell the story in, because if I have one complaint, it’s that there are a couple of pages that are so dialogue heavy that they almost drown out the art, and that’s a real shame. It hurts the most when the bad guys are revealed, especially since their look is quite interesting. Still, Casagrande is one of my favorite artists these days, and if my complaint is that I just want more room for her to draw in, there are far worse things.
Props should also go out to Arianna Florean, who does the colors for the series. Colorists don’t get enough praise, and they add so much to the mood and tone, and Florean does a great job here.
So! We’re two issues into Titan Comics new Tenth Doctor series, and it continues to be a strong beginning. Good story, solid characterizations and great art are what we want, and it’s what this team is giving us so far. If you’ve been missing David Tennant, this is a series you should be reading.
