The Way of All Flesh

"I am Susini of the wasting wall. I am the greatest artist to ever grace the nine dimensions... and you shall have the honour of becoming my clay."

Writer: Scott Gray

Format: Comic Strip

Released: July - November 2001

Printed in: DWM 306, 308-310

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Izzy

Synopsis 

The Doctor and Izzy arrive in Mexico on November 2nd 1941, the Day of the Dead. But a mysterious alien race, headed by an enthusiastic necrotic artist, are imitating the dead.

Verdict 

The Way of All Flesh was an excellent comic strip to continue my reading of the Oblivion graphic novel rather nicely. I thought it started off well and I loved the setting of Mexico during the Day of the Dead celebrations. I've never quite understood the Mexicans' philosophy on the dead. I understand that losing loved ones is a painful time, I know from experience, but to mourn those lost in a celebratory way doesn't quite seem right to me. Anyway, it's a great time for the TARDIS to land and for us to have a story from. I was mightily intrigued how this story seemed to me, in a weird kind of way, to be a mix between Revolutions of Terror and The Blood of Azrael. Now I know those two stories were released some time after the story being blogged but because they're still relatively fresh in my mind that's the feel I got here. As for the companion, I didn't like Izzy much in this story sadly. I really loved her in Ophidius but since she's taken on the form of Destrii I am struggling to adapt to seeing her as an alien. It just doesn't seem right to me and I don't think she's anywhere near as effective as she could have been had she remained a beautiful blonde. She was pointed at, derogatorily abused and just laughed at really. Her reaction to the TARDIS landing on Earth was really rather sad. Does this mean that we can't have anymore adventures on our home planet whilst Izzy's the companion? I certainly hope not, though I'm not convinced it matters too much in the comic strips. The Torajenn were rather despicable enemies and the fact that they imitated the dead was rather horrific. Had I seen a loved one in the form that appeared in this comic strip I would be quite disgusted! But that made them effective and that goes a long way to making a great enemy in my opinion. The way they got their cloaks from pictures was brilliant and I thought the part three cliffhanger and its resulting resolution was actually rather sad. Izzy had described earlier in the story how she liked that everything felt strange in the alien body as she didn't want to forget what it was like to be human. That was shown so wonderfully well in Beautiful Freak and it was continued here. She saw her previous human form and she was so close to embracing her, which would have resulted in her death. Thankfully though she was given a helping hand. I found the absence of the Doctor for long periods of the story quite surprising and somewhat comically annoying. Now the main reason I bought this graphic novel was for the acclaimed Children of the Revolution but it was also for some visual Eighth Doctor stories so not seeing him much in this adventure was a slight pain. But his triumphant return at the end was worth it I guess. The use of the sonic screwdriver was something I liked and the way it took apart the Torajenn was excellent. Susini was an intriguing character and why necrotic art is appealing is beyond me. It's utterly disgraceful and the scale she was hoping to achieve it on was awful! She really was evil. Her thoughts on the dead were despicable but I liked the reference to the wasting wall. She ended up plummeting to her death though but had left her mark in the form of a skeleton tower, that the Mexican people wanted to preserve! Their thoughts on death really are baffling. But I'll leave them to it. Overall, a fantastic comic strip adventure but I do hope Izzy somehow regains her human form! 

Rating: 8/10