Torchwood: Rift War

Torchwood Archives #0

by Paul Grist, Ian Edginton, Simon Furman

Torchwood is the action-packed sci-fi series from BBC America, following the adventures of a team of investigators, working for the secret organisation that uses scavenged alien technology to solve present day crimes – both alien and human.

Now the smash hit Doctor Who spin-off comes to graphic novels! When Torchwood-3 comes under fire in an all-out attack by extra-dimensional shock troopers, the team are torn in all directions. And with a deadly rift bleeding through into their own reality, time itself could be destroyed if the Torchwood team isn't able to stop it!

Written and illustrated by some of the UK's top comic creators, including Paul Grist, Ian Edginton, D'Israeli and Simon Furman – Torchwod: Rift War is an unmissable epic!

Genres: Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Comics, Doctor Who, Fiction, Fantasy, Media Tie In

128 pages, Paperback

First published June 2, 2009

About the author

Paul Grist is a British comic book creator, noted for his hard-boiled police series Kane and his unorthodox superhero series Jack Staff.

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

A more epic story than the TV series usually managed, with rampaging dinosaurs and aliens on flying boards menacing Cardiff, but not wholly successful. Three writers and three very different artists make for a choppy read, and it doesn't help that in Paul Grist's sections the male leads can only be told apart by their outfits. Also, the twist is really obvious, but that may just be because the betrayer shares the alias of an internet fuckwit so I was naturally disinclined to trust him from the off.

[Alicja · Rating 3 out of 5]

rating: 3/5

Old school Torchwood, how I missed you!!

An alien race that controls the rift attacks Earth. Why? Can Torchwood stop them in time and save the world, again? And can they trust those that offer their help?

Although as expected of most that TW puts out, Ianto is again a quinary character given the odd sarcastic/funny line but being mostly ignored as a useful member of the team. However, the storyline was interesting and showed us the inner workings of the rift and aliens who actually have control over it. The dialogue was great, and the story was a page turner (although it only took me only an hour to read). The art was interesting but skewed the facial features, which bugged me just a little. . The action occurs really fast, switching between various settings, and it is sometimes hard to keep up with all the changes. Otherwise, it was fun seeing a snarky Owen and brilliant Tosh again. This is a worthwhile read for any fan of the whole team Torchwood but I don’t think someone who hasn’t seen the show would get it.

There is also an additional short story, Jetsam, at the end. It is short, sweet, and very alien-y fighting. Actually, I liked it more than the main story so it was a nice surprise.

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3010515.html

This pulls together the Rift War! comic story published originally in issues 4-13 of Torchwood Magazine in 2008, and adds at the end a single-episode story, Jetsam, published in issue 3 also in 2008.

I felt that the Rift War! epsiodes did not hang together very well - there was rather a feeling of three different writers (Simon Furman, Paul Grist and Ian Edgington) handing off the storyline between each other without much of a unifying concept. Also I was not attracted by Paul Grist's depictions of the regular characters in six of the ten episodes that he illustrated, though I liked his writing for four of them a bit more. (The artist above is SL Gallant, who I found more to my taste.)

On the other hand, Jetsam was a real gem, written and drawn by Brian Williamson (who has done a lot of Doctor Who art, but this appears to be the only Whoniverse story he has actually written). It's a fairly standard Season 2 alien artefact story, but done with a real sense of warmth and engagement. I hope Williamson can be tempted to do a bt more. Worth getting the book for.

[Malcolm Cox · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although it was nice seeing the whole team alive and well, this was a big disappointment. The story wasn't so much as convoluted as a painful mess and the artwork changed drastically between issues but was uniformly bad. Gwen and Tosh, for example, could only be discerned by one wearing glasses and the other having a prominent gap in her teeth, whereas Ianto wore smarter clothes than Owen.
There were a lot of ideas thrown in here, but none really made any sense or had much of a point to them. The low point was the dual time loop at Stone Henge, which was just plain gibberish.
The high point, however, was the bonus story at the back of the book: Jetsam. A crashed alien ship is discovered on the coast and it's cargo has been strewn across the beach. Torchwood are able to secure the area, but not before a salvager has helped himself to a souped-up battle tank/motorbike. The story was much tighter, the artwork was so much better and I felt much more satisfied with this one.
As an extra note, this particular item has the last 30 page segment bound upside-down, which made for some interesting reading.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

This graphic novel includes two stories from the Torchwood Magazine, Rift War! and Jetsam. Rift War! isn't particularly good - there's definitely a lot of padding in it (especially regarding the giant baby), Ianto really doesn't get to do much in it (although that it is something that the show struggled with), and the artwork is not particularly great, to the point that its difficult to tell apart the cast at time (something which I thought was caused by my facial blindness, but seems to be an issue suffered by others). Jetsam in comparison is much better and tighter, although the art felt a little too realistic at times for me.

