Doctor Who: Mistress of Chaos

Doctor Who Magazine Comic Collections #30

by Scott Gray, Mike Collins (Illustrator), John Ross (Illustrator)

Collected 13th Doctor comic strips - volume 1

The Warmonger
The city of radiant light on the planet Gatan lies in ruins, the victim of a deadly conflict - but the Doctor and her friends soon learn that this war is unlike any the universe has ever seen!

Herald of Madness
Bohemia, 1601: Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler join the world's finest astronomers as they gather at the mysterious Castle Houska. The time travellers gatecrash the party - and encounter a creature from beyond the realms of sanity itself...

The Power of the Mobox
The colony world Acantha is home to both humans and the Mobox Empire. When Ryan is left for dead, the Doctor begins to uncover a conspiracy with a horrific secret...

Mistress of Chaos
A sinister figure is terrorising the galaxy - and her name is the Doctor! A confrontation on Venus hurls the Doctor and Graham into s cold, dark world ruled by one enemy even she can't defeat...

Also! An 11-page commentary section.

Genres: Doctor Who, Comics, Graphic Novels, Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Time Travel

162 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2020

About the author

Scott Gray, born Warwick Gray, is a comic book writer from New Zealand who lives and works in the UK.

There is more than one author with this name

Reviews

[tay · Rating 4 out of 5]

yaz🥺

[Tom Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of strips from Doctor Who Magazine feature the initial batch of Comic Book adventures of the thirteenth Doctor as portrayed on television by Jodie Whittaker.

The stories here are all entertaining and, being limited in length of installment, are structured e d much like the original television series, with each story comprised of 4-6 parts, each part ending on a cliffhanger. This provides an active pace, giving them a different feel from the Titan Publishing comic books.

While the art in this volume is somewhat inconsistent, the writing is solid and the various stories neatly tie together in the final story. Recommended to Doctor Who fans and those who enjoy comics.

[Owen Townend · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scott Gray deserves a shot at writing a TV script for Doctor Who.

Mistress of Chaos confirms he has an affinity with almost every incarnation of the Time Lord. In his commentary, he mentions that he wrote the first story in this collection before the release of The Woman Who Fell to Earth. Using only promotional material and footage of the actors in other projects, Gray managed to capture the best parts of the Thirteenth Doctor and her 'fam'.

That being said, he did balance such innovation with familiarity. The villain Berakka Dogbolter and the Mobox alien race had been introduced in earlier comic arcs featuring other Doctors. However I did not notice a clash in these fan favourites and the new Doctor Who brand. If anything the combination felt like embracing the Thirteenth Doctor as no different to her previous male counterparts.

As for story, I enjoyed the premises that powered each plot, from the clashes of quantum entangled alien combatants becoming a broadcast phenomenon to agents of order and chaos vying for dominance in baffling Catastrophia. Gray goes high concept but in a way that comic strip readers can still follow from month to month. Still it makes sense to have the whole arc laid out in one trade paperback.

The artwork is top notch from the likes of John Ross, Mike Collins and even Scott Gray himself. While Ross and Gray indulge their love of classic Marvel designs reminiscent of Jack Kirby, Collins thrives in more period-specific illustration with occasional wild flourishes.

All told, Doctor Who: Mistress of Chaos is a great collection of an intriguing plot arc for the Thirteenth Doctor. Yet another case of print writers delivering better ideas than screenwriters. I recommend this book to those who enjoy it when Doctor Who goes so metaphysical that it becomes psychedelic.

[Mark L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first collection of Doctor Who Magazine's comic strip of the 13th Doctor. Scott Gray weaves a story that works both in episodes and a wider epic simultaneously and captures the voices of the actors as well as giving them interesting comic characters to interact with and scenarios to play in.

I also enjoyed the Jack Kirby-influenced art, merging the comic form with the Do tor Who mythos and characters well.

I also always love the creator section in these collections where the writers and artists give insights to the stories creations. A bit like a DVD extra.

A fun comic starring the Thirteen Doctor and her companions.

[Jamieson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable collection containing the first four Thirteenth Doctor comic stories from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine (DWM). The stories are good with decent art. Contains individuals and species seen previously within the pages of DWM comics, but still very accessible for new fans who jumped on with Series 11. Also contains behind-the-scenes commentary that goes into the process of writing with notes from the authors and artists.

[Alex Sarll]

First, the bad news: despite the title Mistress Of Chaos, and that demented, not-quite-human face reaching out a grasping claw from behind the Doctor on the cover, this collection does not see the Time Lord vanquish Liz Truss. But other than that, it's really pretty good. It probably helps that the first story was written before the Chibnall era had begun broadcasting, and going from a couple of scripts and some notes on characters, it's able to come up with something recognisable as what that version of the show might have looked like if only it hadn't sucked, with a Thirteenth Doctor who thinks on her feet rather than flailing, and uses Venusian aikido to ensure her non-violence isn't simply uselessness. Even more remarkably, here Yaz has a personality, and gets to do stuff! By the time of the second story, the pool has been tainted a little by seeing the supposed lead medium, and the TARDIS crew are starting to slide towards blankness in a misguided stab at consistency, but at least the historical figures (Kepler! Tycho Brahe! Complete with the nose!) aren't getting mindwiped after meeting the Doctor, and the villains retain a certain oomph: "Perish in the fires of my mind!" is exactly the sort of classic Who line Chibnall couldn't come up with if his life depended on it. Which is precisely why it's a pity nobody ever attempted that as a way of motivating him. There are some smart reversals which I didn't see coming, and if the title story isn't necessarily the most satisfying fictional treatment I've ever seen of the post-truth media, then it's still a far more satisfactory engagement with topical issues than 'maybe anti-Amazon extremists are the real villains'. Best of all, though, is the look of it. Whereas the TV show has lately ended up looking dull in a foolish attempt at emulating that generic prestige sheen, this moves past the sometimes overly cartoonish visuals which can beset the DWM strip into a vibe openly influenced by early Marvel psychedelia. Between which, and one character callback in particular, you end up with a Who comic as distant from the feel of the contemporaneous show as it was in the Sixth Doctor's time - a distance even more welcome now than it was then.

[Stephen Theaker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've just read seven of these collections one after another and this was the weakest of them. No slight on the creators involved, who as ever give it their best with wild ideas and gorgeous visuals, but they are stuck with one of the weaker Tardis teams. We read in the notes how the initial pitch for the thirteenth Doctor's first story was rejected for giving the companions too small a role, and thus the book bends over backwards to give them useful things to do, to its detriment. One other weird aspect is how the artists sometimes don't draw the Doctor's upper torso at all; it's left completely blank but for colours. Understandable that they wouldn't want to sexualise her, but it looks so odd sometimes that one feels as if they are trying to spare the feelings of sexist Who fans by not making her too obviously female.

[Ellen Schoener · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmm...
this got pretty psychedelic by the end.
Entertaining and enjoyable read.
One of the most important messages carried through the whole collection is the issue of fake news and how much havoc they create, and the impact on content creators as well as the victims and the recipients of these fake news.
At least the approach here is a bit more subtle than the actual TV series is (which is about as subtle as a punch in the face).
I also liked that the voice of the Doctor and the fam was recreated beautifully and believably.
You could actually hear the actors speaking these lines in your head.
The art was decent, too.
So yes, it is good for a rainy afternoon.
Just do not expect anything really deep of profound.

[Brett · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of 13th Doctor comic strips from Doctor Who Magazine. Some good, some ok.