Villordsutch reviews Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time #10…
“Our yearlong celebration of Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary continues! Brilliant! The Tenth Doctor takes the spotlight in this issue of a 12-part epic adventure featuring all 11 incarnations of the Doctor. The Doctor brings Martha to 1950s Los Angeles and the Griffith Observatory to give her a glimpse of Gallifrey, but soon encounters a film crew whose members are mysteriously disappearing!”
“Allons-y!” We’ve reached the Tenth Doctor, the favourite of many a NuWho (not my mash-up) and I have to say, even as an old timer, when it comes to Doctor Who he’s a favourite of mine too. Mr. Tennant managed to have, within his gangly frame, eyeballs that said “I have been around for a fair few centuries.” Matt Smith has managed to this capture this magic on occasion but never carried it through each and every episode; perhaps that’s the difference of having a fan of the early years who happens to be an actor portraying his hero than having just an actor; I’m happy to know that Mr. Capaldi is a longtime fan too. Anyway I’m digressing here into a warm fuzzy Who-like state. My allotted space here is for our Prisoners of Time #10 and that’s what I’ll use it for.
We are going way,way back here for our big bad and as one of the covers gives away our mischief makers I feel I’m more than safe to mention it also – the Dominators return. Starting back at the beginning of this tale The Doctor arrives (with Martha Jones) in Los Angeles, around the mid-1950s to be more exact, in the Griffith Observatory. We discover that the Doctor has brought Martha here to see the ghost of the Planet Gallifrey via a quickly enhanced telescope. Shortly after this Time Lord Homeworld peepshow the Doctor and Martha become wrapped up in a Sci-Fi film production and it’s here where our shoulder pad-wearing fiends show up with the most painful to look at robots (The Quarks) ever to grace Science Fiction; I know that FX designers weren’t up on what a robot shouldn’t look like but I’ve never took a liking to these; that and the world pulls them up whenever they want to take the piss out of us.
With last issue’s story about Adam I was rather pleased that we were finally given a good piece of meat to chew on, but this comic gives us nothing of the sort as once again Adam is consigned to two panels and that’s it. Granted the final two pages deal with Adam’s Martha-napping (seriously take her! Martha bored me) and with an unseen talking penguin, but nothing else really makes this feel like an on-going tale which is rather annoying.
Our writers (the Tipton Brothers, Scott & David) have provided an okay story, nothing overly fantastic but enough to be enjoyable. The Tenth Doctor is captured well and within the words the brothers have spun you can hear Tennant speak as you read and occasionally you feel it too. It’s clear that the brothers also enjoyed the Tennant years and it shows; it’s such a shame that there is a noticeable lack of any substance for the on-going series story arc.
Complementing the story we have the artwork by both Elena Casagrande and Arianna Florean (art and colours respectively). It looks rather great, capturing both the likeness of our Doctor and assistant and the time-period around it, and the actions both subtle and large are also caught extremely well as – much like the Tiptons have accomplished with the story – both artists picked up on what our actors gave and have placed it inside each panel.
So overall, this month’s issue is good, but the lack of any story in the overall arc it brings a slight disappointment to the comic.
Villordsutch likes his sci-fi and looks like a tubby Viking according to his children. Visit his website and follow him on Twitter.
Originally published November 5, 2013. Updated April 15, 2018.
