In Their Nature

"It is in my nature to try to find solutions - the needless loss of life... it tortures me."

Writers: Scott & David Tipton 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: May 2013

Series: Prisoners of Time 05

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan

Synopsis 

Our yearlong celebration of Doctor Who's 50th anniversary continues! Brave heart, Whovians, for the Fifth Doctor takes the spotlight in this issue of a 12-part epic adventure featuring all 11 incarnations of the Doctor!

Verdict 

In Their Nature was a brilliant comic strip adventure and it continued Prisoners of Time in excellent fashion! So far, it was the best of the five stories so far and was ever so close to securing that all important first perfect rating. I'm sure I'll have one by the time I've read all twelve adventures in a week or so and the story as a whole will undoubtedly secure a perfect rating, even though I'm judging them as separate stories (because they are!). I absolutely loved the name of the story after reading it because it was so perfectly suited to the villains that appeared but I still think Unnatural Selection has the best story name so far. But this one certainly ran it close! I liked that, in an epic adventure celebrating fifty years of Doctor Who, we saw the Sontarans and Rutan Host play their part by getting a worthy appearance in the anniversary. The Zarbi, Ice Warriors and Judoon have all featured thus far so I was very pleased to particularly see the Sontarans appearing. I really love them as enemies and I think they're overdue a return in the new series but at least they did make a recent outing against the Twelfth Doctor in the Instruments of War comic strip. It's a rare occasion that we actually get a story to feature both the Sontarans and Rutan Host but that was the case in the aforementioned comic strip and it was fantastic to see it again here. I think it happened in its most depth in The Infinity Doctors novel which really expanded on the war that has been going on for millennia. The First Sontarans also touched upon it very well and I think it's only right that the war took centre stage in one of the twelve adventures featuring every incarnation of the Doctor. I'm glad they decided to place the Doctor involved as one that didn't meet the Sontarans on screen so it was brilliant to now have a visual source for a Fifth Doctor and Sontarans story. I have read an encounter between the pair previously with the Lords of the Storm novel and although I favour novels over comic strips (the content on the blog might make that difficult to believe) but there is nothing quite like the visuals of a comic strip, especially one in colour! As far as I can remember, the only Fifth Doctor comic strip that I have previously blogged is On the Planet Isopterus which isn't much experience of him in this format at all with it being from a Doctor Who Annual. I do own The Tides of Time graphic novel which I will be getting through very shortly after finishing this epic adventure so I'll soon be clued up on his DWM exploits. The overarching story of the umbrella title really became intriguing in this story with the Doctor actually remembering his companions being taken in previous incarnations. It would seem that the endings of each story may not end in the same way after all. I think that's a good thing as eleven stories with the same ending but with different people would have gotten really boring but I'm very intrigued now and I'm glad they have kept things interesting with the companion kidnappings. The story actually opened with us seeing the cloaked figure's face and I was very intrigued that it wasn't recognisable. I have no clue who he is and I'm now even more intrigued to lesrn his reasoning for trying to rid the Doctor of his companions through time. It would appear his power is wearing thin though which again intrigues because we're not yet halfway through the incarnations of the Doctor. But anyway, I'm sure there will be more clues and hints along the way and I look forward to learning all about it as it happens. I thought the artwork was a little questionable in this story with the depictions of the TARDIS foursome a little too youthful. I know this particular TARDIS team was young but they seemed to be almost drawn as children which was a little disappointing and contributed to my reasoning for not being able to award full marks. I really wanted to but I just couldn't and there was another reason why. We had superb references to Horror of Fang Rock, The Time Warrior and The Invasion of Time but I couldn't award the perfect rating to a story that had Sontarans helping the Doctor. I loved the way the Doctor talked them into doing it and almost talked them out of a glorious death altogether but the way Commander Strock glossed over the Doctor's reputation amongst his brethren was a little contradictory. It was a shame because there weren't many other errors at all and I loved that the story was full of action. Adric, Nyssa and Tegan didn't have much to do other than ask questions and get captured but after a wonderful story with two brilliant enemies returning, the overlapping story has firmly taken stage and I can't wait to see what happens next.

Rating: 9/10