COMIC BOOK REVIEW: Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #9 - The Weeping Angels Of Mons Part 4



Issue 9 of the Titan Comics / BBC Worldwide series Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor is released in comic stores and online on Wednesday 15th April. The series follows the further adventures of the Tenth Doctor, as portrayed on screen by David Tennant, in the period following the events of series 4 finale Journey’s End.

Issue 9 concludes the story arc The Weeping Angels Of Mons, written by Robbie Morrison with artwork by Daniel Indro and Slamet Mujiono. Additional artwork is provided by Arianna Florean and Elena Casagrande.


Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor
Issue #9
The battlefields of World War I are haunted by the Weeping Angels, starving and underpowered – but still deadly – creatures preying on the lives of soldiers whose potential futures have been cut abruptly short.
The Weeping Angels have captured the TARDIS – and are moving it through the mining tunnels dug beneath the trenches!
To reclaim it, Gabby, Jamie, the Doctor, and the soldiers under the Doctor’s reluctant command must head into the one place they hoped never to go... into tunnels where it’s always dark and you can never see around the next bend...!

The cliffhanger of the last issue saw the Doctor and his current companion Gabby separated and under attack from the deadly Weeping Angels in tunnels under a World War I battlefield. Fortunately the Doctor, as ever, has a knack of discerning bravery and ingenuity within the people he encounters and encouraging them to make those talents known, and he has found the right ally here in the form of soldier Jamie Colquhoun.

It’s a bittersweet climax to the story. The Angels are suppressed – for now – but Gabby gets a taste of the Time Lords’ curse – to have to leave those they care for behind. Jamie isn’t the first hero of the Somme that the Doctor has encountered and there’s a nice nod back to the closing scenes of The Family Of Blood where the Doctor and Martha paid tribute to Tim Latimer. Gabby is satisfied enough that Jamie has had a long and happy life in the centre of a big, supportive family. We don’t know if she was part of that – but even if not, it’s made obvious that Jamie never forgot her.

Writer Robbie Morrison intersperses the rising tension and hopelessness of the battlefield with a little romance and some timey-wimey twists. The Doctor’s quicksilver character jumps out from the pages, flipping from deadly seriousness to ridiculous in an instant and you can all but hear David Tennant speaking the dialogue. The artwork jumps pleasingly from the dark, desperate hues of the battlefield - slate greys, mud browns and dark blues - to a sunny day in modern day France, with azure skies and bright red poppies. Meanwhile Arianna Florean’s own thread (Gabby’s journal) weaves through the narrative to give her own perspective. It's a nice touch: it's understood that the companion is the viewer's access point to the Doctor in the TV series; now the reader gets to see what is really going through the companion's head as she tries to make sense of the bizarre situations in which she finds herself. In all, the the Doctor and Gabby's adventure aside, the story arc remembers the fallen of the Great War and the sacrifices that were made and also acknowledges the friendships and loyalties that developed between young, frightened men in that terrible situation. Jamie is offered an easy escape from the horrors of war, but he chooses instead to do the right thing for his peers and colleagues.  

Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #9 is available through comic book stores in the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Australia and in limited quantities in the UK and Europe.

For online purchases visit the Titan Comics website from Wednesday 15th April.

See a preview of the artwork below:





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