The Then and the Now Part 1

"You are not even aware of your own evil."

Writers: Si Spurrier & Rob Williams

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 10th March 2016

Printed in: DWC: Tales from the TARDIS 04

Featuring: Eleventh Doctor, Alice, War Doctor

Synopsis 

Accused of a genocidal crime he (probably) didn't (possibly) commit (oh hell, he totally did it), the Doctor and Alice go on the run. 

But extreme hyperviolence-for-hire is hot on their tail, tracking them wherever and whenever they go. With chainsaws! 

It's a race to clear our tricksy Time Lord's name and spare the lives of his friends, with the only answers burnt in the fiery footsteps of the incarnation he can never acknowledge: the War Doctor.

Verdict 

The Then and the Now started off the second year of Eleventh Doctor comic strip adventures in outstanding fashion! It really was an eventful opening and it really did have just about everything you could ask for in a comic strip story. Powerful imagery, great surprises and a very good story to go with it. I certainly wasn't expecting the first page of the new Eleventh Doctor second year stories to feature the War Doctor! That was a big surprise but of course one which I absolutely welcomed. The War Doctor is such a rare incarnation of the Doctor but given that I have now read Engines of War and listened to Only the Monstrous, he's becoming a lot more familiar and I'm grateful to be learning about the Time War and the Doctor that fought in it. I very much liked how once the Eleventh Doctor realised he was being punished now for something that occurred during his War Doctor days, he simply referred to the incarnation as 'him' and nothing more. Not the Doctor. The life he tried to never remember and always forget. But he couldn't run from it forever and the consequences of the Time War were still having a great effect on his life now. It reminded me a bit of The Roots of Evil novella in which the Fourth Doctor was dealing with the aftermath of the actions of the Eleventh Doctor, but here the latter should be remembering what caused his trouble here as it occurred in a past incarnation, albeit one he tried to shut out of his memory. Yeronna, as she was only referred to by the Doctor, was a superb character and I loved the power that she presented. She was appalled by the actions of the Doctor's past incarnation and was pretty much horrified by the fact he didn't realise what he had done in the past, as my opening quote perfectly illustrates. I think that it could be true for more than just story and she certainly made no efforts in hiding her attempts to challenge him and his lifestyle. She wasn't holding back and I really liked that. The Doctor just seemed awkward and wanting to forget what had occurred in the Time War, perhaps even disassociating the War Doctor as being the same person. He was certainly in a dilemma here and all he wanted to do was to run away which was something I actually found quite surprising. But that wasn't the only thing that surprised me in this story as we incredibly got to see the then and the now of the Doctor. The Then and the Now itself was something that I'm sure we will learn a lot more about as the story goes on, but it allowed us to actually see glimpses of the First Doctor and the Curator! The latter was what surprised me most as I didn't think we'd even see a glimpse of him after The Day of the Doctor. I'm not at all against it and I wonder if its relevance will have any holding in the story. I sure hope it does. I liked the Doctor's subtle references to The War Games and The Trial of a Time Lord with him mentioning how trials don't go well for him. That was a nice touch. Alice didn't really offer much in this story which was a shame with it being her first as the sole companion in an incredibly long time. I hope she plays a bigger role in the next part but the ending of this was something to behold. We had the character from the Doctor's past who he didn't remember, probably because the Squire was a child and then inside the TARDIS we had the return of Abslom Daak! I had to check I wasn't reading DWM instead of a DWC as he was the last person I was expecting to show up! I am actually yet to do a story with him in but I've read a lot about him so I'm looking forward to seeing him in this story. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.