Scorpio's Sting

"It's as ancient as the land itself."

Writer: James Hudnall

Format: Comic Strip

Released: May 2018

Printed in: Devil's End 01

Featuring: Olive Hawthorne

Synopsis 

Olive Hawthorne remains in Devil's End, determined to protect it from any future evil. But now a new force has emerged, one with a sting...

Verdict 

Scorpio's Sting was a very enjoyable comic strip adventure to kick off my reading of the Adventures of Olive Hawthorne! After reading Doctor Who and the Dæmons or month or two ago, I was reminded of this release from Lucky Comics and whilst I believe it was initially part of the Free Comic Book Day 2018 promotion, I purchased the combined version and I was excited by what I read! At only eight pages long, it felt a little like a Classic era comic strip from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine which is absolutely a compliment. I actually rather enjoyed the retro feel of having the comic strip be in black and white. We were obviously going to me mentioning and referencing the events of The Dæmons and I liked how it was done here. Having news reporters from the BBC visiting Devil’s End is fun nostalgia although I was questioning why they were interested in what happened in the village back in 1971. A good chunk of the events were captured on film for BBC3 so why couldn’t they just revert back to them and take a look? Maybe they were wiped from the archives. That’s certainly feasible! It was lovely to see Olive Hawthorne return and the fact she is now ninety years old is quite staggering! She made a big impression on screen and whilst I have most recently read the novelisation of the story in which she appears, it’s not a face one forgets easily so having it recreated in comic strip format here was delightful. I’m a big fan of bringing the village to contemporary times and Olive was still in the mode of village protector which was lovely. She was well aware of the power source beneath the village and the potential threat anyone tampering and hoping to harness it could bring. That’s where Scorpio came in. He was a fun character and he seemed very knowledgeable about the history of the village which was good and his attempts to reassemble Bok were incredibly exciting! Having that crazy and infamous statue creature return to life was a delightful prospect and actually seeing it happen for a brief few moments was terrific. It’s so good to explore life beyond the Doctor and just having Bok back is brilliant. I definitely feel like Scorpio’s story is far from over, at least I hope it isn’t! I’m really excited for what’s to come in an extended adventure as he showed a lot of potential in a villain in the short time we met him. I thought the format of the comic was great and really did well in balancing dialogue with narration. In a series opener, it can sometimes be too heavy on the latter but I didn’t feel that was the case at all here so that was fantastic. I liked that Hawthorne had her own education being passed on and just seeing her project herself to get to Scorpio when he was attempting to reassemble Bok was impressive! This was no mission for her protégés though. Scorpio even knowing of Azal was very good and I liked the modern aspect of the original church actually no longer standing. Times had moved on. I thought the ending to this one was decent in how Hawthorne used her magic alongside the protégés to stop Scorpio, but a little more elaboration on what she had actually done would have been nice as it wasn’t wholly clear from the art work. The art itself was tremendous though and I like how events here leave us ready for more adventures to come! I’m sure we’ll get to know the protégés more and I do hope Scorpio returns for revenge. Overall, a fine comic strip story. 

Rating: 8/10