Four Doctors Part 3

"The universe is dying. And I'm letting it."

Writer: Paul Cornell 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: October 8th 2015

Printed in: DWC 2.01

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Clara, Eleventh Doctor, Alice, Tenth Doctor, Gabby

Synopsis 

The Doctor is an Allen who walks like a man. His Tenth incarnation is trying to get over his post-Time War guilt by sprinting along in a happy-go-lucky guise - but he keeps shooting himself in the foot, because all his guilt, rage and frustration is buried just underneath. 

Gabriella Gonzalez is a young would-be artist from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York, who is travelling the universe at the Tenth Doctor's side. Her youthful spirit and artistic eye are coupled to an adventurous and quick-witted mind. 

Verdict 

Four Doctors once again continued in excellent fashion with this third part of what will be five as a whole. I'll now have to wait for the next two issues of Doctor Who Comic, which with this issue has had a bit of a revamp, for the final two parts of this story but that's not a problem at all. I've been used to waiting for next parts of stories through Doctor Who Magazine and numerous times with the televised stories and that'll just mean more anticipation and a greater urge to go and purchase the next issue which is actually out next week! My, how time flies. I took a detour from doing this third part immediately after the first two due to a combination of travelling home from university for the first time and a lot of reading and tasked work set over the past week. Thankfully I've made the time today and yesterday to fill my Doctor Who gap. The story continued somewhat differently to what I was expecting after the cliffhanger of part two. There, the Voord stood triumphant as they got what they wanted in bringing the three post-Time War Doctors together and ensured the photograph that Clara was so desperate to prevent occurred. That could only mean trouble. I was surprised that we didn't see the Voord again until the cliffhanger but what we got in between was sublime. The idea of a continuity bomb was superb and that definitely seems like an excellent weapon of the Daleks during the Time War! Its effects were rather devastating and we got to see first hand what it could. Delving through alternative timelines, we were taken back to an alternate take on the closing moments of The End of Time. After the "He will knock four times" prophecy was fulfilled, the Tenth Doctor in this timeline refused to switch places with Wilf. He didn't want to go and he left Wilf to die. If that wasn't bad enough, the Eleventh Doctor reversed events of The Wedding of River Song and that meant that in this timeline all of history was still happening at once! Quite the disaster. I loved how Cornell split the Doctors and companions up in leading to the continuity bomb. There were some interesting pairings that's for sure! I can imagine the Twelfth Doctor and Gabby getting along magically and the hint of what Alice travelling with the Tenth Doctor would be like was also brilliant! I really liked the what should be familiar pairing of the Eleventh Doctor and Clara. However this was at a point prior to Asylum of the Daleks where the Doctor first met a splinter of Clara Oswald. The Eleventh Doctor acknowledging the existence of his successor was very good and I like how surprised but happy he is. He really must have been worrying about having no regenerations left! Well he knows everything works out so as he says that certainly must be a weight off his back. The ambiguity surrounding the alternative timeline of the Twelfth Doctor was very interesting. Whereas before with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, the Twelfth knew the outcomes and therefore understood that what was being shown was wrong. Here however, he was unaware of the future and it seemed quite a lot had changed! Clara seemed to have done something terrible to the terribly aged Twelfth Doctor. Just what could that be? But was he the Doctor at all? I'm really not convinced but I like that it's got us thinking about things! Just why was this apparent future Twelfth Doctor so intent on causing harm to his idiotic past faces as he so delicately put it. And now he seems to be the leader of the Voord! Just what is going on? Why have the Doctors all come together? Where's the War Doctor? Why can't they remember Marinus or the Voord? There's a lot to be answered in the next two parts but I have every confidence I will be happy and impressed! But for now, this was another terrific part to what has thus far been a superb comic strip.