The Good
As always, with a book with multiple stories and multiple creative teams, I'm going to separate it all and break it down to the individual stories.
"In-FEZ-station" by Len Wein and Matthew Dow Smith
This story really captures the essence and fun of the Doctor Who universe. It's a witty and cool story featuring the Doctor and the gang up against the Slitheen, a great villain from the new Doctor Who universe, and it's great to see them in this book. Their look was great, and I think the art really excelled when it came to drawing these creatures.
"Time Fraud" by Richard Dinnick and Josh Adams
I liked the art style, right at the beginning. It had a classic Doctor Who comic feel.
"Escape into Alcatraz" by Tony Lee and Mitch Gerads
Another really fun story that captures what Doctor Who is about. The issue had a great sense of style in the art department . I like the color choices that Mitch Gerads picked for this issue. The all blue color palette worked really well for this story about Alcatraz. It just made sense to me.
"The Eagle of the Reich" by Andy Diggle and Mark Buckingham
This was by far my favorite short in the whole book both art, writing, and story wise. I loved Andy Diggle's story of the Phoenix Egg and the Third Reich trying to capture it in order to begin the 1,000 year reign. I thought he did a fantastic job of capturing the Doctor's voice and the occasional silliness that happens on the show. The story was short, but felt mysterious and dark, which a lot of my favorite Doctor Who shows are. All of the art here is great. Mar Buckingham does a great job with the art. His overall pencils and colors look good, but what I loved was his shading.
The Bad
"In-FEZ-station"
I felt I was being hit over the head with the "Fezs are cool" idea which we saw a couple seasons ago on Doctor Who. I also wasn't too keen on how the Doctor just seemed to kill a bunch of Slitheen all willy-nilly, at least that's what seemed to happen. It was a tad hard to tell.
There was a big inconsistency with how characters looked and on top of that, the Doctor, Rory, and Amelia's faces looked not-so-great. The Doctor had too much going on, on his forehead and Rory and Amelia looked mangled.
"Time Fraud"
I really didn't like the story or anything else about this story. While is did have a classic Doctor Who feel. it's not what I want to see in a contemporary Doctor Who story. The story also dragged. I felt like I was just waiting for it to finish. This story felt like the show, a ton of fun.
"Escape into Alcatraz"
The pencils on some of the faces a couple of panels looked pretty sloppy.
"The Eagle of the Reich"
The artist uses a 3/4ths profile of the Doctor, in a medium shot three times in a row, and these aren't static shots. It was noticeable and a tad annoying but forgivable.
The Verdict
"In-FEZ-station"
3/5
"Time Fraud"
2/3
"Escape into Alcatraz"
4/5
"The Eagle of the Reich"
4.5/5
Overall
While this issue had a lot of good, it had equally parts bad. "The Eagle of the Reich" and "Escape to Alcatraz" are big winners here. Both of them had great art and captured the Doctor Who universe extremely well.
On the downside "In-FEZ-station" was ok. I liked the art, except for the faces of the main characters, and the story was petty fun. Sadly, Time Fraud didn't do it for me. I felt the classic comic and show feel didn't fit with the rest of the stories which were all a bit more contemporary.
Overall, I give this a mild recommendation. Who fans will really enjoy two of the stories, but the average comic reader probably won't understand this book.
This is a time where I wish we had half stars. This book isn't a four, but it certainly isn't a 3....
3.5 stars.
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