Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Review, Titan | Tagged: doctor who, Jody Houser, Roberta Ingranata, time lord victorious, Titan comics

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #1 Review: Doctor & Dalek Team-up

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious sees writer Jody Houser, from a story by James Goss, team up with Robyn Hood and Witchblade artist Roberta Ingranata to team up the Tenth Doctor with a Dalek on a mission from the Dalek Emperor. It's a high concept Who comic with great potential, so let's see how it plays out.

To say that Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious is overly decompressed would be like saying "Supernatural had a pretty long run." In this 44-page comic, it's unbelievable how little happens and how long these scenes last their natural ending point. The plot, which sees the Doctor chased by, annoyed by, and, finally propositioned by the Daleks is awesome, delivering to this long-running series a fresh idea. Houser's characterization is also good, capturing that Dalek syntax with perfection. The Tenth Doctor's internal darkness, cloaked by his performance of a quirky and hopeful Time Lord, is also realized nicely here. However, even though there are highlights of the comic such as the opening chase scene where a confused Doctors sees the Daleks end up everywhere he does, scenes that should take three to four pages maximum take ten, leaving the potential of this issue hindered by over-explaining situations and writing that takes far too long to get to the point. At its best, Doctor Who is some of the most outright fun that sci-fi fans can have, but Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious, unfortunately manages to take a dynamic concept and make it boring.

The artwork from Roberta Ingranata, on the other hand, is amazing. Offering some of the best Who interiors that Titan has ever published, Ingranata's work on Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious recreates the intense energy of the Tenth Doctor with accuracy, style, and whimsy. Colorist Enrica Eren Angiolini, working with flatter Shari Chankhamma, excel in lighting the scenes, attempting a difficult balance of washing certain rooms and planets with powerful glows of golden and green while not letting characters and setting look washed in a single color. Letterer Richard Starkings has perfect fonts set for the different species, with the most evocative font used on the Daleks' robotic din, which pairs well with Jodi Houser's dead-on Dalek dialogue. The script may have given this series much lower marks due to its pacing, but the art carries it all the way through.

Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious has massive potential and, if future issues have fewer pages, this may become a "less is more" situation. The art team is fantastic and the voices are on point, making the feeling that this is sixteen pages of content turned into a double-sized issue the only major problem with this debut.

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