What would Victorian-set Doctor Who stories be without a Jack the Ripper story.  Jack the Ripper is one of the most perplexing mysteries of history.  There are hundreds of books all claiming to have worked out the true identity of the Ripper along with numerous TV and film versions of the story.  Historical fact surrounding the Ripper is shrouded in pet theories, Hollywood glamour and science fiction tropes.  Doctor Who has tackled the Ripper mystery before (contrary to what IDW initially announced when trailing this comic strip).  Two novels: The Pit and Matrix both purport to give the truth behind the murders.  The Pit reveals it to be the work of a shady organisation attempting to summon an ancient Time Lord enemy.  Matrix links the Ripper to the Valeyard in a confusing mix of alternate timelines.  The TV series’s only references to the Ripper have been in The Talons of Weng-Chiang (which uses a few Ripper tropes in its cavalcade of Victoriana) and A Good Man Goes to War which reveals that Madame Vastra has offed the Ripper off-screen moments before she is introduced to the world of Doctor Who.  The latter rather clearly contradicts the origin of the Ripper put forward in IDW’s Ripper’s Curse.

Here, the 11th Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in London, 1888 just in time to witness the aftermath of a Ripper murder and moments before another.  Amy, showing a handily detailed knowledge of the Ripper murders and their timeline, bolts off to prevent the next murder leaving Rory to fake credentials as the Earl of Leadworth, and the Doctor to be arrested as the Ripper!

Released shortly thereafter, the Doctor gains the trust of Inspector Abberline and Sir Charles Warren.  Warren turns out to be an alien in disguise, hunting a type of alien similar to himself.  The other alien, from a species the ‘Warren’ alien is at war with, is posing as a ‘Warren’ alien and commiting the Ripper murders to discredit the ‘Warren’ alien’s species.  Or something.  This part of the plot seemed a bit odd.  I’m not entirely sure how murdering prostitutes in Victorian London would discredit some obscure alien race you are at war with, especially when said aliens look almost identical to you.  This was a little unsatisfying, as was a lot of this comic strip.  The ending sees the two aliens disappear through some sort of vortex and there wasn’t much else in the lead up to this rather damp squib that grabbed my interest or enthusiasm.

It didn’t help that I hated the artwork style.  I think it was attempting to be vaguely photo-realistic and it reminded me of the awful illustrations from the Tom Baker annuals of the 70s.  It is horrible to look at and most of the pictures look like they’ve been based on screencaps of Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill just like the 70s annuals were based on publicity photos.  Ugh.

Historically, we have the presence of Inspector Frederick Abberline and Sir Charles Warren (even if for the duration of the story he is actually an alien imposter).  Abberline was Chief Inspector of the Metropolitan Police during the Ripper murders.  Warren was the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and took a lot of criticism for failing to catch the Ripper.  Bearing in mind for around 3 of the murders he was replaced by an alien, these accusations seem rather unfair…

We also meet three of the Ripper’s ‘canonical’ victims.  The first is Elizabeth Stride whose murder makes Amy realise the next death is due to happen imminently (apparently having learnt about it in school).  Stride’s murder doesn’t exactly match the MO of the Ripper established by the other victims, suggesting the Ripper was interrupted, and the comic strip hints towards this with a cab driver coming across the alien hunched over her body and scaring him off.  The next victim was Catherine Eddowes, murdered only 45 minutes later (which is why Amy thinks she has time to warn her).  The comic strip’s details of the time leading up to her death, match historical fact quite closely (alien killer excepted).  At this point, the comic strip diverts from history with Mary Warner, a fictitious invention, being the next victim.  This allows the comic strip to suggest history is changed by the Doctor’s acts returning history, eventually, to our ‘truth’ where is the next victim was Mary Kelly.  Kelly does feature in the story as Warner’s friend and then, when the Doctor is staking out Warner’s home, it is Kelly who is discovered as the next victim (contradicting the Doctor’s view of history, but bringing it back in line with our own).  Kelly was the Ripper’s final ‘canonical’ victim and, with the true Ripper disappearing into a vortex any subsequent murders possibly linked to the Ripper (and there are some, apparently) must be the result of some other maniac.

I didn’t enjoy this story and I think the main thing missing was an atmosphere of Victorian London.  This was mainly due to the artwork (did I mention I hated it) but also I didn’t like the ‘truth’ behind the Ripper: a relatively generic-looking reptilian alien with rather muddy reasons for committing the murders (as well as the discrediting the other race bit, there is also some half-hearted guff about absorbing certain things from the internal organs).  The previous ‘Who’ explanations for the Ripper, particularly the admittedly fan-wanky – It was the Valeyard; seem more satisfying.  (A History, my source book of choice, has an interesting sidebar on how all these different ‘truths’ behind the Ripper can coexist in the Doctor Who universe.  It’s quite nifty to be honest, based around the idea that historical mysteries have multiple explanations because they are mysteries.)

