Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "sontar"

Doctor Who: The Betrothal of Sontar by Gareth Roberts

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects the Tenth Doctor's first comic book stories, with all but the last one having Rose as his companion. The strips originally appeared in Doctor Who Magazine Issues 365-380 and the the 2007 Doctor Who Story Book.

The Betrothal of Sontar (365-367): The first 10th Doctor comic book story and the titular story from this collection finds the Doctor on an arctic world where a bunch of deviations in the Sontarans have a base far from the action of the war and under the command of a purebred Sontaran who ends ups using the Doctor to find a doomsday weapon. This is actually the weakest story in the book. It's a Sontaran story where no one acts like a Sontaran. The purebed Sontaran has a mustache and sits around alone with his chest plate off revealing a hairy chest and wears fur shoulder pads. Even with a generic alien, this would be an average story. For bungling the Sontarans, it's a notch below that. Grade: D+

The Lodger (368): The Doctor is stuck on Earth and living with Mickey for a spell. The story is fun and does a nice job putting the Doctor into a unique situation. Roberts would later take the idea of the comic and make it a TV script for the 11th Doctor. You'll find the barebones of the idea here but other than the Doctor being good at soccer, little of the plot crosses over. Grade: A-

F.A.Q. (369-371): This is a story that actually is reminiscent of "Fear Her" (a story that aired in the same series as the comic strips), so it's weird the magazine ran this one. The story is better than "Fear Her" but the similarities are striking. At any rate, the Doctor and Rose arrive in a block where weird things are happening and people are disappearing and strange things start happening including mysterious disappearance and three boys being turned into trees. It all seems to center on a boy and is sister. This story twists around like a pretzel, it's very clever and rich with a lot of emotion, psychology, and misdirection at work. The commentary in the back reveals the real life modeling of the characters which makes the story even more enjoyable. Great concept and really good execution. Grade: A

The Futurists (372-374): This is the type of story you see in comics, audio, and novels, but never on the TV series as we have a story based on an obscure fact of history, sprinkle in sci fi and enjoy. In this case, the Doctor and Rose land in Italy between the Wars where the Futurists are beginning a movement that would become Italian fascism. An alien transports one of these Futurists back in time and gives him the chance to conquer the world. This is a wonderfully researched story that has several great twists in the final parts. Mike Collins art is great throughout the book (excepting some of the Sontaran designs in the first story of course.) but this is his best work in the book. I love his drawings of 1920s Italy and the clothing for the era is superb too. There's also a few nice humor bits sprinkled throughout.I loved Rose showing the psychic paper to an illiterate soldier. Grade: A+

Interstellar Overdrive (375-376): The TARDIS lands on a tour ship featuring a zombified singer leading a band of misfit has-beens. Of course, there's a murder mystery and a few nice end-jokes. The Time Loop that's a big plot device for the cliffhanger is a bit weak as the Doctor and Rose remember everything which serves to expedite the time loop solution but also isn't really how those things should work. Still, this is a fun story. Grade: B+

Opera of Doom (2007 Doctor Who Story Book): This story finds the Doctor taking Rose to the opera where strange things are afoot and an alien eats music. This is a story that's too short but that's really the fault of the BBC which demanded a shorter length to protect its Doctor Who Annual and that hurt this tale. It could have done with a few more pages, but it's okay as is with a nice comic and some good lines. Grade: B

The Green Eyed Monster (DWM 377): In Rose's final comic story, writer Nev Fountain decided to play with the idea promoted by many that Rose and her crew were kind of poor and trashy where Rose's adventures with the Doctor and one adventure in particular are fodder for a Jerry Springereseque Daytime talk show. This strip not only gets Mickey in, but also Jackie and in a quiet unusual way. Fountain manages to gently poke fun at some of Doctor Who's tropes as an alien princess tells the Doctor, "Our scientists have been mystified as to why our planet is solely populated by stunningly attractive with physical ages of eighteen to twenty." The strip does a lot in 10 pages, playing with Rose's jealousy of other women around the Doctor, perceptions of the Tyler family, and even works a riff of Peter Davison's famous line from the Fury of the Deep. Nicely done. Grade: A

The Warkeeper's Crown: The only visual teaming of the Brigadier and a revived series Doctor finds the Brigadier kidnapped from a Remembrance Day ceremony in full uniform. He arrives to find he's being asked to lead a war-like species into battle because he's the greatest military leader the Doctor knows. They also kidnap Mike Yates, however instead of the Brigadier's former UNIT aide, they kidnap a back bench member of parliament whose kind of petty. There are a few confusing points in the plot, but this is ultimately a love letter to the Brigadier and it works. It's a great dynamic between the post-time War Doctor and the Brigadier as the Brig realizes that the Doctor has been a war. Good stuff. Also, a key moment from the Series 8 finale may have had its genesis in the last page of this comic. Grade: A-

With the exception of the first story, I found most everything else in the book to be thoroughly enjoyable. There are some great concepts. Even though, many of these were planned with very little known of the 10th Doctor they captured the character well. Rose was usually pretty good, though she did occasionally become a bit of a comic foil. This is a very solid volume of comics from Doctor Who magazine that's a must read for fans of the 10th Doctor.



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