Starting things off, Unnatural Selection is just so fun.

A 'celebrity historical' with the First Doctor, bringing light to a lesser known historical figure, and a perfect one for this TARDIS team. Seeing Ian and Barbara's excitement to meet a historical lecturer while Vicky thinks it's a bit lacking being from the future is fun.

And then the return of the Zarbi! They look a lot better on the page than the screen (speaking of which, the art is a little odd in places but expressive in a way I quite like). The return of the Animus too, and it being defeated by Ian driving a train into it?!!? Incredible!

The Cliffhanger is also really interesting and sets up the overarching storyline at play, and I love that the final panel is in greyscale, adding to the emotion, and also just being a fun nod.

It's also the only place in this issue that One gets Ian's surname right, which I think is sweet, him getting it wrong throughout the issue shows off his mischievous spirit, but he does know it, and he does care a lot.

A pretty solid start overall to this comic book series. I checked this out since Prisoners of Time has some interesting bits of continuity and gets a lot of references in the wiki and the like for many different characters. So far, it is pretty good. I like how each story focuses on a different Doctor, yet the connections between each story feel stronger than something like Destiny of the Doctor where that connective tissue is threadbare at best. There's actually something concrete going on here, and though I am already privvy to the surprises in store with regards to the larger plot of Prisoners in Time, I am so far enjoying this journey.

Unnatural Selection is a pretty fun story in and of itself. It had a nice cozy feeling to it and an unusually pleasant experience for our TARDIS crew, to the extent it really sold me on just how great it would be for anyone to go back in time to 1868 and hear a lecture from Thomas Huxley. That stuff was really well done, and I even enjoyed when the plot took a turn into this whole adventure with the Zarbi back from the Web Planet television story. Without all those annoying sound effects, the Zarbi stand out as very interesting aliens distinct in not just the First Doctor Era but the franchise as a whole, so they were pretty fun to see. That being said, it quickly devolves into a rehash of Web Planet's original story, bringing back the Animus and putting the Zarbi right back in their enslaved state. That was a lot less fun to see, but watching Ian ram a frigging train right into the Animus at the end of the comic was a fun as hell turn that really made up for any shortcoming with the Animus coming back.

The one thing that holds this comic back - and it is a big problem if you ask me - is Simon Fraser's art. Now Fraser is far from an unknown artist and he has been working in comics for a long time, but I just did not enjoy his particular style personally at all. These are some of the most impressionistic facial expressions I have ever seen, and because of that, everyone looks very distorted and ill-defined as characters. Ian, Barbara, and Vicki all barely resemble their show selves. It's a real shame too because Ian is dressed as in a top hat here and we never get a good look at him dressed so dapper! This art really holds the comic back, so you can imagine I was tremendously relieved to see that Fraser does not do the art for all of Prisoners in Time. That's cool because each issue should have its own distinct feel to it appropriate to each incarnation, but in this case Unnatural Selection's art just doesn't mix well with the story at hand. It definitely affects my overall impression of the comic, but I still think this one is at least worth reading and it works well as a point to start with and kick off the rest of the comic book series.