Medicine Man Part 2

"I know many stories... but none so strange as the time I met the medicine man."

Writer: Nick Abadzis 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: 30th June 2016

Printed in: DWC: Tales from the TARDIS 08

Featuring: Tenth Doctor, Gabby

Synopsis 

The Doctor and Gabby are still caught between two factions as modern humanity is born. Neanderthals and Monaxi clash, and their actions will shape the direction taken by humankind in the millennia to come...

Verdict 

Medicine Man continued in excellent style with this terrific second part of the story! It's far from over yet and is now set to be the longest comic strip of the second year of Tenth Doctor comic adventure and it's showing us exactly why! I love the setting of prehistory (a term I don't really agree with) and the Neanderthals are such an intriguing part of history that it's amazed me really that they haven't featured in more stories. I know that without doing a pseudo-historical there isn't an awful lot that can be done, but with the stupendous amount of Doctor Who stories that exist across the many, many formats, I'm surprised that my only other blogged story to feature them was my relatively recent reading of Only Human. Even then, they weren't the absolute centre of attention and although that wasn't the case in this part due to story advancement, it did occur in part one which was really nice to read. But as I say, things really did advance rapidly here and the part was quite pacy which made for brilliant reading. A fast paced environment is where the Tenth Doctor thrives and I've actually done a lot with this incarnation lately by watching The Christmas Invasion and reading Wetworld in the last week or so. All three stories are at such different points in the life of the Tenth Doctor but his personality never really changes. The characterisation here was superb and I loved how David Tennant's likeness was easily captured. I liked the reference to The Visitation with the appearance of a Tereleptil (not the one we saw in the aforementioned Fifth Doctor story) and it was good to be introduced to the five mysterious figures that provided the cliffhanger to part one. I thought Effrid was really good and I liked how he was the one to introduce the rest of the team to Gabby. Mem-Brain, a name I'm not sure whether I love or hate, was also decent and I also really liked Unta, even if she wasn't overly struck on Gabby at first. Sunzberro, the Tereleptil, was great and I just love that one of the species has reappeared in this comic strip. Tony is probably the character that intrigues me most because he looks suspiciously like ARC, with whom the Doctor would later travel in his next incarnation, and I'm sure something more will come of him. Gabby was as wonderful as ever and I must say she really is just magnificent as companion. I really do love her and she's undoubtedly my favourite character to come out of a comic strip from any era. Munmeth was also brilliant and I really do like his reactions to the strange words. I was surprised that the mysterious missing word didn't continue but I don't think it's too important really. The Monaxi really came into their own in this part of the comic which was excellent and I loved how they had history with the Time Lords. Their reaction to the Doctor's existence was fantastic but I liked how arrogant they were in not being worried. The mention of having to go back to primeval times to evade the time lock of the Time War was outstanding and that's something I hope might get explored further as things continue in the next part. But I'll have to wait until next month for that now, though I'm sure it'll be worth the wait. Overall, a very good second part to continue the story and I'm interested to see where the cliffhanger takes us next!