Torchwood: Volume 2 - Station Zero

Torchwood (Titan Comics) #2

by John Barrowman, Carole Barrowman, Neil Edwards (Illustrator)

The members of the Torchwood Institute, a secret organization founded by the British Crown, fight to protect the Earth from extraterrestrial and supernatural threats.


     Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. A spin-off from the 2005 revival of long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who, Torchwood aired four series between 2006 and 2011. In contrast to Doctor Who, whose target audience includes both adults and children, Torchwood is aimed at an older audience

Genres: Doctor Who, Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Media Tie In, Science Fiction Fantasy, Queer

101 pages, Paperback

First published August 9, 2017

About the author

John Barrowman was born in Scotland, and moved to Illinois when he was eight years old. He is bi-dialectal, doing much of his stage and acting work in his American accent, but speaking with family in his Scottish accent.

He moved back to Britain in 1989 when he was hired to play the lead in Anything Goes. He took on a number of West End roles, including the leads in Sunset Boulevard and Miss Saigon and a dramatic play entitled Rope, while working as a children's television presenter and came back to America briefly to work on short lived shows such as Central Park West and Titans. He then bounced around Broadway, West End and the LA Stage for a number of years before moving back to Britain permanently. He won the role of Captain Jack Harkness in the new Doctor Who series and went on to star as Captain Jack in its adult spin-off Torchwood.

John married Scott Gill, his partner of fifteen years, in December 2006.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was fun, but I didn't know what was happening most of the time. It's a Torchwood tie-in written by John Barrowman (the actor who played Captain Jack on television) and his sister Carole, but it starts out in the middle of something, has frequent sharp-cut flashbacks to something else, involves a whole lot of characters who were unfamiliar to me, and then it stops with a "to-be-continued" note. It really needed an introductory summary of what the situation was and who was who... (well, The Doctor wasn't a character, but you know what I mean.) The art was quite good, very vibrant and expressive, and there were some very clever quips in the dialog... just make sure you find the other sections before reading this one.

[Taksya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Seconda parte della trilogia (spero) a fumetti scritta dai fratelli Barrowman.
Nessun miglioramento rispetto alla prima parte. Storia frammentaria, riferimenti a fatti del canone classico che sembrano solo strizzate d'occhio ai fan, riferimenti alla storia che stiamo leggendo caotici e poco approfonditi.
I personaggi nuovi sono ancora poco più che macchiette sullo sfondo, mentre a quelli storici viene offerto un background confusionario.
Solito cliffhanger alla fine, poco interesse a scoprire come si concluderà il tutto.
Attenderò con pazienza la stessa offerta che mi ha fatto ottenere questo ad un quarto del suo prezzo.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is significantly better than the first volume, but you do have to read that one to have an idea of what is going on. Captain John appears, and Torchwood Scotland. There's a nice flashback, and all the pieces fall into place. Though it does end on a cliffhanger.

A very good read.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I beginning to think, maybe I should just not bother with these comic book continuations of television (or film) series that I love. While there isn't really anything bad going on here, there also isn't really anything great going on either. Usually I feel like they're just revisiting fan-favorite stuff without really moving forward. That's not really what I feel like is going on here, but I really feel like I'm being left out of something. Maybe these comics are building off events from the novels or audiodramas. Maybe that's what I'm missing. In either case, I wasn't really impressed by anything, but it's still an OK story line. And then there's John Barrowman's involvement, so I'm probably keep reading if he continues to be involved in any case.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

So legit I have no idea what on earth is going on here. This storytelling style is super bizarre and haphazard and idk I just wanna see Jack and John make out k

