The Soul Garden Part 1

"You must be weeded!"

Writer: Scott Gray
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 4th May 2017
Printed in: DWM 511

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Bill

Synopsis

The Twelfth Doctor and Bill continue their travels as they head to Titan, a moon of Saturn. The Doctor promises to get back to battling evil on their next trip and doesn't expect to be troubled on this adventure. That is until a ship nearly takes their heads off! Once boarded, the Doctor meets a familiar face en route to the Soul Garden...

Verdict

The Soul Garden started off in brilliant style and served as a great welcome for Bill to the comic strip format! The adventures continue off screen even when there's a new series on and I love how the television series isn't all that we get to see of the Twelfth Doctor and Bill. Now, I'll get to the comic strip story itself shortly but as per usual for my blogging of the Doctor Who Magazine comic stories, I'll talk about the magazine itself and it definitely looks like it's a good one! DWM usually is excellent but that is even more so the case during the broadcasting of a new series. We get to look back at the episodes that have already aired whilst still getting excited about adventures to come. This issue has previews of the next four episodes which is really exciting and I'm also looking forward to seeing the magazine's readers views on The Pilot, with the two following episodes to come next month. Galaxy Forum usually does play catch up but after a quick glance I'm also looking forward to seeing the response to Doorway to Hell, which was in my opinion undoubtedly the best Twelfth Doctor comic adventure yet. Yes, that includes DWC as well. I like how this issue has interviews with both Frank Cottrell-Boyce and Sarah Dollard after their recent episodes aired and I'm also looking forward to David Suchet's interview ahead of tomorrow's airing of Knock Knock. That does look to be a brilliant episode. The Lawrence Gough interview should also be a good read and will be a nice little change from last issue's take on the producer by moving to the directing side of the show. The reviews of the first three episodes of the series should be great and I'm also intrigued to look ahead to the Ninth Doctor Chronicles audios. They are something that interests me despite the lack of Christopher Eccleston himself. Anyway, back to the comic strip now and I was delighted to see that Scott Gray was back penning the stories! He is a favoured writer of mine and quite renowned in the comic world and I think a fresh writer was needed with Bill arriving on the scene. I enjoyed the references to Smile and Thin Ice very much and whilst it's probably clear that this story doesn't fit in immediately after last week's episode, it must be quite soon following. Obviously, by the time the next part airs we'll have had four new episodes and we'll be accustomed to Bill so I'm intrigued to see how that pans out. I do wonder if Nardole will join the comic strips at some point as well. The setting of Titan was great and I loved Bill's reaction to seeing Saturn from the view that she had. It was almost like the Doctor was showing was off which is something I always tend to enjoy. The return of Rudy Zoom was quite unexpected and I liked the obvious reference to The Eye of Torment that came with that. He was funding this exhibition to fulfil Lady Takashi's dreams but she was an intriguing character in her own right with her psychic abilities. Bill was certainly impressed and I must say that I thought Gray did a fantastic job with her characterisation. The artwork was also very impressive throughout the whole story and I loved the idea of the Soul Garden being in a greenhouse on one of Saturn's moons. Where else but in Doctor Who are you going to find that? The Keeper was quite humorous for the page that it survived and I thought the cliffhanger was strong with the reveal that some elements of the garden were very much alive and were quite hostile to fleshlings. Overall, a great start to Bill's comic strip adventures and I look forward to reading the next part! (Finally a DWM blog on time!).