4 Doctors #1

One of the great joys of Doctor Who is that at some point (usually fixed - Doctor Who fans will get that) you eventually get a multi-Doctor story, so its no surprise that Titan who took over the comic licence and have been producing some great 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th Doctor story's. Have produced a weekly multi story featuring 4 Doctors, what is a surprising is just as in the TV show the 9th Doctor isn't coming to the party. So its the War Doctor who makes up the numbers instead, I'm a little disappointed as I would have liked to has seen Eccleston's Doctor interact with his future selves. But the War Doctor is a rich seam of untapped story lines so my disappointment was tempered slightly, the multi covers 19 in all for issue 1 also grabbed my attention as some of them are stunning.

Its with the War Doctor we start at some point in the Time War where we see him and his allies take down a Dalek ship, the Daleks were about to do something bad to the planet and the Doctors allies. Now I know that's a bit of a vague description of the Dalek plan but it isn't pivotal to the story, and Daleks don't turn up to sing songs and hold hands or plungers round a camp fire so we know their intentions was not good. Unfortunately the War Doctors time in the book is fleeting 3 pages to be exact, which is a shame as I would like to see this Doctor explored a bit more. 

The story switches to the 12th Doctor where we see via flashbacks that Clara has learned, that if the Doctors all meet each other it will start a chain of events that will end of the universe. So naturally while the Doctor is asleep she takes the TARDIS to Paris in 1923, where coincidently the other two Doctors are both happily walking around Paris totally oblivious that there other self is there. Clara's plan is to meet the Doctors former companions and convince them to keep their Doctor away from the other Doctors, now what could possibly go wrong with that plan I hear you cry. Well everything if the meeting place is not only a Paris cafe but a fixed point in time, (now you get it) where the Doctors are supposed to meet. Apart from the flimsy premise of getting the Doctors to meet each other, the story is actually very good with Paul Cornnell capturing the voices of all 3 Doctors perfectly. I can actually hear the voices of Tennent, Smith and Capaldi in my head when I'm reading the book, then again my head can be a scary place to be or so the voices in it tell me.

The artwork on the whole is very good although I found the 

likenesses of the Doctors to be a bit hit and miss, which proved for me at least to be a slight distraction from the story in places. The other issue I think that may hurt the book is apart from Capaldi's Doctor, the other two Doctors are with companions who haven't been in the show. I know they have been used in the comic but a casual fan who may pick up the book due to the crossover could be confused or put off, there is an explanation as to who they are at the beginning of the comic but that may not be enough we shall have to wait and see.

This first issue is a set-up issue but there is enough of a hook to keep me interested, I look forward to seeing how the story develops over the coming issues and hope for a little more War Doctor. 

Issue 1 comes with a total of 19 different covers some of which are quite imaginative, so far I have 4 of them and will hunt the rest down over timey wimey.

Four Doctors Covers (19)