DWM COMICS: STORY 123 (The Ninth Doctor: Story 1)

I was looking forward to the Ninth Doctor’s DWM strips.

Unfortunately, they’re a disappointing mixed bag, with only a few highlights.

The first comic, The Love Invasion, is not one of these highlights.

Written by Gareth Roberts (urgh), there is nothing in this story I liked, except maybe the artwork, which may be the only thing saving The Love Invasion.

The opening scenes do a good job of setting it all up, only for everything to go downhill the second the villain is introduced, turning the comic into an abysmal Doctor Who Adventures effort.

It’s a poor story, but there are some very, very small moments I do like.

Overall, recommended for Ninth Doctor enthusiasts or completionists only.

I really love the villain, he’s introduced as this very intelligent character from the way he talks, but as he talks more it’s obvious he just has a massive ego and wants to seem smart. His whole thing is that he wants to stop a future war with his alien race and the earth by fixing all the earth's problems in the past, but the way he goes about it is insane. He has an army of women for some reason and he thinks blowing up the moon is the best way to stop the space race.

The story wants to convey that it is wrong for one person to play god in this way, that even if his plan did work, it would still be taking away humanity's own agency by not letting them make their own decisions and mistakes. I think that’s sort of dumb, all of humanity didn’t decide most of the things that Igrix wants to prevent, those were the decisions of the government. The doctor is telling rose “what do you think of a world where an alien prevents the vietnam war, and ends poverty and famine and all the world's problems” and she’s like “that sounds unethical, that means taking away all of our world government's agency, they chose to make the world worse and to take away that choice from them, give them only the choice to make the world better would be wrong” i don’t know, i disagree. Overall, fun story but it was written by Gareth Roberts so it just leaves you bit confused.

There is something comforting in delving into a 9th Doctor comic which is contemporary to Eccleston’s time onscreen, even if the story is just okay. I liked seeing Eccleston’s Doctor being portrayed on the page a pt a point where we are still getting to know his character and things are flexible.