Happy Deathday

"You must do battle with every single enemy you have ever defeated."

Writer: Scott Gray

Format: Comic Strip

Released: November 1998

Printed in: DWM 272

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Izzy, Seventh Doctor, Sixth Doctor, Fifth Doctor, Fourth Doctor, Third Doctor, Second Doctor, First Doctor

Synopsis

The Beige Guardian has kidnapped all eight incarnations of the Doctor, tied them up and placed them on a huge birthday cake with hissing dynamite 'candles' strapped to their heads. The Biege Guardian produces every enemy the Doctors have ever defeated, and they are forced to defeat them all once again...

Verdict

Happy Deathday was an outstanding comic strip adventure to celebrate Doctor Who's 35th anniversary! This really was a wonderful read from start to finish and I can't quite believe so much was done in just eight pages. It was a huge amount of fun from start to finish and was the perfect level of humour and self mockery to go along with what was actually a great plot! The idea of capturing all (at this point) eight incarnations of the Doctor is brilliant and the image of the opening panel that I have used as the picture above was just sensational. All eight Doctors side by side along with a description of their own personality was brilliant and I loved the satirical nature of the artwork that was carried throughout the comic adventure. That really helped in highlighting that this story shouldn't be taken too seriously and was just about having fun! The fact that all of the Doctors were lined on a cake was very good and in line with the theme surrounding the purpose of the story, but from there we were introduced to the culprit behind the snatching of all of the Doctors from their time stream - the dastardly Beige Guardian! He was magnificent and so silly which made him excellent and his recollection of the day where the Guardians got their colours assigned was so amusing. The pairing off of Doctors into the Mouth of Madness was really fun and I loved that we had the Second and Sixth Doctors together and their mentioning of trials after these two were the incarnations that stood trial on Gallifrey. We've seen them together before of course in The Two Doctors but getting another chance here was most welcomed. Them initially being confronted by what they thought was a Raston Warrior Robot but actually a Wildean Wit Enforcer was tremendous because he was one to punish bad puns! Having the Doctor around was a big liability then. The encounter with Davros and the Daleks was great and I loved the image of the Second Doctor against Davros because we never had that on screen. The pairing of the Third and Fifth Doctors was very good and the contrasting styles was fun in how they dealt with a combination of (drunk) Ogrons and Sontarans. The Fifth Doctor sitting back while the Third got on with some Venusian aikido was great, but he was able to shine with a cricket ball after discovering a Zygon in disguise! The Seventh and Fourth Doctors made for an intriguing pairing and the latter's fascination with a macadamia nut allergy was very amusing. They were more interested in each other than the band of enemies they were presented with which I thought was brilliant. Some of the artwork of the ensemble of enemies previously defeated was superb with comical images of the likes of Vervoids, Krotons, countless Cybermen, Omega, and even the Gods of Ragnarok! It was so good. The Eighth and First Doctors being the ones left behind to battle the Beige Guardian was great and they made a good pairing and light work in the end thanks to a fun catapult. Each of the Doctors then getting their own take on a final line was sublime with the First Doctor's lengthy, the Seventh dark and conniving, whilst the Fourth was more chilled and fun. Scott Gray absolutely found the voice of each incarnation of the Doctor which was so impressive. The ending with Izzy turning out to be playing a game on the Time-Space visualiser with some rather interesting game names also available! A game of Measles of the Daleks, anyone? Overall, just wonderful. 

Rating: 10/10