The Chains of Olympus

"We turn our backs on wisdom and offer our face to war!"

Writer: Scott Gray 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: December 2011 - March 2012

Printed in: DWM 442-445

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Amy, Rory

Synopsis 

The Doctor, Amy and Rory travel back to Ancient Greece and encounter the Doctor's greatest hero: Socrates! But Athens faces deadly danger - creatures from myth stalk the streets, and the wrath of the gods may destroy mankind!

Verdict 

The Chains of Olympus was a great comic strip adventure to kick off the graphic novel of the same name! I was wondering through my college library looking for books on Nazi History but before I got to the History section, I noticed a new batch of graphic novels of which three were Doctor Who! I immediately borrowed this graphic novel as it was the only one I'd not done any stories from previously and to be honest, judging from the length of the novel and price of £12.99, I'm grateful to be able to read this for free! I better be quick taking advantage because I leave the college in less than a month permanently! Anyway, to the story at hand and immediately the atmosphere seems a lot more cheerier than its preceding graphic novel The Child of Time, which I wasn't overly fond of. Rory is now a part of the comic strips which is a bonus and I must say I did like his debut in this format! It was rather humorous with him emerging from the TARDIS in Ancient Greek attire! Amy, even in comic strips, looked magnificent in Greek attire but I'm still not fully pleased with her characterisation as I don't think it's quite what the TV series was, but it was certainly an improvement from the last graphic novel. The Eleventh Doctor was captured brilliantly though I must say and I loved the idea of for once, he was meeting somebody he considered a hero - not showing somebody else theirs. He was absolutely overjoyed to be in Athens is 410BC as he would meet arguably the most historic philosopher of them all - Socrates! It's about time we had an adventure with this wonderfully historic figure and I think the Eleventh Doctor suited it down to a peach. But things weren't as the Time Lord was hoping. His hero was a drunken mess and it seemed like history was mistaken. Plato was a great character and I liked his relationship with the Doctor very much. I really liked Calidora and the story behind how she created Athena, albeit somewhat inadvertently. The fact that the mighty gods weren't actually gods was a good twist. They were just fed to believe they were the gods when in fact they were just more or less dreamed up. The Doctor and Socrates going through the portal (now that's a wonderful sentence!) was great and once inside I adored how Socrates fulfilled his historic role as the asker of the awkward questions. His questioning of Zeus was just magnificent and I loved his circle reference. Rory defeating the God of War was something quite spectacular as well! The story was decent but there were a few elements which brought the rating slightly down but it's still a very good mark! I wasn't overly struck on Alexios and I also wasn't majorly impressed with the cliffhangers. Part one's was good but the following two seemed a bit repetitive. Danger cliffhangers don't seem to have an effect in comic strips in my opinion. But overall, a great story to kick off the graphic novel! I loved the references to The Myth Makers and The Eleventh Hour. 

Rating: 9/10