The Fairest of Them All

The Fairest of Them All is a brief Doctor Who Adventures comic strip and what a strange beast it is. The Doctor, Amy and Rory arrive in what seems to be an old American Wild West town – apparently deserted – to watch a meteor storm. A spaceship crashes into the town and an alien emerges. The alien ponders on bringing some massive air-conditioning units to Earth and the Doctor gets rid of it by making its make-up run.

Yes – the Doctor defeats an alien menace by making its make-up run!

The alien, when it emerges from the crashed ship, is revealed to be some sort of bear-like humanoid dressed in the bizarrest outfit ever. A hat like Carmen Miranda, a tight-fitting green dress, green boots and a massive wrestler-trophy style belt. The outfit is topped off with a necklace and bangles. The story is very vague about what species this alien is, where they’re from or anything beyond its bizarre appearance. I imagine that’s part of the point, as the alien is totally obsessed with its image but it leaves the story feeling very slight and inconsequential.

I’m also not sure if the bear is female or some sort of terrible drag artist! There are certain frames where it looks decidedly ‘male’ and its physique is quite muscular.

For some reason, the alien’s weapon turns stuff into mirrors with which it begins to admire itself. The Doctor, Amy and Rory use these mirrors to reflect the sun straight at the alien, melting it’s make-up and sending it packing.

At the end, Amy bemoans losing a potential shopping buddy and being left with ‘her boys’.

The historical setting of 1908 is arbitrary and seems to be reasoned around wanting a deserted town. As a coda to my Wild West stories, it hardly counts.

It is, frankly, a terrible story. It’s shallow and dull and quite a few frames are confusing. It’s only four pages long but I had to reread it to make sense of what was actually happening (it wasn’t initially clear what the alien’s weapon was doing).

I rarely say this about Doctor Who but…one to miss.