Revolutions of Terror

Doctor Who: Revolutions of Terror was the start of the Tenth Doctor at Titan comics. It is, right? They didn’t have another series before this? I’m too lazy for research.

Whatever it was or wasn’t the start of though, it was very good.

RoT starts off immediately giving a proper sense of intrigue to the situation. A series of weird and spooky phenomena are woven throughout the first pages of the story, which detail the life of our soon to be companion. We are thrown into the life of Gabriella and see a bit of her relationship with her friend, how the relations are in her family, her work at their restaurant, her going to school and that she has a liking to drawing (big thing for the next story). Nothing of it feels like forced exposition, and it is just like looking into the day of someone’s life. Especially like the conversation her parents have. It sums their conflicts well up and shows a good lot of personality for both.

Meanwhile all the slice of life introduction the Doctor shows up. Not only the Doctor, but the weird happenings as well. Building up a mystery with some heavy supernatural vibes. For a bit, it keeps as background happenings through Gabriella’s life, but soon enough, the Doctor and the creepy stuff directly intersect with her and the adventure begins.

Early on already there are some excellent action sequences, like when Gabby and Ten meet for the first time. The setting of the moving subway (not tube, they are in America remember) helps with the fast, moving feel of the action while also keeping you feeling stuck. Chased by the terrifyingly illustrated monster. A perfect reflection of fear itself of one’s own inner demons. It also allows Gabby’s character to show a lot of personality, and be real here, the mirror thingy is a better “look at how clever the companion is” than the entirety of Amy in The beast below (sorry Moffattians).

A little thing i appreciate about Gabby’s character is how realistically she’s written. When the Doctor tells her to leave after their first interaction, she does. As most people still in shock would. After a few hours of thinking and realizing: wait wtf actually just happened. Maybe i should go back to that guy. But also concluding that the entire situation is probably too much. Thinking it’s silly and hopeless anyways. Still unsure though wanting, she gives up for now. Not a bad show of character and emotions for three mostly silent pages.

Gabby and the Doctor get tangled up in each other’s stories again, and we are introduced to the ‘monsters’ of this story. The Pranavores. And the, uh, bad Pranavores. Beings living on a different dimensional plane on our Earth who feed off, and evoke human emotions. Something like that. Basically they’re a tool for the writer to touch upon humanity and feelings in this comic and i love that sorta stuff, okay? It is an absolutely wonderful concept. Beings that have always been there and are basically a part of us. They might look a bit scary, but in the end do no harm. Except for the like, bad ones i suppose (tbf tho those arent supposed to be there soo). Those are here to tell you that if you have depression, you can blame these guys. (And to turn people into zombies I GUESS) Anyways. They are cool. They’re like big dimensional emotional versions of micro animals. I’m not completely sure if that analogy makes sense. Just like the Doctor’s analogy for colonization. Like no i think that’s just attacking. But i respect the effort, Abadzis.

After saying hi nice to meet you to the emobeings, Gabby and the Doctor have some nice interactions. The characters’ personalities just work perfectly for each other (wow it’s almost like it was written to be that way). A bit of a typical DW explain them munster and conjoin up a nonsense sciencefiction solution, but surprisingly well paced in this comic form. There’s enough in the dialogue to make it feel like more than a necessary explain point. It again helps fleshing out the two character’s their relationship as well. Is nice.

We then get what i think is an absolutely brilliant ‘monster reveal’ in the same vein of The empty child being the one uttering the phrase, and there being one suit too much in Library of the dead.

Gabby starts getting concerned, falling deeper and deeper into negative thoughts. Then it’s revealed that one of the depression-beasts is latched onto her. Genius little moment. Had it been televised it would’ve made the rounds i tell ya.

The Doctor and Gabby split off. Doc goes to whatever it is that the bad emo beings come from, and Gabby makes sure that those exact beings don’t ruin Ten’s trip.

The way these two ultimately pretty separate narratives are still being told together is really commendable in my opinion. No “we follow the Doctor for a few pages, then we follow Gabby”. These two things are shown simultaneously, panel next to panel. The Doctor walking around gets turned from what potentially could have been a kind of sleep-inducing exploring sequence, into a thrilling timer. We experience Gabby’s stress and wanting for Ten to come back, and every step he takes is another second closer to his return to guarantee security again.

