The Fifteenth Doctor #18

'"No Signs of Life"' (2025) from Doctor Who Magazine 615.

Echoing the sentiment of some others on this site that six pages just really aren't enough to do a whole lot of anything apparently. All three of these solo-Fifteen stories have felt like a waste of what was a good opportunity to explore his character more in-between companions, but instead they're all faltering. This one here has the most potential, acting as a prologue to a comic strip from fourty years ago, which is a nice idea and a fun way to bridge the gap between Classic and Modern Doctor Who even moreso. While I find the little bit of world-building interesting, the story doesn't really go anywhere without venturing into that Classic story, and I can't say leaves any impression on me. The Panacea is a bit rad though.

Apparently this is a prequel to some 70s comic... without knowledge of this, this is just a super super short story that does very little of anything.

C.

Everyone expected a stealth prequel to a back-up comic strip from 1980, right? This used the six pages effectively, giving the Doctor a mystery to solve and a good enemy to go up against. The art was fantastic too. I'm ready for a longer strip with Belinda next though.

The economy of writing is impressive, the fact that Alan Barnes can even develop a story of this scope given such a low page count. The big shift in narrative every page though does mean that you don’t get a chance to probe too deeply into the brilliant outline of a story presented. The technobabble solution of The Doctor in taking down the planet’s big bad is a symptom of not having enough space to do more!

Yet another kind of medicore DWM comic strip. 6 pages is just not enough to tell a complete story in the form of a comic strip. This strip has some interesting ideas but is just not long enough to explore any of them in depth. Maybe I'd emjoy it more if I was familiar with the old DWM strip that this is a prequel to. The art is nice as always.