The Doctor and Ruby are out trying to see new things and have new experiences, which is until they run into an old enemy.  Your Major Spoilers review of Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #1, awaits!

DOCTOR WHO: THE FIFTEENTH DOCTOR #1

Writer:  Dan Watters
Artist: Kelsey Ramsay
Colorist: Valentina Bianconi
Letterer: Richard Starkings
Editor: Jake Devine
Publisher: Titan Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: July 3rd, 2024

Previously in Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor: Ruby and The Doctor have discovered a cyber gauntlet while travelling around the 18th century, curiously though, the gauntlet contains coordinates that lead them to the 29th century and the last shopping mall on Earth.

EVERYBODY MUST GO

Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #1 starts off with Ruby telling The Doctor about a strange dream she used to have about going to shopping centers, this is told via narration boxes over scenes of a young girl hiding in the lower levels of a large facility.  Eventually, The Doctor and Ruby arrive at Sanctum, the last shopping center on Earth.  The Doctor explains that the sun is wreaking havoc on the planet and soon it’ll be uninhabitable and that all of humanity has already left for the stars.  Then Ruby discovers shoppers still wandering around the mall.  The two of them talk to one of the shoppers as well as someone calling themselves The Sommelier and discover that the people who stayed did so because they were comfortable in the mall and that they didn’t trust going out into space.  A solar storm then knocks out the power and The Doctor and Ruby go exploring in the lower decks.  Down there they meet the girl from before as well as The Doctor’s old enemy, The Cybermen.

LIKE DUMPING OUT A JIGSAW PUZZLE

Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #1 does something that a lot of Doctor Who comics fail to do, and that is capturing the feel of an actual Doctor Who episode.  The problem is that it only captures what would be the first fifteen minutes of one of those episodes.  The whole plot of this episode can basically be boiled down to “The Doctor and Ruby walk around a shopping mall, talk to two people, meet a little girl, then encounter The Cybermen”.  To put it bluntly, it’s just kind of boring and not self-sufficient.  What this issue does do well though is giving the reader a good number of pieces to the larger puzzle.  Between the motivations of the shoppers, The Sommelier’s somewhat sinister nature, the little girl, The Cybermen, and the insects that make sporadic appearances, there are a lot of things that exist in this story and they each provide a good amount of intrigue.  There’s just no attempt to put them together.  There’s also not a lot here that gives the characters an opportunity to showcase their personalities being that a lot of things are just sort of happening to them and around them.  Of course, like any good Doctor Who episode, the fun is when all the loose threads start to come together, which makes it hard to justify this issue, which is mostly just introducing those threads, being its own fully-priced book.

STYLE AND STORY NOT JIVING

The art in Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #1 has a sort of roughness to it which makes it feel more appropriate for something like a storyboard, rather than a comic book.  A lot of the panels come off as being more for reference rather than conveying the actual look or personality of the characters.  Not to mention that scenes that are supposed to have a sense of movement, tend to have some unnatural poses and contorting.  It’s not bad to look at, it just doesn’t help at all with telling the story or creating a strong sense of place.

BOTTOM LINE:  NOT ENOUGH HERE

No one should expect that one issue in this day and age will tell a complete story.  But there still needs to be something here to grab your attention and it’s not unreasonable to want there to be something more than just an introduction to the story elements that will hopefully be used later.  This issue is simply lacking enough meat to be a full issue. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

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Doctor Who: Fifteenth Doctor #1

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You Gotta Give Us More

Doctor Who: The Fifteenth Doctor #1 is a classic example of when comic creators are writing for the trade, which honestly wouldn’t be a problem for a property like Doctor Who. But what is here is disappointing and lacking, making it hard to recommend buying this comic on its own.

• Writing

  5
• Art

  5
• Coloring

  5
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