Four Hours of Doom's Day

"I always get my target."

Writer: Jaqueline Rayner

Format: Comic Strip

Released: June 2023

Series: Doom's Day 02

Featuring: Sixth Doctor, River, Jo, Doom

Synopsis 

Doom's last day in the Universe kicks off at a maximum security prison... where she runs into someone who may just know the whereabouts of the Doctor.

Doom visits four very different locations as the quest kicks off...

Verdict 

Four Hours of Doom's Day was a decent continuation of the Doom’s Day multimedia story! After an intriguing start in Hour One in the online short story format, this comic strip allowed the arc to burst into colour! It was lovely to get a first visual look at Doom in action and the approach of giving Doctor Who Magazine four hours to play with is fine, although I’m not sure the utilisation was actually that great. Now, my rating shows that I did enjoy this adventure and I am counting it as one story because it all followed on and was by the same writer, but I’m just not sure a twenty page supplement is enough to warrant four hours of Doom’s search for the Doctor. After the way Doom’s visit to Stormcage was hinted at during the final lines of the opening instalment, I was bitterly disappointed that her second hour of Target Selected was only two pages long. That was pretty poor in my opinion as the potential behind Doom and River meeting at length is palpable! It was such a waste. There was so much more that could have been done there and two pages certainly isn’t enough to cover an entire hour. I know the whole idea of the arc is for Doom to have hourly missions and twenty-four chances of meeting the Doctor she needs to prevent her death, but I think it would have been much better served to have a twenty-page story panning over four hours. I’m reading each part of Liberation of the Daleks every month as the magazine is released and I just don’t think six pages is enough. I’ll be blogging that story in full once it is complete, but my thoughts on the format have only been exasperated by this. Six pages isn’t enough. DWM would be much better spending the artwork of the horrific Sufficient Data feature that concludes each issue. Anyway, River set Doom on her way into The Plastic Population and much to my surprise she did encounter the Doctor! It was the Sixth Doctor which was apparently the wrong incarnation and that’s something I’d have liked a little more clarity on. Which Doctor exactly is she looking for? The Auton involvement was very good though and I loved how the Doctor had disguised himself in plain sight as an Auton! That was really good stuff and exactly what you would hope for. Where else would he hide? Doom showcasing her assassination skills with her elimination of the target was good and it was a welcomed demonstration of her being in action. The way the Doctor couldn’t help her and she quickly moved on was a shame, but I loved the imagery in High Noon in Hollywood with the Cybermen in the Wild West at a saloon! We even had a Mondasian version dressed like a mummy which was terrific. I must say, the artwork for this comic strip was outstanding and probably added a mark to the rating alone. It is outstanding and that certainly helps my enjoyment. I could really appreciate the vibrancy. We even had a Cyberman with a blonde ponytail which wasn’t happened before! That was fun artwork. I thought the final hour in this story of The Horn of a Dilemma was the most fascinating as Doom’s mission seemed impossible once we knew what it was! Her efforts to not just destroy a unicorn, but to actually destroy the idea of the myth behind the creature was very intriguing and a fun take on the whole assassination element of her role. Doom was quick to offer the riches to conjure up the unicorn and she soon showed those around her that it was indeed a fake. That was great stuff and I loved that we also got a cameo appearance from Jo Grant! It felt right that she would be there with animals involved and it did have an environmental feel to it which would be right in her ballpark. I think the idea of having to destroy a belief like the unicorn is really good though and definitely something that could be taken further in a longer formatted story. There’s a lot of potential there. I liked the way things finished with Doom now on her way for further adventures to find the Doctor, this time around with Titan Comics. However, her stating that her ordeal won’t be over until she finds the Doctor was a little odd considering she’d literally found him two hours earlier! That’s a gripe of mine for sure. Overall though, a decent read that was drawn and coloured gloriously. 

Rating: 7/10