Herald of Madness Part 1

"We're in the Renaissance!"

Writer: Scott Gray
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 7th February 2019
Printed in: DWM 535

Featuring: Thirteenth Doctor, Yaz, Ryan, Graham

Synopsis

Bohemia, 1601. The TARDIS lands in Kokorin Forest and the Doctor and her friends are met by the presence of Tycho Brahe and his student Johannes Kepler. They're on their way to a gathering hosted by  Baroness Dagmar Ruskovitch, but there's more to her than meets the eye...

Verdict

Herald of Madness started in very decent fashion with this opening part! More of the comic strip shortly, but first I'll look ahead to the magazine itself and if the cover alone is anything to go by, it looks set to be a fantastic issue. The focus on Season 18 with the release of the new collection DVD upcoming seems a great idea and whilst I won't be looking to purchase it, it is a season I am fond of as its penultimate story was my very first foray into the Classic era and it remains one of my all time favourite stories. I look forward to any coverage The Keeper of Traken gets in this issue. The interview with Christopher H. Bidmead should be superb and it'll be really interesting to read his thoughts on particularly the last two stories of this season. Wayne Yip getting interviewed will also be good as will anything else that comes following the airing of Resolution. I have no doubts that this episode will have split opinion so I really look forward to reading the thoughts of the readership. My focus of interest will largely be centred on the Dalek design. The final Public Image for quite some time should be good and I look forward to finding out just how well the New Year's Day Special did in its unusual slot. Will we back on at Christmas next year? The Day of the Dish feature after a very quick glimpse looks set to be magnificent as it focuses on the Fourth Doctor's regeneration in Logopolis and the new season release seems to have updated the look of it. I'm not sure if I'm a huge fan of restoration or improvement works as I'm a sucker for nostalgia and I quite like my Classic Who untainted. Anyway, onto the comic strip now and I thought it was a very good start! We're well into the Thirteenth Doctor's run in the pages of DWM now and it's nice to know that things won't get interrupted when she returns on screen next year. The setting was excellent and I absolutely loved the Doctor's reaction to being amidst the Renaissance. This was why she loved the human race - for eras like this. She couldn't be happier about it and that was lovely to see. Brahe was a good character but the top guest character was definitely Kepler! He would go on to become quite revered and change the way humanity viewed the stars so seeing him here as an understudy was really good and intriguing. The Doctor being more pleased to see him than his teacher was a funny moment. The companions didn't have much to do in this part which was fine for a first part but I did like how Graham was getting along with Brahe without actually doing much. I thought the Baroness was an interesting character and I really loved the little confrontation between her and the Doctor. The latter knew that something dodgy was going on as this gathering hadn't gone down in history and she and Ryan soon found themselves where they shouldn't be with mysterious rituals occurring. Overall, a very good start!