Furthermore, Amy and Rory aren’t characterised particularly well and neither is the 11th Doctor.  There is an odd bit where the Doctor and Rory pop forward to 2011 to discover that Amy is now a ‘canonical’ victim of the Ripper but I wasn’t entirely sure why they went off in the TARDIS in the first place, rather than just going and finding Amy in 1888.

Writing this review a little while after reading the comic strip I’m not sure the nuances of the story have stuck with me but my lasting impression is of a story I am in no hurry to return to.

Well, after really struggling through Spam Filtered, I am very pleased to say Ripper's Curse ~ Part 1 is a massive improvement on just about every count.

A Doctor Who story set during the time of Jack the Ripper, Tony Lee and a few artists really bring the era to life with a moody comic book. The colouring by Phil Elliott really gives this comic a nice feeling of dread and melancholy. While not every panel is perfect - some have no background at all while others still have very awkward facial expressions, the book does a great job at drawing you in and making the Whitechapel area feel dynamic and alive. There are other police, a very clever Inspector Frederick Abberline who amusingly blows through Rory's cover story in about an instant, and even press sniffing around, yet the story manages to balance all these characters and competing interests nicely in a way that doesn't feel chaotic even though all of this is going on in a single comic book issue.

On the whole it is very impressive even with the occasional line from the Doctor that just felt like we were force quoting Eleven from the television series. Ripper's Curse ~ Part 1 feels like the kind of story that feels missing from the Eleventh Doctor era in a really positive way. Moffat was never great at historical so something like this is always pretty welcome for Eleven, Rory, and Amy, but more significantly is stuff like Rory and Amy getting to take more direct agency over the story, or even a little moment like the Doctor asking for Rory's opinion on a medical matter knowing that Rory is a nurse with a more active experience dealing with human medicine. It's the sort of thing I always wished the Moffat era did more of with this TARDIS crew, so seeing it in this comic is very welcome indeed.

Part 2 of Ripper's Curse falters a bit in my eyes. Both the art and the writing do have interesting moments here and there, but otherwise it feels like we are scrambling to follow up on all of our interesting ideas in these comics. On the one hand, I do like some of the ideas present in here, and there is some good fun to be had along the way, as the whole story starts to involve some alien politics.

But, there is something uncomfortable about how alien we make the story of Jack the Ripper here. This is a real human that murdered real people, and an early example of a documented, traditional serial killer in human history. It throws me off here, while the most interesting aspect of this comic - Amy trying to save one of Jack's victims - is a very human dilemma. It really feels like Ripper's Curse could have been a pure historical or at least let the sci-fi content take a back seat, and been oh so more effective. Especially with Tim Hamilton's art. While not on point equally in every panel, Hamilton does an excellent job at consistently keeping a tense mood and atmosphere.

Ripper's Curse comes to a somewhat satisfying end. There's a certain level of quality to the artwork that is mostly consistent throughout the book, but still feels cheap or maybe a little rushed at times like the rest of this comic book trilogy.

There are creative elements to Part 3's story and on the whole I found it a pretty satisfying resolution. Amy is slated to be the next victim of Jack the Ripper, but instead of just being something the Doctor and Rory have to rescue she ends up doing that on her own, which I appreciated. Rory also got a good laugh out of me when he admitted to not being a real detective to Abberline, to his palatable relief.

All told Ripper's Curse is a big step up from Spam Filtered, but so far, as I kind of remember it, these IDW Doctor Who books, at least for 2011, were only ever just alright, and that memory is largely holding up.

This is exactly what you'd expect from a Jack The Ripper Doctor Who episode. The Doctor and companions land during a famous historical event, alien happens to be the reason behind said event, Doctor and co can't interfere...

I really love the tense atmosphere of this strip, and the creepy design of the alien that's revealed to be Jack The Ripper. The codenames the Doctor's companions take are pretty funny too - Amy Pond is Miss Marple and Rory Williams is Inspector Clouseau, two of course very iconic detectives.

This is basically The Fires of Pompeii for Amy Pond. She really gets to challenge the Doctor here, and why he can't just save one person from a terrible fate. It's such a fantastic exploration of the dilemma of 'What would you do if you knew the fate of somebody destined to die?'...and then the comic story goes and puts a twist in the tale later into the story. Brilliant stuff.

This is such an inspired and unique take on the historical. Here, everything is in flux and you have no idea who's safe anymore - even Amy is in danger, as history changes so she becomes one of Jack the Ripper's victims. You're on tenterhooks throughout this issue wondering how the Doctor and Rory are going to solve this, and that's no mean feat when usually you know that the Doctor/companions will survive anyway, because it's not the TV Show and they're still around on TV.