Conversion Part 1

"You're currently riding a motorbike along the Berlin Wall in 1976, Jones. As unexpected life directions go..."

Writer: Rob Williams

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 31st December 2015

Printed in: DWC 2.04

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Alice, Jones, ARC

Synopsis 

The search for the Entity brings the Doctor and Jones to Berlin in 1976. There they are chased across the Berlin Wall by motorcycle and end up in deep space via a wormhole. After an eventful but safe return to the TARDIS, there's an old foe awaiting in fourth century Rome...

Verdict 

Conversion started off magnificently here with this excellent first part to the story! It seems like Doctor Who Comic has had a bit of a shake up over Christmas and decided to relocate the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and Gabby to DWC's sister title of Tales from the TARDIS, which I'm absolutely fine with as I will definitely be continuing collecting that, and it means that we get double the dosage of two particular incarnations of the Doctor each month! I think where the double dosage will be two parts from the same story, as was the case with Weapons of Past Destruction in issue one of Tales from the TARDIS, it will help the story quite a lot actually as the memory will be more than fresh and I imagine there will be those that would read both parts back to back. Now, I don't do that because whilst these are current, I aim to read them as they were intended and I also wouldn't feel comfortable having a blog entry that would say The Fractures Parts 2 and 3 for example. I either wait until the story concludes in its entirety or I blog each part individually, which has been the case with every single DWC story yet. This story really had a lot going for it and with the Doctor still feeling the effects of his wrongdoing in The Rise and Fall/The Other Doctor, where he became CEO of SERVEYOUinc and caused the Entity to be hurt, the Doctor was out tracking the mysterious alien to try and make amends. The Doctor and Jones riding a motorcycle on top of the Berlin Wall in 1976 really was a sight to behold I must say! It fitted magnificently for the Eleventh Doctor and had this been for a television story I have no doubt that Matt Smith would have jumped at the opportunity to create such an image. Throughout his comic step run in DWC, the characterisation of the Eleventh Doctor hasn't been all that great to be honest but here I thought Rob Williams did an excellent job. I thought this was probably the best story yet for Jones since his debut in What He Wants... which was really pleasing as I was quite critical of him in the last story Four Dimensions in my blog a couple of days back. I also found myself finding Alice as a familiar companion which I thought was really good. She got off to a shaky start but lately I have been liking her as companion and I do hope she just keeps on improving. I can't envisage ARC hanging around for too long after this story concludes as I think it should see us into what was the second year of Titan Comics stories in which I would think all first year stuff would be wrapped up. He's (is he correct?) not been the best of companions that's for sure but I has provided a link with SERVEYOUinc and the Talent Scout which has been good. I do like that he's loyal to the Doctor and doesn't blame him for what happened in the Entity separation. The travelling through the wormhole and into what was a rather cold deep space was quite humorous and I did like the silliness of the pair's mouths being temporarily frozen when they were trying to speak. The arrival into a Roman battle in the fourth century caught my eye as a very intriguing setting and I'm looking foresee to see what goes down here, especially with the almighty cliffhanger! From the title I really should have guessed that they'd be back but I didn't have a clue that the Cybermen would be making an appearance, and they seem to have quite an association with the Entity! Just what effect that will have on the deadly creatures is unknown but I did love how the design seems to mirror those that we saw in Closing Time with this very incarnation. I'm now really excited for the next instalment of the story as I do look forward to seeing a possible link between SERVEYOUinc and the Cybermen! Oh, I can't wait but I'll have to. Overall, a fantastic start snd as always, the rating will appear where the story finishes.