Ophidius

"I'm the Doctor, supreme creation of my parents, and I'd appreciate a few answers before you atomise me..."

Writer: Scott Gray

Format: Comic Strip

Released: February - May 2001

Printed in: DWM 300-303

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Izzy

Synopsis

Trapped inside Ophidius, the Doctor and Izzy explore the old fashioned way. They have close encounters with numerous species in a jungle before meeting Destrii, who'll change the dynamic of their relationship in an unimaginable way!

Verdict 

Ophidius was a fantastic four-part comic strip to kick off my reading of my recently purchased graphic novel of Oblivion. Now the story the collection, spanning a massive 29 issues to my impressiveness and joy, is named after closes the novel as a whole so I'm sure throughout my reading I'll be given hints heading towards whatever happens in what I'm sure will be an epic 'finale' of the novel if you will. But you've got to start somewhere and that brings me to this story. I thought it was very good and improved as each part came. This was my first experience of Izzy as companion and I must say I was impressed! I can tell she's been very good in however many previous stories she's appeared, some I will undoubtedly aim to read in the future, but I can tell me and her are going to get along just fine. Well, that's if she gets her body back but more on that further down the page. The setting of Ophidius was very good and I loved the colourisation of the internal landscape. The TARDIS had been all gobbled up by a giant bio-mechanical creature in space and they had landed in some sort of internal tunnel. Just when the Doctor and Izzy were having a pleasant conversation in the TARDIS, after the latter humorously tried on previous outfits of Leela, Jamie and Zoe, they go and get themselves eaten. In space. By something giant that wasn't detected. Now if that's not brilliant Doctor Who then I don't know what is. The Mobox were an intriguing species and I liked how we were made to feel sorry for them by the climax despite the fact they'd tried to engulf the Doctor and Izzy and disintegrate the TARDIS! I read that this was the first regular DWM comic strip to be colourised and I'm really glad they decided to show off the artistic skills available to the magazine. The whole interior, particularly the veins where Destrii had housed herself, was very impressive to look at and just showed what the comic strips can do. They have unlimited budgets in terms of where the story is going and that's shown by the TARDIS interior. It'd be difficult to pull off something of the scale of the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS regularly now. Beholder Panoquai was a wonderful character and I loved how he was determined to narrate everything that happened, even when he was on death's door. Destrii was an intriguing character and that's just not based on her appearance which was rather eccentric. She was bubbly and full of life and at first it was great how well she and Izzy got on. She had all the makings of an alien companion but then she tricked her new friend into being hooked up to a reciprocator. The minds of Izzy and Destrii switched and suddenly the beautiful young companion of the Doctor's was stuck in a strange alien body. Destrii though was determined to see Earth and after taking a shine to the Doctor she wanted to travel with him. I was mightily intrigued by Izzy's mentioning of the Doctor having a girlfriend back on Earth! Does he? Have I missed something major in a previous comic strip or was she referring to Grace? I guess that's a nice mystery to have. The climax was brilliant with the Ophidians plan backfiring and the body of Izzy shooting dead Gorolith. But despite that action saving the Doctor's life, he knew something was changed with Izzy and worked it out right away. Destrii had failed her audition. She wouldn't be companion. But Izzy's body, and Destrii with it, was seemingly killed in an act of revenge. The mention of the word oblivion being acknowledged was obviously a pointer towards the final comic strip of this graphic novel which is tremendous! I'm not a massive fan of a four part comic strip ending on a cliffhanger, but overall this was a terrific start to my reading of Eighth Doctor comic strips! 

Rating: 8/10