Medicine Man

📝6.0 = SLIGHTLY ENJOYABLE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: “THE MEDICINE MAN”

This story takes us back to the Stone Age, where we meet a Neanderthal shaman who agrees to nurse an unconscious Doctor back to life. I like how these cave people are shown to be intelligent in their own way—knowing how to hunt, tend to wounds, and be artistic.

Soon enough, we have an alien invasion story in the Stone Age, complete with traditional flying saucers and a group of ragtag aliens who've gathered together to fight the Monaxi and prevent them from destroying the Earth.

We follow the story from Munmeth’s POV, and when Gabby uses words he's not familiar with, they've been cleverly scratched out from the speech balloons. There are a few panels that repeat the same scene: how it really plays out and how the TARDIS translated it to Munmeth.

I like the discussion on the doomed fate of the Neanderthals. It seems like a classic theme in stories featuring them; see Ghostlight and Timewyrn: Genesis.

I'm a bit tired of these new alien baddies who turn out to be old foes of the Time Lords. It happens all the time in the Titan comics. The Monaxi here are no exception, even if we get a good climax with them.

The cliffhanger ending is certainly intriguing!

The first part of this story with Munmeth is honestly just really charming. A medicine man who's also an artist, seeing a modern day take on neanderthal life and cultures with Gabby's interactions with him, the way even with the telepathic circuits there's still some words Munmeth can't understand and the way that's shown to the audience.

After the sci-fi side of the story starts to rear its head though, that charm starts to be lost somewhat. Especially when it's revealed they're slavers from Gallifreyan myth, I'm sorry, I just can't buy that. That works when they're something that feels old or threatening without that, in those cases saying that can make something more threatening. These guys though, sure they're evil, but they're bog-standard evil, not mythologically evil. I don't believe for one second that they're the cruelest race teh time lrds worked with like 10 says here. The thing about them capturing people for The Death Zone is interesting, but they should've left it at that.

Sidenote, the doctor says he's doing Venusian Akido but he's fighting with a spear which just isn't how Akido works

5/10