The Futurists

"The Doctor's trapped and we're in a cage in the middle of I dunno how many thousand Roman soldiers..."

Writer: Mike Collins

Format: Comic Strip

Released: August-October 2006

Printed in: DWM 372-374

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

Soon after the leader of the Futurists group disappears, Milan is destroyed. In its place arrives a huge futuristic city. En route to discovering just what has happened, the Doctor and Rose travel back to 3rd century Wales where more surprises await...

Verdict 

The Futurists was another very good comic strip adventure in what is shaping up to be an excellent The Betrothal of Sontar graphic novel. Thus far, the title story has remained the best but there is definitely time for that to change with three stories to go. The graphic novel must rank as the best bargain I've ever had (and trust me, there have been so many!) at just 38p of my own money. Thanks to a university challenge (no, not the television programme) I won a £5 Amazon voucher some time ago now and somehow on the website somebody was selling a brand new copy for a mere £5.38 and that included postage and packaging! How could I resist? I was going to buy The Flood instead but that was considerably more expensive. With me having The Iron Legion and The Tides of Time graphic novels still to do, I'm going to put off returning to the Eighth Doctor comic strips - although I do anticipate more visual adventures with Paul McGann's magnificent incarnation. The audios are wonderful and of course with McGann starring they're better than the comic strips for knowing what happened all between The Movie and The Night of the Doctor because there's nothing quite like performed Doctor Who. But the ridiculous amount of novels and comic strips mean he has just as many adventures as every other Doctor before and after him. But enough about the Eighth Doctor, this story featured the Tenth Doctor and once again in this graphic novel the characterisation of David Tennant's popular incarnation was once again superb. It really does make a difference when the dialogue and actions of the Doctor on television are replicated in print here. Mike Collins took on the unusual task of both writing and providing the artwork for this story. I suppose that's easier when setting out the storyboard for how the story will appear once printed. I've often thought that a comic strip adventure must be the most difficult to write because there surely has to be an abundance of communication between the writer and the artist to ensure that what is printed is what the writer wanted, and also that the amount isn't too much or too little. I really do appreciate comic strips (maybe that's why I seem to have done so many lately!) and I love that the budget is infinite. As seen with Relative Dimensions a few days back, we can get a visual story with the Twelfth Doctor and the Celestial Toymaker! I'm going to be praising this story for a long time because it's just ridiculously amazing! We also had some good ideas here in this story with the Futurists. Although it's nearly been a decade since the story was originally printed in Doctor Who Magazine, just like F.A.Q. it seemed to be very modern and certainly in line with some weird and whacky ideologies. It was just today that I heard on the news that there's a group calling themselves trans-human and they believe that ageing is a disease that needs to be cured. It made me laugh to be honest and I immediately thought of that group when the Futurists were mentioned. Their ideologies and beliefs were pretty interesting but something I just laugh upon. Something I did love was the Silurian tribe making an appearance! No, it wasn't the ancient reptiles we first saw in Doctor Who and the Silurians, but an actual real life 3rd century Welsh tribe! I thought that was mightily clever and the Doctor's reaction to first hearing that getting mentioned was outstanding. Caerleon and Cardiff getting nice mentions was nice for me being patriotically Welsh. I lined how we got a nice reference to Boom Town as well from Rose. She was characterised pretty decently in this story which was good but reading these comic strips it has made me realise how long it has been since Series 2 appeared on our screen! I really liked Rose's relationship with Altea as they get on very nicely. The switch in realities with Valente and Giovanni was intriguing and certainly not expected! The Hajor seemed like a less impressive version of the Reapers in what their purpose in the universe was and their appearance was a bit of a mix between a jellyfish and the Rutan Host! The artwork and colour of them was very impressive to be fair. The plot worked well and I really enjoyed the cliffhanger to part one. I thought it was excellent. There was a lot of good and I thought the speeches made by the Doctor were fantastic and definitely helped with the demise of the Hajor. Overall, another very good comic strip adventure with the Tenth Doctor and Rose! It's turning out to be a great graphic novel which is really pleasing.

Rating: 8/10