[Claudia Lindner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Continuing Torchwood Vol.1, "Station Zero" brings answers to many questions raised in Vol. 1, and finds Captain Jack and his new Torchwood crew in a big mess, as an alien species, known as the "Navigators" want to compost earth for their own use.
"Station Zero" takes us into the messy and complicated nature of time travel, where new enemies unite with old ones, and into alien attacks where no incident has a simple cause, but always is linked to others. I find the story smartly written by John and Carole Barrowman, it is a well-wrought plot, which would even be more a pleasure to follow if Titan would make the issues bigger and so give the authors even more room to let the story develop. With these rather small issues, you have to really pay attention to the plot and what happens to not miss anything, and sometimes some revelations come a bit sudden. This comic is worth while to be given more pages to explore and let the story play out. But this is my only complaint.
The story itself is a fantastic dystopic story. Great ideas by the authors and while many new characters are rather just introduced in Vol. 1, we have the chance to get to know them better in "Station Zero". And I enjoy it how the well-known characters from the world of Torchwood come together with the new ones, like the Ice Maiden crew who was introduced in "Exodus Code" or Sir James of Torchwood House in Scotland.
The Barrowmans also again bring the ironic Torchwood-humour we know from and loved in the tv show. The situation for Torchwood and earth might be desperate, but Captain Jack never loses his flirtatious attitude nor his dry wit.
It also has some good action and I love the "alien technology" introduced to us - very creative, supported by the very good artwork in "Station Zero" done by Neil Edwards. I can highly recommend it - for Torchwood lovers as well as for new readers!

[Michael Mills · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this but the storytelling is so haphazard as to be inpenetrable. Continuity references are thrown in from nowhere and badly mishandled (one of the characters has a stolen TARDIS and this isn't the biggest thing in the story); the story jumps about all over the place; revelations are badly explained; characters we've not yet come to care about are handled as if they're already fan favourites; situations are reversed before they've even been set up; captions offer gnomic explanations for tenuous links.



There's a lot of enthusiasm - perhaps too much.The story is so excited to share its ideas and explore every corner of the canvas of time and space that is splurges it all onto the page like a painting by Jackson Pollock.



Alien planets! Classic monsters! Jet packs! Global conspiracies! The future! The Arctic! Our hero's hidden past! I always liked it best when Torchwood was about hunting down ghosts and monsters in the back alleys off St Mary Street...

[Xander Toner · Rating 2 out of 5]

Station Zero does the same thing as Miracle Day and Big Finish's The Story Continues range by having Jack and Gwen as anchor to the original show, but bringing in a new rest of cast and giving the show a new location aside from Cardiff. Big Finish's Season Five and Six are the most successful (in my opinion) of these follow ups, and I think it's because they retain the Cardiff based setting, something that runs deep within the DNA of Torchwood itself. In this, the side characters are forgettable, the plot is more coherent then last time but still pretty dire, and Captain John is there for quite literally no reason. The only reason I'm reading these to begin with is simply because of the Torchwood name on the front of each volume, and I can get through them extremely quickly. Aside from real, die-hard Torchwood fans, I wouldn't bother reading.

[Lamadia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I kept getting really confused with the story because of all the jumping around without any hint that there was a time or place jump. I couldn't remember all the new characters from the previous book, and so I didn't really care what happened to them. This book did nothing to tell me anything about them or make me care. It almost seemed like scenes were missing.

[Yvonne Alf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I definitely liked vol. 1 better, mainly because this one consisted mainly of action and fight scenes which I find hard to follow in comics in general. So I have to admit, I have no clue what's going on at the moment. Let's see how this story ends in the next volume.
I do like the art a lot though!

[Rob Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't read the others in the series and didn't realise it was the second in a series when I started it.

This skips along at such a fast pace that I struggled to get into the story and ultimately didn't really enjoy it. The images of Jack (and especially) Gwen weren't very accurate to the point Gwen could have been anyone.

[Sean · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exciting second part to the Titan Comics Torchwood arc. This one has a brilliant modern take on the Vervoids, and some interesting relevations concerning Torchwood's stowaway Rona. Station Zero makes the best use of the comic format, telling a story that would never have been affordable on the small screen.

[Shaun Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Choppy editing and sloppy pacing make this a step down from the previous effort. Still enjoyable, but decidedly less so due to those format issues. For our full thoughts, visit https://travelingthevortex.com/?p=8743

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love Torchwood, and I love John Barrowman; but I found this book hard to follow.

[Steve Platt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Now I know why I don't read graphic novels

[Olivia Ambrose · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh?

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art work is amazing ❤️

[Jasmine · Rating 3 out of 5]

i found this much easier to understand than the first book as everything was coming together. I really liked the deep dive into jack and jon’s last or should i say future, lol

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this next installment to the Torchwood comic series which follows on from the events that happened in the first volume.
I enjoyed this volume more than I did the first one because this felt less muddled and the story basically came together more. I think these volumes of Torchwood need more issues in order to flesh out the story more because this felt a little rushed towards the end.