The Doctor teams up with his arch-enemy to defeat an unlikely adversary from possessing the power of time!
The penultimate issue to the Third Doctor Adventures maintains its action fast pace as a frustrated Doctor finds himself forming an alliance with a Time Lord enemy. Writer Paul Cornell is continuing to delight us with new elements to the Doctor’s sometimes hard to tackle personality. The Doctor clearly feels violated that the Second Doctor’s imposter has been observing and analysing him, obtaining bits of Time Lord technology to find the secrets of time.
It’s a wonderful addition to the story as we feel closer to this incarnation to the Doctor than ever before. The human qualities that he presents here; betrayal, frustration and annoyance are the most effective way of getting us to relate to his situation.
The Second Doctor’s inhabitant expresses an obsession with learning how to become a Lord of Time himself, which is a brilliant motivation for a character who has spent a lot of time falling through the vortex. His poetic and meticulous speech is a compelling piece of dialogue which drives the imposter’s development to dangerous levels.
This issue is artist Chris Jones and colourist Hi-fi’s best work with a blend of subtle, smooth browns and whites to display the scientific environment to his rich blues and yellows that visually present the scale of the Micro Machines, this a superb collection of skill and creative vitality.
There is a large amount of aesthetically pleasing character artwork, especially the Third Doctor’s and his enemies’ expressive faces. The detail is so precise that you feel much more immersed into their personal journeys.
More so, the story propels us through the Doctor’s unexpected team-up to an almighty visual cliff-hanger which is epic in scale and grand in imagination.
The fourth instalment to the Third Doctor Adventures is packed full of visual and colourful spectacles, perfect characterisation and an engaging story which is laced with seventies humour and intelligent language.
Blogtor Rating 10/10
Doctor Who: Third Doctor – The Heralds of Destruction #4 is available now in digital or print form.
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