The Road to Hell

"A new age is about dawn."

Writer: Scott Gray

Format: Comic Strip

Released: May-August 1999

Printed in: DWM 278-282

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Izzy

Synopsis

The Eighth Doctor takes Izzy to 10th century Japan, or so he thinks. It turns out the TARDIS has actually dropped them off in the 17th century at a time where the Eastern country is very much an isolationist, where foreigners are not welcomed...

Verdict

The Road to Hell was a decent and good continuation of The Glorious Dead graphic novel! I thought it was probably a little long at five parts, but I appreciated how unique it was with the seventeenth century Japan setting. That was really good and an era and country like no other we commonly see the Doctor and companion arrive. After a couple of single-part adventures bookending a longer story, it was good to get a feature-length comic strip story here and that was testament with the Doctor and Izzy not arriving until the final pages of the first part. I thought the artwork was very good for this story with the nano-drones dragon creation looking very impressive. Thankfully, this is one of the final stories to be produced in black and white and I think a bit of colour and vibrance would have really benefitted. The pairing of the Eighth Doctor and Izzy is definitely one of my favourites in the comic strip and it was a lot of fun to have Izzy referred to as a boy by some of the locals. She didn't take well to that! The Doctor felt like he was quite isolated in this adventure with Izzy quick to be captured Katsura and they actually ended up enjoying quite the good and positive relationship after a shaky start. Asami turned out to be a pretty good villain and her patriotic nature towards Japan was very good, and I liked how she saw into Izzy's mind to see the future fate of her country after the Doctor denied her entry. He was a Time Lord of course so seeing into his mind was not as easy. The images of Hiroshima served as a good cliffhanger and Asami taking the fate of her country into her own hands was magnificent. I liked the comments about the evil westerners and that felt a little more of its time of 22 years previous. Rikushira was a decent character and I liked how he felt important. That was a big positive of the story as a whole to be honest with the historical characters all feeling like they had a significant role in society. The use of the TARDIS bringing the Doctor and Izzy to the wrong time period is always fun and the position of Japan at this time being very different from what he expected was good. The Gaijin as observers and wanting to study the concept of honour was intriguing, and I think more could have been made of them. It didn't seem right that they just observed when it was clear that Asami was doing more than acting naturally. That was my main qualm with the comic strip story is that the Gaijin were quick to see that Asami wasn't as she claimed and a slightly predictable conclusion. I enjoyed that they were designated a name and didn't have that concept, but I think some sort of verdict on their study of honour would have really benefitted things. I liked them as a species and their ability to observe with them drawing some good parallels with the Doctor and the Time Lords. As a whole, it was probably one part two long but the idea at its heart was sound, we had a good villain and intriguing species observing along with some impressive visuals. A good read!

Rating: 7/10