Strange Loops

"How do we fight an enemy we can't remember?"

Writer: Alex Paknadel
Format: Comic Strip
Released: August-October 2017
Series: The Eleventh Doctor #3.9, 3.11

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Alice, Sapling

Synopsis

The Sapling continues to grow, under the influence of the Eleventh Doctor and Alice - but can it suppress its programmed instincts for mass-destruction? When the three take a trip to the most inhospitable spot in the universe, the truth will come out!

Verdict

Strange Loops was a very good comic strip and a great penultimate story of the Eleventh Doctor's third year of adventures! It seems quite unbelievable that I've nearly managed to catch up with the tales between the Doctor and Alice but when I complete the The Sapling: Branches graphic novel, I won't have any further Eleventh Doctor comics to get through and I have no idea if a fourth year of tales is planned. But for now, I enjoyed this one and I really liked that the Sapling got to do a bit more as it was the one that had the memories of the Doctor's previous visit to Zoline. The Doctor's reaction to being greeted by Bax was quite humorous because he had no idea who he was! The Sapling was quick to point out how different things were than from the last time the Doctor was here. And that was just thirty years ago. The Doctor's mind soon became inquisitive as too much had been altered in such a short amount of time. The time tremors were a really intriguing aspect of the story and seeing how badly they had an effect on the Doctor was fantastic. He seemed in genuine danger and the threat of regeneration was more than there. As acknowledged by the Doctor, there was just the small problem of him not having any left. Seeing his memories of the likes of Martha and a Cyberman was interesting and I also liked how he echoed his final words to Leela in The Invasion of Time. Seeing him deal with the memory of him using the Moment in The Day of the Doctor was excellent too. Alice didn't have a great amount to do in this comic strip which was a bit of a shame but she was there when the Doctor needed her. The Golden Triangle was a very interesting group and I thought the revelation about them was superb! It just came perhaps a tad late but what they had done to Orphan was heartbreaking. She was actually the Orphaned Hour, a Time Lord WMD from the Time War, and she was being used every thirty years or so to reset this world. The Doctor was having none of it. He had hoped for a Time Lord that he could get along with but instead he got this disgraceful trio and he really wasn't impressed. Luckily, their weapon had pretty much ran its course and the Doctor gave them the book required to fix their environment and condemned to that. But the TARDIS absorbed the Orphaned Hour and that had quite the disastrous effect as the Sapling was needed to keep it together. And the Scream sensed its invitation and it seems we have quite the finale on our hands! Overall, a great comic strip!

Rating: 8/10