Operation Volcano

"Volcanoes have a nasty habit of erupting."

Writer: Andrew Cartmel
Format: Comic Strip
Released: June-August 2018
Printed in: The Seventh Doctor #1-3

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Ace

Synopsis

An unknown intelligence in orbit. A terrifying vessel in the Australian outback. The future of the world at stake. The Intrusion Countermeasures Group activated. And the Doctor and Ace slap bang in the middle of it all! This is OPERATION VOLCANO!

Verdict

Operation Volcano was a great comic strip and a very good start to Titan Comics' take on the Seventh Doctor. I'm a huge fan of their continued exploring of other incarnations of the Doctor and I do hope it continues for the foreseeable future. I thought this story captured the era of the Seventh Doctor, at least that of which was televised, excellently and I liked the writing of the Doctor himself. The characterisation was very good with a great likeness to Sylvester McCoy evident on the page. I thought it was good not to complicate things and just have a one-off standalone comic strip adventure. It worked really well. Reuniting the Doctor and Ace with the Countermeasures team was an unexpected delight but I guess I shouldn't be too surprised given their success. The mix in settings between 1967 and 2029 was quite intriguing and whilst I was expecting more of a link than was actually the case, it worked rather well. My interest was always there and I was looking to find out how Gilmore ended up long haired and bearded sixty-two years into the future. In space. Allison and Rachel were fantastic characters throughout and I really liked how they took the initiative once they were the ones captured. They had to deal with the likely possibility that the Doctor, Ace and co were dead but that didn't deter them. I liked that they wanted to deal with things in facts and then act upon what they knew. That seemed a smart strategy and I'd be intrigued to see how similar they were here compared to their audio spinoff series. I was a little surprised by how inactive Ace was considering she's quite an explosive companion and isn't shy to a bit of action. Her volunteering to meet the Markarian was very good and I really enjoyed their conversation. The way it dipped into her brain to use terminology she understood was fantastic and I really liked how that then came into play when we got to hear the truth of how the Markarian ship had come to be placed at the epicentre of a nuclear bomb. The crooks, as they were conveniently dubbed, had actually placed themselves into human society and were doing some meddling that obviously wouldn't go down well with the Doctor. Darana and Delafield were very good characters and I also thought Palmer was decent before his unexpected death.The link with the volcano image of 4,500 years previous was outstanding and I really liked the Doctor's reaction to Allison and Rachel's photographic work. The cliffhangers were decent and I thought it was interesting for part one to be a double length. It was rather obvious where the initial cliffhanger was though. The climax was quite exciting and action-packed and I thought the way Gilmore was trapped in the launch and the story came full circle was pretty good. I loved that the Doctor and Ace went to greet him in 2029. That was a nice touch. Overall, a great comic strip with a quick but exciting conclusion. Maybe it just could have taken a little more to prevent the threat to make this an even better adventure.

Rating: 8/10