As always a quick spoiler warning - I will be talking about the story of the issue in question, but avoiding any major plot revelations where possible.
"The Twist" Part 2. Writer George Mann. Artist: Mariano Laclaustra
Sadly it's going to be a quick one this month as I've only got one comic to look at. The final issue of the Fourth Doctor mini-series hasn’t been published yet, so the focus is solely on the latest in the Twelfth Doctor ongoing series.
If you recall, last month we had The Doctor indulging in his love for punk music by visiting the huge space station known as "The Twist". Here he met bass player Hattie and Jakob, a man on the run who had been framed for the murder of his best friend. Together the three had began to uncover some kind of government conspiracy, before being pursued by security forces into a park and suddenly confronted by a giant red furred beast...
We pick up immediately where we left off. The Doctor does his usual distracting technique of marvelling at the beauty of the creature and trying to calm the situation - all while Jakob pulls frantically at a metal panel hidden in the grass. As the creature moves in Hattie, desperately wacks it over the head with her beloved bass guitar and the three escape into some kind of service cave under the park.
Jakob has been in these under-tunnels before - this was where he previously encountered the fox creatures during his investigations.The Doctor is keen to find their "warren" and continues to explore, despite the protestations of the others. Following the strangely natural seeming tunnels, they eventually emerge into a gigantic cavern full of all kinds of wildlife. Jakob explains that this is one of two 'oxygen domes' from the original Earth colony ship, which was buried in the rock as the structure of The Twist was bio-mechanically grown around it.
Suddenly the trio are surrounded by more of the creatures, who identify themselves as "The Foxkin". The Doctor tries to reason with them but is quickly pulled away by Hattie before he can be attacked.To escape, he and his companions tumble through a large airlock type portal into the heart of the ship - the "stasis farm" - where the original colonists slept during their long journey through the vast interstellar distances of space.
The problem is, all the stasis pods are full of skeletons - none of the colonists survived the trip. The Doctor confirms this by managing to activate the dormant systems of the stasis farm and interrogate the ship's records. But if that's the case - if everyone is dead - where did the indigenous inhabitants of The Twist come from?
Eager to find out more, the Doctor does the unexpected. He triggers an alarm, summoning the Foxkin to the stasis farm through other passageways and the humanoids are captured - much to Jakob's disgust. Taken to the second undiscovered oxygen dome - which contains a complete city - they are hauled in front of Canek, the leader of the Foxkin.
There is a much bigger secret here. Canek is apparently known as the "High Sequencer" which means that for the human inhabitants the Foxkin are really….
…and that's where I'm going to stop, as I don’t want to spoil the ending. However it's only a minor saving grace, because you will probably be able to figure it out for yourself before you turn that final page.You see, the real problem here is that this issue is all a bit predictable. The Foxkin are just what they sound like - giant talking foxes - another on the list of anthropomorphised animals as aliens which we have seen a hundred times in Doctor Who. Add the fact that we've seen lost colony ships before. We've seen hidden societies below ground before. I was just hoping for something a bit...cleverer. More surprising.
There are also parts which don’t make logical sense. Would a vast colony ship full of thousands of people really just be abandoned as lost? How has the Foxkin city remained hidden for thousands of years with all those technologically advanced humans up above? Especially as any Tom, Dick or Jakob seems to be able to open the secret doors at will? I'm all for suspension of belief in Doctor Who and science fiction in general but - I don't know, maybe I've just been exposed to too much genre fiction over the years and expect too much. It can't be easy coming up with wildly original ideas month after month. Goodness knows I couldn't do it. Am I being unfair?
Art wise though the high standard of last issue is maintained, even if the design of the Foxkin is just 'giant foxes in tattered robes'. There is are a couple of particularly lovely images - one of the prehistoric-like bio dome, complete with curled tailed lizard on a stick - and the other the control centre of the stasis farm, which is somewhat reminiscent of the chamber from "Tomb of the Cybermen". The Foxkin city itself is obviously based on images of Roman architecture, with it's squares, amphitheatres and domed palaces.
Looking at the credits though, I do wonder if there were some deadline problems on the art front, because the exotically named Agus Calcagno and Fer Centurion are listed as "art assistants". I can't see any noticeable difference in Mariano's figure work, so maybe the assist was just on backgrounds. It's also worth mentioning the sterling work from the colourist, Carlos Cabrera, which really add to the mood of the strip, especially a superb page where the Doctor discovers the fate of the colonists.
So there we have it. A solid issue - perhaps let down by an overly-familiar kind of alien threat and a predictable secret. Looking forward, I hope that George Mann has a couple of tricks up his sleeve to take this in a less obvious direction, but based on this issue I'm not holding out much hope. I still think that there is more to Jakob though. He knows too much and that cybernetic eye still hasn't been explained. I guess it's fingers crossed for part 3 then.
Just time for a quick look at the variant covers and it's a pretty bland bunch to be honest. Alex Ronald usually does moody and evocative paintings, but his image this month is just a standard, if nicely coloured, pose of the Doctor. Nothing that leaps out at you.Will Brooks photo cover is eminently forgettable, so lets skip over that quickly. Simon Myers continues his album cover homages with Clara in place of the waitress on Supertramps's "Breakfast In America" - famous of course for "The Logical Song". I've seen him do much better though. There's also a "Doctor Who Comic Day" cover from Todd Nauck - who's definitely getting a lot of work from Titan at the moment - but it's marred because Mr. Capaldi seems to be thrusting his crotch at the reader. Is it just my bad eyesight?
Best of the bunch is the cartoon-esque cover from Zak Simmonds-Hurn - another artist who has done tons of work for "The Phoenix", plus his own self published series "Monstrosity" which is really most excellent and well worth checking out.
Okay. That's about it for this month. Don't forget about the audio version on the "Doctor Who Show" podcast which you can listen to it at www.dwshow.net or download it to your mobile device via the usual iOS or Android apps. Please subscribe, share and leave five star reviews and support all the effort from my fellow presenters. We really do appreciate all your comments.
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