Doctor Who: The Child of Time by Jonathan Morris

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book collects the first twenty-two Doctor Who Magazine comic strips featuring Matt Smith’s 11th Doctor along with Amy Pond. Like the last Tenth Doctor collection, the Crimson Hand, this collection features one writer (in this case Doctor Who Novelist/Audio Script Writer Jonathan Morris) writing his own series of Doctor Who in comic strip with an ongoing plot, only this time, there’s a TV series that runs concurrent to the comic stories.

Supernature (421-423): The Doctor and Amy land on a mysterious Earth colony where the colonists are prisoners (though that has little plot relevance) and mysterious monsters are appearing.. It’s a pretty standard Doctor Who story that’s well-done. It’s a good first run for both the 1th Doctor in Comics and Morris as his writer. Grade: B

Bollywood (424): It’s Doctor Who as a Bollywood musical. Have to be honest that much of this goes over my head as I’ve never seen a Bollywood musical, but a short ten page comic strip were colorful characters break out to song is quite fun. Grade: B

The Golden Ones (425-428): A brilliant colorful UNIT story in Japan featuring kids being memorized by a strange drink and a TV show. Love this story with a nice return of a classic Doctor Who monster. Will say this story has the most dubious look for Amy. Don’t really see pigtails as something she would wear. Grade: A-

The Professor, the Queen, and the Bookshop (429): Reimagining Doctor Who as a sort of C.S. Lewis fantasy story. It’s so-so with a little too much fanboying for a ten-page story. Still, it’s better than The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe. Art by Rob Davis really fits the mood. Grade: B-

The Screams of Night (430-431): The Doctor and Amy Arrive in 1860s France where several young women are becoming opera stars….but at a price. Solid, creepy story, helped by some very good visuals. Grade: B+

Do Not Go Into that Gentle Good Night (432): Elderly people without relatives are disappearing from a nursing home. A surprising, well done, and emotionally resonant story. Grade: A

Forever Dreaming (433-434): I was initially taken aback by the weird art of this story, but as I understood the strange psychedelic locale, I realized the art was odd with a reason, and this one case were very stylized art works a treat. In this story, the Doctor and Amy land on a beach planet, the Doctor tells Amy to run, and then turns to sand. And the story gets crazier from there. Grade: A

Apotheosis (435-437): The Doctor and Amy arrive on a weird alien planet where there’s a time field that ages people and a lot of mystery. This story ups Steve Moffat’s silliness of militarized priest by offering us armed nuns in full habits. It’s absurd but not in a good way. The plot works in a lot of good twists. and leads in to the conclusion of the book’s arc. Grade: B

The Child of Time (438-441): This is one of those arcs I like. There are a few panels that give hints that something is going on, but nothing that interferes with enjoying all the other stories. The Doctor and Amy have to stop a paradoxical girl from becoming the absolute ruler of the universe who is worshipped by Androids. The story finds the Doctor meeting Alan Turing and the Bronte sisters, fully armed with weapons. It’s a timey-wimey extravaganza worthy of the TV show, but better than most of the TV series finales (though not quite as good as the Series 5 finale that readers would have just seen.) It manages to use the power of the comic genre to tell a story that is fantastic and visually beyond anything you could do on TV. A good end to Johnny Morris really lovely run. Grade: A-

These Panini Doctor Who collections are notable for including commentaries by writers and artists in the back. This gives some great insight into their inspirations and curative processes. This one is particularly entertaining as we learn at-length the challenges that come with trying to tell a story arc while there’s a TV series running. Morris kept trying to come up with the sort of stories that Moffat would do in order to meet TV audience’s expectations but he did too good a job as he kept having plotlines scrubbed by Cardiff. It’s a fascinating read to go along with some really good creative Doctor Who comics.




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