Slimmer!

"Your pain - our gain!"

Writers: Mike Collins & Tim Robins
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 16th December 1989
Printed in: The Incredible Hulk Presents 11

Featuring: Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

When the Seventh Doctor goes to a health club in space that has murmurings of disappearances, he encounters the universe's biggest glutton - who threatens to eat him alive!

Verdict

Slimmer! was a pretty decent comic strip to continue my reading of the Nemesis of the Daleks graphic novel but as my rating suggests, there was room for improvement. Now, it wasn't bad but it wasn't great at the same time either and whilst I did find some of the story's elements quite humorous, that seemed to be a bit of a substitute for quality. Sadly, in just five pages it is difficult to get both quality and comedy into a comic adventure and whilst I appreciate that this story was more devoted to being funny, it didn't quite work for me. I thought the characterisation of the Seventh Doctor was actually pretty good with Sylvester McCoy's likeness being well captured - especially in the workout panels where he was undergoing a physical assessment at Weight-A-Way. That was a good name for a weight-loss institution but having a Doctor Who story based around weight loss is perhaps a little surprising. It can be a sensitive issue for some people but the story did nothing to harm any sector of society so that's a positive as there was the possibility that offence could be caused. The Doctor wanting to investigate was typical of the character and I liked how instead of him speaking to himself with the lack of companion, we got to read what he was thinking. I'm still not quite sure why the Seventh Doctor is travelling alone and at this point there is no explanation for the whereabouts of Ace. Just what would have happened to her since the ending of Survival? If I was reading these stories at the time I know for sure that I would want to know where she had got to. Big Finish and the Virgin novels seem to have provided an explanation for that though but I am quite some way off discovering what happened to her character. Anyway, back to the story and it wasn't long before the Doctor came face-to-face with the Gromungus. He looked quite imposing and was rather large to say the least! The text of 'I ate the world (twice)' adorning him was quite funny and I can see why people would have enjoyed that but as seems to be a common occurrence in the stories from The Incredible Hulk Presents, the resolution was far too easy. The Doctor easily tricked the Gromungus into consuming delicacies from all of time and space and he, as expected, consumed too much and exploded into nothingness. Just how the Doctor decided what he consumed was ambiguous but I did like how the Gromungus ended the story as a black hole and would consume things for the rest of eternity. Overall, room for improvement but quite a funny story!

Rating: 6/10