Nineveh!

"Let the heavens cast their spray of light across the sky; 'twill not touch the dark of Nineveh - where Gallifreyans go to die!"

Writer: John Tomlinson
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 
Printed in: The Incredible Hulk Presents 12

Featuring: Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

The TARDIS takes the Seventh Doctor to Nineveh, the ancient graveyard of the Time Lords. He soon finds himself amongst a TARDIS junkyard and encountering the mysterious Watcher of Nineveh, whom wants the Doctor to adorn the latest gravestone on the planet...

Verdict

Nineveh! was an incredible comic strip adventure! It was the last story from the pages of The Incredible Hulk Presents to be printed in the Nemesis of the Daleks graphic novel collection and I have to say that they saved the best until last! It really was sublime and showed that a quality story is more than possible with a limited number of pages. I think a reason why I enjoyed this comic strip so much was because of its obvious resemblances to The Doctor's Wife. I am not sure what the likelihood of Neil Gaiman being influenced by this particular story is but I'd like to think that he read this story at some point in his life. There were plenty of similarities and the moment that my picture shows of the Seventh Doctor discovering that he was surrounded by dead TARDISes immediately had me thinking of the aforementioned TV episode with the Eleventh Doctor. It wasn't just that though that made this a stellar story. I loved the legend behind Nineveh and the concept alone is excellent. Gallifreyans are obviously renowned for the ability to regenerate and I was quite surprised that we got a mention of the Doctor triggering his seventh regeneration here. With Doctor Who off the air at the time this comic strip was printed, it was not beyond the realms of possibilities that the Doctor could once again change his face. The Watcher of Nineveh was a brilliant character and I loved how he concluded the rhyme of Nineveh being the place where Gallifreyans go to die. I had to use that as my quote for the story because it's just marvellous. The Doctor soon saw that he was not meant to be here though as he was far from the end of his life as he pointed out. He was rather healthy and was barely half-way through his regenerative cycle. There was still plenty of life left in the Time Lord yet. However, that would not stop the Watcher from wanting to claim another Gallifreyan life but the life-force of the Doctor was too strong. He managed to outrun the Watcher and urge the TARDIS to escape to freedom, seemingly with some help of a partial regeneration. That's quite astounding when you think about it. The continuation of the legend and rhymes surrounding Nineveh were terrific and I really would love to hear this story, or at least some aspects of it, get mentioned again. It's surely too good and eventful not to? Overall, a wonderful little comic adventure - I never thought I would give full marks to a five-page story!

Rating: 10/10