The Company of Thieves

"It's the soldiers o' fortune who get to keep the real goodies."

Writer: Scott Gray

Format: Comic Strip

Released: October-December 1999

Printed: DWM 283-285

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Izzy, Kroton

Synopsis

The TARDIS materialises aboard a cargo freighter just as space pirates attack and slaughter the crew. But there is salvation aboard in the unlikeliest of forms of a Cyberman, one who laughs and tells stories...

Verdict

The Company of Thieves was another great adventure to continue my reading through The Glorious Dead graphic novel! This was a solid story to continue the adventures of the Eighth Doctor and Izzy and I liked how the former was acknowledging that the TARDIS continued to get the intended destination wrong. Would it be on the brink or in need of its five-hundred-year service? I think that's fun to explore and if it continued I'd be very much on board with it. The style of the story was lighthearted and fun with the pirates arriving on the cargo ship to ravage and kill and the different species that made up the crew were amusing. I thought the style of the artwork was well suited to the comic strip story and the style of the story we had with what was essentially a romp. The arrival of Kroton into the adventure was excellent and I was really taken aback by how humanised he was for a Cyberman, even if he did have a soul. I feel like I've come to know the character well since his arrival in Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman and his subsequent adventures in Ship of Fools and Unnatural Born Killers, so it was about time that he met the Doctor. And what in impact that first meeting had! The Doctor never had a chance to hear out Kroton and when it appeared that Izzy was in danger, he sprung into action and quickly delivered a deadly bolt of voltage to Kroton which seemingly killed him and put his systems out of action permanently. I thought that was a brilliant cliffhanger to part one, so to see him revived and laughing a couple of pages into part two was terrific. The Doctor was stumped and whilst I wasn't massively fussed on the explanation of how he came to survive that power going through him, the interaction between the Doctor and Kroton was exactly what I would have hoped for. Kroton was sick of getting judged in a stereotypical fashion and always being treated as a Cyberman (I mean, who can blame anyone thinking that?), but when the Doctor heard him out their relationship blossomed in quick style. The hierarchy establishing Horstrogg as the captain of the pirates was good and I thought the relationship with Shakka as the second in command was a real highlight. There was tension throughout the adventure, but the final page essentially being a stand off between the pair as the asteroid belt rocks drifted away from each other with them having a component each of the Eraser was magnificent. That was really strong writing of what I'd expect of selfish thieves. The Eraser itself seemed to come slightly late, but I really liked the concept and it was quite sudden and quick for Izzy to command it to destroy itself. She didn't realise it was holding the atmospheric field together, but I was honestly not expecting that to work! It did, and she apologised quickly but the Doctor was more than happy with her actions. And Kroton was there to save the day and fly into the safety of the TARDIS, which was found after a part two cliffhanger that had it missing, and his reaction to the TARDIS being bigger on the inside and everything that meant for the logical makeup of a Cyberman was wonderful. Exciting times ahead, overall a very good story! 

Rating: 8/10