The Fugitive Doctor starts her quest across time and space in a fun and engaging comic
Opening chapter Calling the Doctor set out the parameters for what to expect from Doctor Who’s latest multimedia event Circuit Breaker. Someone is messing with time, removing objects from vital pivot points in history and relocating them to UNIT’s Black Archive. It’s bad enough these objects are giving off dangerous energies, threatening to rip time and space apart in modern London. But more than that, they’re all related somehow to the Doctor. Their absence from their proper place may well have corrupted the Time Lord’s timeline. In fact Osgood fears it may have even erased their existence all together. Osgood and her assistant Andrew have realized that only an incarnation from before the earliest object can help them. An incarnation known as… the Fugitive.
Titan Comics’ Adversary of the Daleks picks up the action in comic book form. The Fugitive Doctor selects a Dalek gun-stick as her first object to return. It’s basically a random choice, with her asking “What’s a Dalek?” when Osgood and Andrew show concern. Improbably, her quest takes her to ancient Greece, where local villager know for a fact the Olympian gods are real… because they’ve seen them in person. The Doctor decides to get to the truth. Before long, though, humans, gods, and Time Lord alike must face the power of the Daleks.
The underlying character tensions between the Doctor and UNIT never quite convince, due to the Fugitive never really being as badly behaved as their reactions suggest
Beyond this basic action, Adversary of the Daleks establishes some of Circuit Breaker’s underlying tensions. The Fugitive is only here reluctantly, and perfectly prepared to walk away if pushed too hard. From her point of view, her future isn’t set, and she’s not convinced the fate of her potential future incarnations are her concern. Besides which, she’s not even sure she likes the sound of these soppy do-gooders she allegedly becomes.
Meanwhile, Osgood and Andrew are shocked by this regeneration’s seeming callousness and blunt manner. Unfortunately, this aspect isn’t entirely convincing. It’s a good concept in principle. The Fugitive Doctor is after all described as a more ruthless, violent, and cold-blooded version than the ones we know. However, like the War Doctor before her (or after her… well, you know what Blogtor means), she’s limited by the fact the BBC naturally don’t really want to show any Doctor doing too immoral.
The result is a great deal of talk about how different, even horrible, the Fugitive is. She’s impatient, and has no time for whimsy, while ready to berate stupid pudding brained apes when they mess up her plan. But she’s neither cruel nor cowardly. Her first instinct when she sees people in trouble is to help, and when she sees a bully she drops what she’s doing to stand up to them. On the scale of these things, she’s no more brusque or judgemental than the Sixth or Twelfth Doctors.
As a result, it makes the UNIT team’s criticism seem more like a plot device, rather than something flowing naturally from anything she’s actually done.
As a one part Dalek comic, Adversary is a fun time spent in the company of this most mysterious incarnation
That said, the one part story is a fun, if straightforward, Dalek tale. Dulce Montoya and Dan Watters’ scrip also does a credible job of establishing in just a few pages the character dynamics that will carry Circuit Breaker into all the full length novels and audio plays to follow. Roberta Ingranata’s art, meanwhile, is as stylish and imaginative as ever.
As with most of Circuit Breaker, Adversary of the Daleks works well both as a standalone comic and part of the wider arc. It’s not compulsory reading, or likely to challenge Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey for hit Greek myth of the summer. But it’s nevertheless a fun read, and time spent with the Fugitive Doctor is never wasted.
Doctor Who: Circuit Breaker #1
The Doctor arrives in Thessaloniki in ancient Greece where she discovers that even the gods fear strange visitors from across the universe.
You can find links to order your copy here.
