Beneath the Waves Part 3

"It's trapped down there, a prisoner in its own ship."

Writer: George Mann
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 24th May 2018
Printed in: DWC: Tales from the TARDIS 22

Featuring: Twelfth Doctor, Hattie

Synopsis

As Hattie ventures into the depths below to save the Doctor, she discovers a trapped creature who has been buried in the ocean for millions of years. Can the Doctor and Hattie play one last jam to set the creature free? But will that cause destruction that they're not aware about?

Verdict

Beneath the Waves concluded in good style with this decent third and final part of the story. Sadly, it has taken far too long to complete this story (I believe I started it in November last year!) and I think my days of collecting Doctor Who Comic could be coming to a close as three months is just far too long to wait between parts. I think I will now move to the graphic novels from Titan as they seem much easier to keep up with. This was a very good story though and I was quite surprised with the direction of this concluding part. It wasn't quite what I expected following the excellent cliffhanger to part two but that's not to say it wasn't good - that's far from the case! I really like Hattie and I do enjoy her being a lite-companion if you will. Her determination to go after the Doctor beneath the waves was brilliant and I liked seeing how the Doctor aided her. The Shamblers had surprisingly let the Doctor go of their seaweed grasp but we did finally get to meet their master. It wasn't an all-evil being or a psychopath. It was simply an alien in distress who had just been trying to communicate with humanity this whole time. Its ship had crash-landed during hypersleep and the being inside had been dormant ever since. I liked that premise and I also really enjoyed how the erosion of the cliff-face was the reason for it being woken up now. The Doctor was unlike humanity when it came to his mind and whilst the being was trying to communicate with mankind through distorted images, the Doctor understood exactly what was going on and what was needed. I have to mention once again how good the artwork is for this comic series and I continue to be highly impressed. It really is outstanding. I thought the characterisation of Peter Capaldi's Twelfth Doctor was very good throughout and I really have liked how he's enjoyed spending time with Hattie. It's obvious he likes her which is intriguing for this incarnation. The resolution to freeing the dormant spaceship was a bit of a mixed bag for my liking as I'm not sure the power of music could really free a spaceship which had been trapped for millions of years. I did like though the scenes with no text as they were actually quite powerful and said a lot despite their being no words. Overall, a decent conclusion to what has been a very good comic strip adventure!

Rating: 8/10