And then we drop that because we need some conventional storytelling as well and then i dont know what happened because i fell asleep. Ten gets a bit of action going and talks to a lizard lady. It’s all very sad i think i would have said if i wasnt so tired it’s 4 a.m. Ten please come home.

Opposite of that are Gabby’s pages, which can carry an interesting narrative on its own way better. It’s the same as we saw before, and it still works well. The scenes feel very personal. They are the first where we see Gabs facing the threat without the Doctor, and when you’ve got a threat whose whole shtick is that it plays with your emotions… That’s not a difficult setup to write some good scenes with.

Hey lookat that Ten is back that bish. Have i told you he’s like my least favorite Doctor? Here i like him quite a lot though. His characterization comes across as a lot less emo. He seems nicer. Almost 14 ish. And no whining about Rose. This Ten seems like the kinda guy who is a little bit distant, but very much open to making genuine friends. It takes the idea of “after Donna” in the direction that she’s made him a better person. Someone who has learned from the experience, and while still a bit melancholic about her loss, he mostly sees the happiness in what was gained instead. Personally I like it a lot more than where Ten goes on TV. Time lord victorious and all, where it’s pretty much the exact opposite. But who knows, maybe later comics will go about that. Euh, anyways, talking about the Doctor’s characterization going off 1 issue only, lol.

Oh yeah Ten’s back that was it. He takes Gabby to the TARDIS for the “it’s bigger on the inside momenttrademark”. Except that Gabby doesn’t say that. I really like her reaction here. A: “ohh… wow. Haha. Okay. Of course…” After all what she’s seen today, the entrance to the Tardis is a realization moment for her. Like rightttt, makes sense. Of course this weirdo is an alien himself. A different use of this type of scene that I haven’t seen before. To be fair, I haven’t seen much DW this couldve easily happened before so uhhhhh in which case SHE SAID WILD BLUE YONDER DID NICK ABADZIS JUST OREDICT THE 60TH ANNUVERSRY SPECIAALSL???

We go and take a walk to the climax of our story. A stroll through the city, where we look at the place that everything has happened in. We see people the Doctor has helped. We see how the place reacts to the situation, take a moment to think of the larger totality of it. Panic in the entire city. And then we go back to small and personal. To singing, to a party and to Gabby’s family. To the worry of a parent about their child. That even if it looks really, really bad in that bigger picture, that you need to find something small to hold your hope on. So sing a song, one close to your heart. Find that happiness in the little things oh so small. Join in on the celebrations, keep those spirits up, as the Doctor solves everything with his deus ex machina machine. (Does machina machine count as RAS syndrome?)

That’s the main part i don’t like. The Doctor just has a this solves everything device. Not that I’d know how to handle it better, but that’s kind of the point, is it not? That the reader thinks: “ohhh there are monsters everywhere, how is the clever Doctor going to solve this?” and then he solves it by solving it. And then the reader goes: “well yeah I could’ve made that up myself too”.

It’s not completely unbearable to me here, because the device has been here all that time anyways and we know we have the information it can do this and that, but I can’t be the only one who is always disappointed when they press the magic button and in a stream of exploding light, everything is just solved. Am I asking too much of typical science fiction comic? Maybe I am. Maybe i was just expecting a liiiitle bit more because the rest of the comic had been so good. Maybe a little thingy about the monsters needing back their humanity from emotions or something? Like, just anything but “big epic blast and technobabble”. (Like yeah sorry that talk about the Pranavores afterwards is just technobabble imo)

To be fair, the way it was paced, the comic was absolutely building up to such a “big epic blast” moment. Like from that perspective this is perfectly fine. It’s just… yeah. You get it.

