Firelight

"All you need is your imagination."

Writer: Dan Slott

Format: Comic Strip

Released: November 2023

Printed in: Once Upon a Time Lord

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Martha

Synopsis

In order to survive the fiery Pyromeths, Martha Jones must spin three sensational yarns about the Tenth Doctor and his greatest adventures with old and new foes alike!

Verdict

Firelight was an excellent comic strip adventure to kick off the Once Upon a Time Lord graphic novel from Titan Comics! This one has been an incredibly long time coming and with it initially being sold as a 2022 Special, the fact it’s finally released here is well overdue. I placed my pre-order on Amazon way back in December 2021 but in doing so meant I paid a much cheaper price than the £14.99 RRP which makes me very happy. Dan Slott seems to be a big name in the comic world but whilst being a massive fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’m not one for the comics so I don’t fully grasp how big of a coup it is to get him penning a Doctor Who comic. But his reputation is clear and I enjoyed the recent interview with him in Doctor Who Magazine to promote this release. It’s a really strong tale and it’s always great to revisit the Tenth Doctor and Martha! That’s a pairing we don’t seem to get enough of which is a shame so any more content like this one here is most welcomed. I think the artwork is fantastic and this is a kind of love letter to the Doctor in a way. I think the opening two pages are just gorgeous as we see each of the first ten incarnations telling the story of the Pyromeths and what to do if a companion ever encountered them. There was a delicious mix of companions like Jamie, Jo and Nyssa as well as the wooden control room of the Fourth Doctor and even Molly O’Sullivan getting a line in next to the Eighth Doctor. There was so much to love about that and it really established the Pyromeths in a quick and effective way. Their being potentially older than the Time Lords was good and I loved the audacity of the suggestion that they visited every species to give them the gift of fire. But this was not for warmth, it was so there was something to sit around to tell stories. Because it was that fictional creativity that they fed on. So inevitably Martha was captured, admittedly a little too quickly, but she quickly burst into story about the Doctor. I thought the three mini-stories approach was good and I love that we had another meeting of the Sycorax for the Tenth Doctor! The Sycorax were presented as if they were pirates which was oddly fun and the illustration of them was a tremendous likeness of their The Christmas Invasion presentation. Scarr could almost be forgiven as being the Sycorax Leader who sliced off this very Doctor’s hand it was uncanny. I thought the second story exploring Horus and touching on Pyramids of Mars was brilliant and the imagery presented here was akin to that Fourth Doctor serial. It really did it homage with the pathway to the land of the dead, but the Doctor was reminding himself the Osirins weren’t actually gods so he wouldn’t actually be going to Hell. Right? I thought the idea of the Doctor encountering all of those that have died as a result of his actions was a sublime idea and I think it could have worked as the entire adventure. But what we got was still tremendous. Having him come up against the likes of the Cyber Controller and Cybermen from The Age of Steel, the Krillitanes, Gelth and Slitheen, and even getting help from the Wolf from Tooth and Claw was just fantastic! I think that particular sequence was a little too focused on the modern era, but the wide shot of the battlefield including the likes of the Menoptera and Zygons was very much welcomed. The Doctor being on the hunt for the most important thing in the universe was terrific and I loved how indulged the Pyromeths were in the story Martha was telling. Having him come face to face with the Empress of Racnoss was a fantastic image after what had happened there, although I must admit I was shocked that he demanded thanks for now reuniting her with her children after killing them all! That was quite dark. The way he found out the location of Martha and the most important thing in the universe being the safety of his companion was just magnificent. I didn’t see that coming but it was so good. The fear of the Pyromeths when they realised the Doctor was talking to and targeting them from within the story was brilliant stuff. Fiction became the truth and that was too much for them to handle. Overall, a superb comic strip! 

Rating: 9/10