Who can defeat this rogue? Well, it takes all the Doctors and the captured companions to foil this event and the graphic novel concludes with a selection of photographs and artwork. An unexpected surprise! With the kidnap of Martha, the story leads into the final two chapters where we learn of a forgotten companion and the revelation of an old nemesis seeking revenge. The next chapter features the Tenth Doctor and Martha, again both beautifully captured by the artist, and pitted against an old enemy from the Second Doctor's reign. The story ties in with Van Statten's vault and the mystery kidnapper of the Doctor's companions. The story also features Rose Tyler, who is captured by Drake Ayelbourne and his robot army. The Ninth Doctor is beautifully captured by the artist and works well with the script. The UK edition is part of Titan’s Doctor Who Archives series, and IDW’s single volume version is just titled Prisoners of Time (as were the three serialised earlier editions, distinguished by their covers).This is it - the final four issues previously released singly, now collected in the final volume of Doctor Who - Prisoners of Time. Overall, however, Prisoners of Time is a lot of fun, a cohesive story with time for every Doctor and a well perpetuated mystery threading through resulting in a good pay-off. The likenesses, at which he’s good, obviously took time, and it didn’t leave much for anything else but basic layouts and backgrounds. As he’s had the most direct involvement with the story, and was the TV Doctor at the time of the story, it’s the Smith Doctor who sees the plot through, with his two predecessors taking supporting roles. Several only have a line or two commenting on events, and some don’t even have that. ![]() The only real disappointment comes in a final chapter not long enough to accommodate eleven Doctors meaningfully, never mind all their companions as well. Lee Sullivan’s work on the Patrick Troughton Doctor is another standout, and the other artists involved are Philip Bond, Gary Erskine, Simon Fraser, Kev Hopgood, none of them disappointing. Oddly, although they’re all good to varying degrees, David Messina, Elena Casagrande and Matthew Dow Smith’s pages aren’t as memorable, although Smith having to use his full name rather than his usual Matt Smith credit to avoid confusion with the actor he draws is funny. The sample pages show the great variation in the art from the psuedo-realism of Mike Collins to the bright cartooning of Roger Langridge, with the style switching to modern era full process colour with the cinematic approach of the final four artists. For the adventures of any Doctor that preceded their publications they’ve selected artists who worked on British Doctor Who stories, including some nostalgic returns for the likes of John Ridgway, again drawing the Colin Baker version. There’s a great variance in the art, and this didn’t sit well with some readers of the original editions, but editorially IDW’s choices are eminently logical. Somewhat less considered is their plan that separating each Doctor from his companions will isolate him and render him more susceptible to defeat. Only one villain appears more than once, tying into the bigger picture, and the master villain plotting behind the scenes is a good choice, someone credibly able to take on the Doctor and with the means to do so. Within that they revive a good selection of enemies, some really obscure, and use most of them well, with the Ice Warriors playing a great role early on. The writers define the mood of their stories via the approach of the actor playing the Doctor at the time, so the third Doctor’s tale is more serious than that of the sixth. Chapters one to eleven are more or less all satisfying. Scott and David Tipton have a dozen chapters to tell their story and eleven Doctors to spotlight, so that falls conveniently into place with an episode left over for a finale. ![]() It had previously been available as three separate volumes in North America, but licensing complications prevented those being widely available to British readers, despite the majority of artists being British. For the 50 th anniversary of Doctor Who American licence holders IDW commissioned a twelve chapter story featuring every version of the Doctor, and the result was Prisoners of Time.
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