Doctor Who Omnibus Volume 2 by Tony Lee

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collects all Sixteen Issues of IDW's first Ongoing Doctor Who Story featuring David Tennant as well as stories from the 2010 Doctor Who Annual and the Eleventh Doctor Mini-series, a Fairy Tale Life. The events of the main comic are set between in between the television stories, "Planet of the Dead" and "The Waters of Mars."

Issues 1 and 2 finds the Doctor in 1930s Hollywood teaming up with a knock off Charlie Chaplain to thwart aliens disguised as studio executive. The story is okay. Nothing great, but certainly okay.

In Issues 3-6, he's put on trial by the Shadow Proclamation, convicted, confined with Ambassadors from old Doctor Who enemies the Sontarans, the Draconians, and the Ograns. Together they have to team up and escape and find out what's going on. The plot is fun, as well as the interaction between the Doctors and these characters. At the end of the story, the Shadow Proclamation tells the Doctor they prefer he travels alone because it makes him easier to manipulate. Even though this could have been an attempt to manipulate him into taking on companions, he does so anyway by adding Emily Winters and Matthew Finnegan (the first two people he meets) as Companions.

These two and their story would dominate the next ten Issues from Issues 7-16 and these stories are mostly okay. If anything, the stories are crowded by too much nostalgia. We have references to Adric and a diary by Turlough (supposedly) and trips back to see Martha Jones and talk about Martha's issues in the TARDIS and with the Doctor. Even Capt Magambo from Planet of the Dead appears. While some of this continuity I liked (bonus points for referencing Charlotte Pollard in Issue 3), I think at some point, it hindered the writer for focusing on making the story he was telling as compelling and original as possible.

The 2010 Annual with, "Ground Control" where the TARDIS is grounded by a bureaucrat who challenged the way the Doctor did it with many flashbacks to the past. Again, it continues the "Nostalgia" theme of most of the book and nothing much actually happens.

"The Big, Blue Box" is an eleven page story of a man who finds him thrust into the Doctor's world. It's a fun little action piece, though not the most original idea for a Doctor Who Comic story.

Then there's, "To Sleep, Perchance to Dream" is an art-heavy piece with lots of nostalgia as the Tenth Doctor dreams and even meets his future self. The art is interesting.

Finally, we have the mini-series, "A Fairy Tale Life" in which the Eleventh Doctor and Amy land on a fairy tale theme park World but find that it's instead become a really medieval country. This story (more than any other in the book) felt like classic Doctor Who in its set up and mystery as it plays out over four issues. The story's a lot of fun and and writer Matt Sturges captures the Eleventh Doctor's voice very well. I can almost hear Matt Smith reading every line as I read this. So, a great story.

It's the only really great story in here. Nothing in here is bad, but most of it's merely okay. If you feel wistfully nostalgic for the Tenth Doctor's era, you'll enjoy this book. If you're looking for really solid Doctor Who comics with the Tenth Doctor, you'd probably do better to check out the Doctor Who Magazine comics collections featuring the Tenth Doctor.



View all my reviews