In Review: Doctor Who – Supremacy Of The Cybermen

Synopsis: Previously: The Twelfth Doctor struggled through four billion years of torture to reach Gallifrey, his home world, which now resides at the end of the universe. One man was not pleased to see the Doctor return: Lord High President Rassilon, responsible for the Doctor’s imprisonment and ordeal. Responsible for the death of his companion, Clara. Rassilon, whom the Doctor subsequently ousted in a bloodless coup, exiling him from Gallifrey to what was left of the cosmos. But the Doctor’s ‘mercy’ will have repurcussions that will echo back through all of his past lives. At the end of the universe, Gallifrey is not all that remains…!

Review: Doctor Who – Supremacy Of The Cybermen is part of a series of special events celebrating ‘Doctor Who’ in comics and book form. This first issue of the comic features the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctor’s on a adventure that is triggered by events that apparently take place shortly after the conclusion of series Nine of Doctor Who.

The story begins with the Twelfth Doctor crash landing his tardis on Karn for an impromptu visit to the sisterhood of Karn. Apparently something has seriously gone wrong with Time and the Doctor has took it upon himself to investigate and needs the sisterhood’s help to get him back to gallifrey.

Elsewhere in time we fine the 11th Doctor in a prehistoric time period with new companion Alice. They are on a mission to retrieve some rare prehistoric fruit as a gift for Madam Vastra. Inevitably they wind up running from a nasty looking T Rex before running into some silurian’s.

Out in deep space the tenth doctor is treating new companions Cindy and Gabby to a trip to the galaxies biggest shopping mall. But he doesn’t count on it having been taken over by Sontarans.

In London of 2006 the city has been attacked by Cybermen and the ninth Doctor is leading the fight back with Rose, Captain Jack and Roses mother Jackie.

Most of this first issue is set up for what will be a story that will  be told over five issues. The story as far as I have read is pretty good and ties in well with the series nine finale in which the Twelfth Doctor finally returned home. This time round though he is in for a much bigger shock than before.

The lettering is really well done and easy to read through.

As far as the artwork goes. I was taken out of the story a little by the fact that the likenesses to the characters were not quite right. The 11th Doctor who has a pretty prominent jaw line looked like he had developed hamster cheeks in some panels and Captain Jack looked a little bit like he’d lost 20 years.

I know its a comic book and there is a certain amount of room for artistic interpretation, but when it is at the expense of character likenesses. That’s when I can not really go with it. I have pretty high expectations with regards to art in comics and think that if you are doing an adaptation of a television or movie property. You should really try to have those characters look as much like the onscreen versions as possible.

As far as other art elements go the prehistoric backdrop was awesome and I liked the artists interpretation of the Cybermen, Silurians and Sontarans. I just think the Doctor, Rose, Jackie and Captain Jack’s likenesses needed tightening up a bit. The Twelfth Doctor was pretty good though. It was the artists take on Doctor Number Ten and Eleven that bothered me most, but only from certain angles.

What we have here is a really promising beginning to a potentially cool story. I look forward to the second issue and seeing how the writer brings the four featured Doctor’s together.

Doctor Who: Supremacy Of The Cybermen #1 will hit the streets on 9 July.

You can find out more about this comic and order it at: http://titan-comics.com