Space Invaders!

"Going once, twice, three times! Sold to the debonair gent in the midnight blue coat!"

Writer: Mark Wright 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 5th March 2015

Printed in: DWM 484

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara

Synopsis 

Following the great storage migration of 2122, the Twelfth Doctor and Clara visit one of the biggest storage units orbiting the Earth. But the Doctor recognises the name of an owner whose storage is up for action, and with it will come an almighty danger. 

Verdict 

Space Invaders! was a pretty decent comic strip adventure but sadly just three stories into the Twelfth Doctor's run in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip section, we have our first what I would consider to be relatively poor story. I have pretty high standards and I'm also quite generous with ratings so for me anything below 8/10 I'd consider somewhat poor. After reading the contents section of the magazine itself, I was intrigued by the comic strip name. I think with each comic strip entry I'll start to talk about my hopes for the magazine itself as well! With the blog, I've tried and made it tradition to kick off my reading of the magazine with the comic strip so I can get it blogged on release day. The main feature is the interview with Steven Moffat on what we can expect from the next series featuring Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor and Jenna Coleman's wonderful Clara. I'm looking forward to that and also the interview with Bonnie Longford! I really enjoyed last issue's first part of the 'Historic Journey of Marco Polo' and I look forward to that continuation. Seeing original set designs and layouts is a real treat. A highlight of DWM for me is reading Jacqueline Rayner's bonkers 'Relative Dimensions' section! I think she's wonderful and I love the way she refers to all her family! I'm not really a fan of the Time Team but I noticed they're talking about the Torchwood umbrella title of series three - Children of Earth. It's an incredible series so I look forward to seeing what they think of things there. Steven Moffat's regular question answering is always humorous and I also always enjoy 'Galaxy Forum' so along with Paul McGann's thoughts on the Twelfth Doctor, this issue is looking very good! However, the comic strip wasn't as good as I was hoping sadly. The title of the story being printed on the pages of the story itself was very good with a nice throwback to the classic arcade name of which the story shares the same name. It was colourful and fun but the actual plot could have been better in my opinion. I still feel the characterisation of Clara is not accurate and I've felt that's been the case all the way back from Pay the Piper which started in the 2013 Christmas issue. I'm not sure what's not matching up but it just doesn't feel like Clara, especially with the Twelfth Doctor after the conflicting eighth series they shared together. The idea of an intergalactic auction only just over a century into the future isn't believable in my opinion but the numerous characters we got to see at the auction were all quite funny amongst each other! The references to The Blood of Azrael with the bank and The Seeds of Doom with the Doctor mentioning the Krynoid were wonderful. I liked how the Doctor remembered the name of hyphen-T-hyphen and after the events of the aforementioned Fourth Doctor serial. Hyper-Kraken was a pretty poor enemy and just seemed a cheap knock off of the far superior Krynoid. The way it just wanted to eat everything was pretty frightening though! How a simple container had stopped it from causing chaos was a little baffling to me though. The eggs though I thought were very good and I liked how Clara wanted to deal with those with care. The resolution was probably the highlight with the a Doctor simply wiping everything out on the giant orbiting storage unit! The auction was over and he gave a nice little speech on there being a lot more to life than junk and bric-à-brac. Overall, it had its highlights but it could have been a lot better! Sadly the worst Twelfth Doctor comic strip by some distance thus far.

Rating: 7/10