Let’s talk about the art!! Let’s talk about the art for a bit. Just like talking blah blah short while just a bit. Please Elena Casagrande save me. You too Arianna Florean. I didn’t mind the art thaaat much in the issues I read before this (Empire of the wolf was ok and Weapons of past destruction was…) but actually, in comparison, they kinda sucked. I thought that was the standard i should’ve expected from these but no, sorry, I will have a higher standard for DW comics art from now on. Just like the writing, a step up. Not as much as the writing, but still a solidly large step up. There is actual, like comic book art which feels like it’s just as important to the story as the writing. There is personality in the art. Every time Casagrande decides to be fancy and show a moment of solitude by making the entire background white I cheer. Actual personality. I didn’t realize I was missing it. This, like, these are pages and panels that I want to look at. Not just read to get the story. I want to look at these because they look good. This is becoming more “making those other comics sound bad” than it is “making this comic sound good”, sorry I know. It’s just, the difference man. The panel compositions are actually to serve the story!

I think in general, the artstyle is just really pretty too. And Casagrande definitely puts more effort into those ‘little’ things like backgrounds and evoking a certain feeling in a panel than a lot of others. Helped a lot by the amazing colourist as well of course. Just saying it here already so I won’t need to mention it again; I’m very much a layman if we talk about colouring. Like i just say it looks good and is great okay. Im at the stage where i can only describe my feelings whenever it looks bad lmfao.

The Doctor and Gabriella have saved the day. They now get the chance to enjoy themselves on the day of the dead, and just simply, be happy. And so we are treated with some very sweet moments.

As in conclusion, our, I’d say quite incredible for a first, story concludes. Not that I really noticed though. Like it ends very sudden.

Relatively simple, but thoroughly enjoyable, will say I wasn’t 100% convinced on a modern day american companion at first, but Gabby ends up being great and completely disuaded any fears I might have. One thing that I really appreciate about the RTD era is how human companions feel, and how you get a peek into their home life, and that’s done here really well. Her conflict with her family is there and is a big part of things, but you can still tell how much she loves them and I love how the resolution to that ended up tying into the plot’s general resolution.

Also having an artist as a companion for a comic is a really fun idea, and while they get more into it in The Arts in Space, I do love when they do here as well.

Wow, what a treat. I checked this out wanting to learn more about Gabby, a comic exclusive companion I've seen crop up a few times, and so Revolutions of Terror really proved to be an exceptional proper introduction to the character I quite enjoyed on most every level.

The overall plot is pretty great - it is not only creative, but full of some very savvy details that blend very well into the continuity of Doctor Who. This goes on a couple of levels - at the most basic, there are many references as the Doctor is battling psychic entities in this story that manifest some of his greatest fears - like the Weeping Angels or Sutekh. On a deeper level, this story has a good sense of where the Doctor is emotionally - between the Waters of Mars and End of Time where he was normally avoiding companions. It also really does a good job at explaining how psychic phenomenon might work in the Doctor Who universe, introducing this concept of a psychosphere - a sort of psychic field on Earth no different than our atmosphere that can affect all living things on the planet. That really blends nicely with stories like Sound of Drums so I appreciated the details here.

Gabby is also quite exceptional as a companion. We get a decent sense of her life, her family, her perspective on things - at least a lot more than your average companion introduction story. It's done pretty well even if it does kind of make her super-special companion-worthy like so many others in the New Who era by the end. Plus it is a lot of fun to have a character unapologetically American, and as a member of a Latinx family living in New York, that really made her feel like a bit of a stand-out compared to most any other companion in Who history.

The weakest aspect to this comic is the dialogue though - it is hard to get Ten's voice down right and this comic often makes him feel a lot cringier than David Tennant ever really was in the show.

I also really like the art in this comic. Some panels are more detailed than others and that can affect the presence of some characters like Gabby's dad pretty heavily, but there is a lot of creativity to the visuals and a lot of cool covers along the way. Overall this was a very impressive three issues and left me excited to see what other adventures Ten and Gabby have gone on.

What a great start to the Tenth Doctor series. The plot was relatively simple but imaginative. The ideas explored are something that could fit easily into the show. It didn't feel out of place within established Doctor Who lore, with a quick setup, decent pace and satisfying resolution. The characters felt right. The Tenth Doctor seemed to fit with what we know, and Gabriella 'Gabby' Gonzalez seem like she could work well as a companion. The art was solid, even if sometimes Tenth looked a little off model where usually he looked like Tennent. Quick and worthy addition to the lore of Ten.