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TARDIS Guide

Overview

Released

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Written by

Nick Abadzis

Publisher

Titan Comics

Pages

44

Location (Potential Spoilers!)

Wupatki, Waystation Terra

Synopsis

Looking for rest and relaxation, the Tenth Doctor and companion Gabriella Gonzalez take a trip to Earth Station Presley, a mining platform around an enormous gas giant – and home to one of the most spectacular sensory experiences in the universe! The gas giant is a perfect example of human colonists living in harmony with indigenous life – in this case, the Shan'tee: conceptual beings perceived by humans as hauntingly beautiful music! But the Doctor and Gabby are walking straight into a war. Something has corrupted the song of the Shan'tee – a mysterious signal of unknown origin – and now the human colonists are trapped in a fight for their lives! Can the Doctor, Gabby, and a synesthetic scientist uncover the truth and bring the war to an end without further bloodshed... or will the song consume them all? And... why does Gabby feel like the alien foes she's been facing are starting to rhyme...? Is there something less random and more sinister at work...?

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2 reviews

This review contains spoilers!

6️⃣⏹️ = FINE!

Thworping through time and space, one adventure at a time!

“NO SINGING IN THE RAIN!”

The world of Wupatki, the music-based Shan'tee, and the other life forms living in a symbiotic relationship are great concepts and wouldn't work as such on TV.

It's interesting to see a threat spreading a virus through music, threatening peace and life in Wupatki. But this also requires a lot of exposition, which slows down the narrative early on. There's a lot of action after the first act, followed by more exposition, so this isn't the breeziest of reads.

Tennant's Doctor is written well, while Gabby feels somewhat sidelined. The supporting characters don't pop out very well, with the exception of Smokey. The monster threat also isn't very palpable.

The art style is good, but Tennant's face looks weird at times.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

  • The Presley Foundation has probably been named so to reference Bowie Base One in The Waters of Mars.

Really enjoying this right off the bat, I love when the TARDIS is used to just show off the worlds, and this setting is really fun (also music entity is very gender). The use of Synesthesia as a method to communicate with them is really cool.

I do think a little more could've been done like how they did in Echo with the onomatopoeia, but generally I think the story and setting here are a lot stronger (I've moved Echo down to a 6 from a 7).

I love the fact that we're also seeing more different art forms through the 10th doctor's run, it's just really nice to go through them all with an artist as a companion, something I see will continue with the next story.

Overall a strong 7/10


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