‘Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #3.13’ Review
Written by Nick Abadzis | Art by Giorgia Sposito | Published by Titan Comics
This being the final arc of The Tenth Doctor’s Year Three adventures, it seems Nick Abadzis has saved the best for last. So far this has been a fine storyline. The first two parts of ‘The Good Companion’ have seen the Red TARDIS kidnap Gabby and deliver her to Daft Punk, er, the Time Sentinels. They want Gabby to help them with a certain problem, using her newly developing powers. Fair enough you’d think, until they reveal they want to get rid of Ten himself. Seems The Doctor is a bit too messy for their liking when it comes to messing with timelines. The Time Sentinels up the ante when Gabby refuses to cooperate and send the Circle of Transcendence to Aramuko to destroy the planet. Why there? That’s where The Doctor, Cindy, Cleo, and Noobis currently are.
Gabby decides a little proactiveness is called for, and uses her abilities to access inside one of the Time Sentinels minds. Here she encounters the string-puller itself, The Lock-Keeper. The Lock-Keeper actually seems pretty reasonable, and shows that Aspect Red, one of the Sentinels, has requested The Doctor erased and been refused. Although The Doctor can be a danger to the timeline, he is too tied up in causality, remove him and everything could collapse. Aspect Red dislikes freedom of thought and creativity, as it makes order more difficult to maintain. he is wrong of course, and Gabby mentally ‘knocks him out’ as he , in her words, is malfunctioning.
So while Gabby fights the good fight, where is The Doctor? He’s aboard the TARDIS, working to track where the Time Sentinels are. He finds them, and is amazed to find Gabby being held prisoner. with Aspect Red incapacitated, Aspect Blue is in charge, and is about to remove the threat to Aramuko as a sign of good faith. Until Aspect Red attacks him, claiming him defective. Clearly, something is very wrong with Aspect Red. The Doctor is now aware of the plan to trap him in the redundant timeline, and also realises that something is wrong with the Sentinels. They are a system, in place to perform a function, not entitled to independent thought and action. Oops.
Aboard the TARDIS we have the revelation that someone is not who they seem, which is something of a game changer. We also get an insight as to why Aspect Blue has broken away from the others, why Blue regards The Doctor as worth saving. Blue has developed independent thought, and a grasp of concepts The Doctor would have thought beyond it. That revelation will have to wait till next time as two bad things have happened. One, Gabby has been lured into the Red TARDIS. Two, that very same Red TARDIS has decided to launch itself at high speed at The Doctor’s TARDIS on a collision course. Still, who needs a outer plasmic shell anyway, right?
Issue 3 of this arc was as entertaining and fun as the others. Not only is the main storyline gathering pace, there was a revelation or two along the way I didn’t see coming, always nice to be surprised. A little bit of philosophy in there as well. Just a nice, fun, easy and entertaining read. Coincidentally, the art by Giorgia Sposito was nice, fun, easy to look at and entertaining too. Lovely layouts, and I appreciate the clean lines of the art more than ever, perfect for this storyline. Always gives good Tennant too.
So, one more issue to go to wrap up the good Tenth Doctor’s Year Three adventures. Nice that we are ending on possibly the best story of the entire run. Although The Doctor doesn’t want to go out with a bang, given his present circumstances, I sure wouldn’t mind. Bring on next issue!
**** 4/5
