‘Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor #3.14’ Review
Written by Nick Abadzis | Art by Giorgia Sposito | Published by Titan Comics
This four part send off for The Tenth Doctor’s year three adventures has been, well, rather good. Nick Abadzis has thrown in a little bit of everything here, to craft something of a love letter to The Doctor, Gabby, and Cindy. It very much feels like someone who has had their fun, and is preparing to pass on the baton to new writers down the road for the inevitable year 4 adventures. Great companions, great villains, great Who mythology, and great timey-wimey shenanigans (apologies to the Eleventh Doctor). Let’s hope we go out with the biggest of bangs.
So, where were we…put simply, the Time Sentinels are looking to erase The Doctor from existence. He’s a little too messy for their tastes it seems. That is until Aspect Blue, one of the Sentinels rebels against the others and helps Gabby escape in the Red TARDIS. Or did he? And why is the Red TARDIS on a collision course for The Doctor’s TARDIS? While The Doctor scrambles to evade that problem, the Time Sentinels civil war is in full swing. Aspect Red has gone full rogue, seemingly ‘infected’ by the entity that is the Red TARDIS, and infecting all the other Sentinels except Blue.
The Red TARDIS gambit is to threaten the captured Gabby if The Doctor doesn’t give himself up. Will he, to save his companion? Nah, there’s a plan for that. A time cone inverter, if you must really know. End result, everyone crash lands back at the Sentinels base. The gangs all here. Cleo, Cindy, Gabby, Noobis, as well as The Doctor of course. Oh, and Aspect Red, in the process of trying to take over the Lock-Keeper, and infect as many time-lines as possible. A full on battle ensues, between multiple Aspect Blue’s and multiple Aspect Red’s, while The Doctor and Gabby drum up a plan. It’s becoming clear that Gabby is evolving at a rapid pace, her grasp of complicated advanced dimensional mechanics at Gallifreyan levels.
Gabby and Aspect Blue make their way to the Red TARDIS, as The Doctor, Anubis, Cleo and Cindy go back to their TARDIS. Combining the energies of both TARDIS’s, and the power of Anubis, the splinter universe is destroyed, the apocalyptic Circle is destroyed, and the Sentinels base destroyed. A win for sure, but a very destructive one. The stakes were sky high this time, and they seemingly had a cost. Gabby. She fails to make the TARDIS in time. Luckily for her, help comes in the form of a very surprising guest star. Let’s just say former Doctor’s companions tend to stick together. Gabby is saved, and manages to get back to the TARDIS. Only thing is, it’s not her TARDIS. And not her Doctor.
Well played Nick Abadzis, a great ending.
On balance, a great issue to end on. If I want to complain about anything, it would be that things got a tad too frenetic, with so much going on all over the place it started to get tricky to follow who was stopping who from doing what to who. No time to stop and get our breathe. Abadzis certainly wrapped everything up well though, and the ending was a corker. Loved it. The art by Giorgia Sposito, while still not among my absolute favourites, remains perfect for this book. I’d have trouble adjusting to another artist I am so used to Sposito’s renderings. You always get solid layouts and nice panels, seemingly even more so this issue than others. This book has managed to go from a middle of the pile one to one on the top. Sad to see it end, albeit temporarily.
So, Year Three done and dusted. Not bad, not bad at all. The Tenth Doctor remains one of the best Doctor’s out there, and Nick Abadzis and Giorgio Sposito remain the team to beat. Hopefully there’s more where that came from.
**** 4/5
