Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor #1 - Titan Comics

DOCTOR WHO: THE FOURTH DOCTOR No. 1, April 2016

Writing for a television character who at their popularity’s peak “was considered to be the most recognisable and iconic incarnation of the Doctor both in the United Kingdom and internationally” cannot have been easy for Gordon Rennie and Emma Beeby, but fortunately for “Titans Comics” and this publication’s 14,129 readers, the duo’s script for Issue One of “Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor” undoubtedly plays out like a genuine episode from the science fiction programme’s Mid-Seventies. Indeed, the sense of gothic horror which pervades every scene of “Gaze Of The Medusa” makes it very easy to imagine that producer Philip Hinchcliffe is just off-screen ‘overseeing’ both Tom Baker and the late Elizabeth Sladen’s studio performances.

Arguably the biggest reason for this twenty-two page periodical's successful replication of such a specific period in the BBC science fiction television programme's lengthy history is in its handling of the titular character and the fact you can actually hear the Lancashire-born actor’s distinctive voice within its dialogue. Wide-eyed with excitement at a Victorian viewing of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Rodeo Show one moment, and then heroically interceding betwixt a pair of Scryclops stalking the foggy streets of London in the next, the deer-stalker wearing time traveller appears to have stepped straight out of the celluloid and into the comic panel; “Oh, you’re foreigners! That’s a coincidence! I’m not local either, so --”

Slightly less likeable however, is this opening instalment’s supporting cast, Professor Odysseus James and his “overly bold” daughter, Athena. The academic’s offspring is pleasing enough, with her willingness to brave a gigantic Cyclops simply to stop Sarah Jane being abducted marking her out as a potential precursor to the Sixties “lady spy adventurer” Emma Peel. But the young lady’s father is as insufferable an egotist as he is cowardly, and resultantly soon starts to grate upon the nerves even when the Doctor is rather humorously cutting the bearded scholar’s boasting short.

Sadly, despite the quality of this tome’s penmanship, Brian Williamson’s illustrations debatably can bring the story-telling down a notch or two on account of the “Judge Dredd” artist’s overly-detailed attempt to capture the perfect likeness of Tom Baker. The freelance comic book artist can clearly draw competently enough, and yet throughout the adventure appears to try and duplicate ‘classic’ stills taken of the show’s leading man rather than simply sketch him into each picture in the same manner as he does everyone else.

The regular cover art of "DOCTOR WHO: THE FOURTH DOCTOR" No. 1 by Alice X. Zhang