Mystery Date

"You never even gave me a chance to make amends!"

Writers: Scott & David Tipton 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: September 2013

Series: Prisoners of Time 09

Featuring: Ninth Doctor, Rose

Synopsis 

Our yearlong celebration of Doctor Who's 50th anniversary continues! The Ninth Doctor takes the spotlight in this issue of a 12-part epic adventure featuring all 11 incarnations of the Doctor, with a fan-favourite companion Rose Tyler in tow! Plus: Who has been kidnapping the Doctor's companions? The Doctor's mysterious enemy revealed!

Verdict 

Mystery Date was a superb continuation of the Prisoners of Time adventure and I must say I was not expecting what we got! As we reached the three-quarters mark of this story, I really wasn't expecting the identity of the cloaked figure to be revealed at what is still a rather early stage. We've still got the adventures with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors to come yet so the figure being revealed as Adam in this story was a major surprise. I had mentioned in my blog entries of some of the previous stories in this collection, most notably Cat and Mouse and The Body Politic, that Adam was one of my suspects for who the cloaked figure might be and even when Rose spoke his name I must admit I couldn't quite believe it. It is such an audacious move but it's one that I am certainly in favour of! I've always expected Adam would make a return of some kind in the future but I did expect it to be in a 50th anniversary story that features what was at the time of release every incarnation of the Doctor! The backstory to how Adam acquired his ability to time travel and learn of the Doctor's past incarnations was touched upon with some neat flashbacks but I'm not entirely sure the full picture has been illustrated. I'm keen to learn about the Master's involvement with Adam and after seeing what the latter has gone through and grown to become that really does seem like a formidable alliance. After all these years, finally one of the Doctor's companions is battling against him. And despite him knowing that every incarnation he has visited to kidnap the companions is the Doctor, he doesn't hate anybody quite as much as the Ninth Doctor for what he did after the events of The Long Game. Adam was left with a great big hole in his head after meddling with future technology that he didn't understand and the Doctor was so annoyed by his actions that he simply dumped him back at home and that was the end of his short stay in the TARDIS. He'd only arrived in Dalek, another story that was nicely referenced, but he used his knowledge from those events to get his revenge. Using the technology from Satellite 5, Adam had quickly become rich thanks to transferring money and he'd soon had Van Statten's vault excavated which I thought was brilliant. Using the head of the Cybermen to lure in a Time Agent and take his vortex manipulator was pretty violent and it just showed how desperate he was to make the Doctor's life as miserable as the Doctor had made his. However, before we got to the incredible revelation we were given an excellent story just as was the case in the previous eight comic strips that make up this epic adventure. It really has been a wild journey blogging this and there's still a long way to go yet! Rose wanting to see something more scenic was a welcomed relief from her constant Earth adventures and she seemed to get more than she bargained for thanks to Drake Ayelbourne. He was an intriguing character and I liked how the Doctor didn't trust him at all. He was right not to of course because he was just another madman not willing to accept death and went as far as bending time to prevent it. The moment the Doctor fixed that and time caught up with Drake was quite a disturbing one. It wasn't too dissimilar to Sara's demise in The Daleks' Master Plan. But after the Doctor had inflicted his usual impact on places he visited (a fantastic line by Adam), the cloaked figure was back. We knew he was coming for Rose and now we knew who he was. Rose was apologetic after hearing about the horrors of his life but the Doctor showed no remorse and it literally got him a kick in the face. I'm now mightily intrigued to see where we go from here with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctor stories but I do look forward to finding out! I'm sure it'll be amazing. Overall, another excellent comic strip with a huge shock!

Rating: 9/10