Under the Volcano

When going into Under the Volcano, I thought that this would be in the same vein as The Fires of Pompeii, and to be honest, it is. But it’s worse.  

I don’t recall much about this comic, so I will be using the faint memories I have. Oh, and I only read it a few days ago. 

The story is dull, with a very basic and average plot. 

If there is one thing I like about Doctor Who Adventures comics, it’s the fact that they at least have interesting concepts. This one doesn’t. 

I would not recommend this story, as it is, quite simply, an utter waste of time.  

But if you feel compelled to read it, if you’re trying to complete all of the DWA strips, like me, or you’re just insane, also like me, then I suppose no harm will be done. After all, you won’t remember it! 

This DWA comic strip is from the very early days of the magazine when they, for no apparent reason split the story into two parts in the same issue.  The first part does end on a sort of cliffhanger, which I assume is the reasoning, but the story is split roughly 2/3 and 1/3 rather than half and half, which makes for a rather anticlimatic second section.

The Doctor and Rose are in Indonesia and open the story tied to a stake by natives.  Before long they are inside the volcano and have encountered lava-like aliens intent on drilling away the core of the Earth.  They escape and defeat the monsters with cold water.

If this sound a little like The Fires of Pompeii, you’d be right.  But let’s be fair, this was published a fair while before that story and the similarities are relatively superficial.  An interesting element of this story is the characterisation of the aliens as slightly dimwitted, argumentative simpletons.  It reminds me a little of the Ogrons.

The Doctor is pretty much spot on in his dialogue and characterisation, but Rose comes across as very aggressive and condescending towards the Doctor.  It doesn’t seem quite right and I found myself disliking her across the quite short length of the strip.

Historically, this revolves around aliens causing the eruption of Krakatoa (and is very similar to the ‘explanation’ of Vesuvius’ eruption in The Fires of Pompeii).  Presumably the 9th Doctor is somewhere on the other side of the island (he is pictured there in one of Clive’s records in Rose).

Like most of the DWA strips this gets points for its unusual time and place but is far too short to be satisfying.  The unlikeable characterisation of Rose doesn’t help, but I did enjoy the silly aliens, even if their defeat was reminiscent of throwaway scenes in The Fires of Pompeii.