[Fraeulein K · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story is good but also a bit confusing due to several phenomena happening within the main storyline.
The drawing is very bad: Jack doesn’t look like Jack (sometimes he has a huge chin or a face like an egg) and you can only distinguish between Ianto and Owen by who is wearing a suit...

[Amanda Kendall · Rating 1 out of 5]

The narrative was shallow and fragmented, and the art was horrific

[Penelope · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not very torchwood, lacked the relationships, innuendos and swearing it was like a more universal version of torchwood. Good storyline but strange lack of the relationships of the characters etc.

[Rob Cook · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the main Rift War story but for the majority of the book the likenesses of the main cast were pretty bad.
The secondary strip 'Jetsam' was an inferior story but got the likenesses spot on.

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Rift War" is true "Torchwood" with witty bantering, fascinating sci-fi concepts and interesting twists. The chapters were originally published separately, which shows in the way the story is constantly shifting momentum and introducing action packed situations and surprises.

With so much going on all the time, the plot as a whole feels slightly unfocused, and it lacks that deep, quiet human drama in which "Torchwood" is at its best. Still, the art is cool and the whole thing feels true to the ideas of the series. Entertaining, if not as deep and innovative as I usually expect from TW.

[Ithlilian · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven't read too many comics, but I do love Torchwood, so I thought this would be great. I found it a bit scattered and fragmented instead. The pages were also riddled with one liners that you would never hear in the show. I mean there was comedy on Torchwood, but not the crappy har-de-har-har type that is found here. The plot was initially interesting with a group of aliens coming to steal the Torchwood base, but it jumped around too much, and it was hard to stay focused. I'm just happy my library had it in the first place. <3 libraries!

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think graphic novels are often overlooked in the world of lit. If it's a good story and it's told well, I don't think think the medium matters all that much-Rfit War is a great story, well told, great art work, and the authors artists really knew their characters, because the well know voices of the actors who portrayed the characters in the tv show really came through. It was great to revisit one of my favorite shows in a new medium!

[MJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had some problems getting into this. There was so much going on, and not always in a linear fashion, that I got confused in parts. The artwork was not bad, except for the main characters, who didn't really look like their TV counterparts. I guess because Tosh and Owen had been killed off by the time this came out, they only showed the remaining (at the time) three on the cover, but the storyline includes all five.

[Tribblemaker · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art is mostly terrible, to the point that it's frequently difficult to discern who is who. Also, their faces are distorted beyond the point of even managing cartoon-humanity, which is slightly terrifying. But, if you can get beyond the terrible art and the mild horror of an entirely inhuman Torchwood raining havoc in Earth's public spaces, the story is pretty fun. 5 stars for story, 2 stars for the bulk of the dreadful, dreadful art, 4 stars for the occasional good art.

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story line was really good but it seemed like each issue was drawn by a different person which made it hard to read because I kept having to stop and figure out who was who every time the issue changed. Some of the drawings were really good and some were so simplistic that they didn't look anything like the characters.

[Cathal Reynolds · Rating 3 out of 5]

Suffering from Torchwood withdrawal, I bought and read this. While it has sated me for the time being, it wasn't spectacular. The plot was adequate, but what really got to me we're some of the graphics. Some chapters had spectacular graphics, while others had terrible ones. At some stages, I could only tell Owen and Ianto apart because Ianto was wearing a suit.

[Sneakend · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd say it's definitely not worth buying. Saw it in the library myself and thought I'd read it since I've watched most of Torchwood. The story is nothing special and the quality of art varies since there are so many different artists. It had some funny moments but I doubt it's gonna offer much to anyone who isn't a huge fan of the show.

[Lyndsay-ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Need to read a good comic book once in a while.

Classic Torchwood. Aliens come through the Rift. World in danger. Gwen being annoying. Torchwood to the rescue!

Took place late series 2, so it had Tosh and Owem, which was great, and there was a short story at the end, with Tosh as the main focus. She was an awesome character, so I'm glad both she and Owen were in this book.

[Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

story is of the form 'x happened, then y happened, then z happened'. it's not *about* anything. and, maybe because the art is so crap, it doesn't capture the charm of the TV programme upon which it is based.

[Gareth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main story is a decent event story but let down by variable artwork that has poor likenesses of the team, even if the action is well-handled.
The support story "Flotsam" is much better both for art and script.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

Find this book at Hillingdon Libraries

[Becket]

Oh yeah. I even got it through interlibrary loan. I'm THAT cool.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Cheesy and hard-to-follow. The show at least keeps you hanging with the sexual element!

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story itself is so-so, and you wouldn't recognize this book as Torchwood material because it's practically safe for little kids to read. Some of the artwork is so bad it's laugh-out-loud funny.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Torchwood gang are caught up in unusual rift activity and a mysterious being named Vox.

[Craig Thomson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't think much of the art & the story was very fragmented.

[Otherwyrld · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wavering between 3 and 4 stars for this one

Full review to follow

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

3 stars for the story line but the art work was so bad that it knocked the overall rating down.