War World!

"The Doctor is about to be enlisted."

Writer: John Freeman
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 28th October 1989
Printed in: The Incredible Hulk Presents 4

Featuring: Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

Landing on a war torn planet, the Doctor has arrived during the midst of a deadly war. He is quickly enlisted for help but once the fighting is over, he'll discover that he didn't quite know who he was helping...

Verdict

War World! was a great little comic strip story that continued my sporadic reading of the Nemesis of the Daleks graphic novel. It was probably the best of the collection so far and I really did think that it had the potential for a brilliant story if it could be taken further in a longer story on television or audio. Maybe even a novel to explore the backstory behind the war that was ravaging Bellus IV. I thought the story had a lot of similarities to The Daleks in how the combatants, in this case the robots, had taken the war so far and had been fighting so long that the ways they were looking for victory had made them inhuman. They weren't what they used to be and instead they were robots. It was almost a mix of the Cybermen in the scenario on Skaro when the First Doctor encountered the Daleks for the very first time. I thought the artwork was pretty decent and seemed a little different to the previous stories in the graphic novel that I have blogged thus far. The characterisation of Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor was pretty decent with his likeness being pretty well-captured. I'm still not sure where these comics fit in the continuity with him travelling alone but because there is so much of his era that I am yet to explore with all the novels and everything so I can let that slide. Deldran was a good accompanying character and I liked that we got to know what had been going on in this planet's history. The idea of the combatants in the war knowing nothing else was intriguing and it helped explain the scale of the war but I would liked to have seen a little bit more of the robotic enemy. The Doctor continuing to have conversations with the TARDIS shows that a companion is needed but I did enjoy how he was met with guns following his exiting of the time machine. The quickness in which he solved the problem of the war was good but surprising but with just five pages to play with in a story, I guess there is only so much wriggle room. The ending being reminiscent of the Doctor's encounters with the Silurians in Doctor Who and the Silurians and Warriors of the Deep was quite poignant and I also liked how the Doctor was saddened by effectively bringing an end to two species to end the war. The final revelation that the humans were actually robots left by the Guardians was interesting and I quite liked the final comments about peace. Overall, a great comic strip adventure!

Rating: 8/10