The Tenth Doctor: The Weeping Angel of Mons

The Weeping Angels seem to me to be a uniquely televisual monster. Their whole gimmick is that they don't move if you can see them-- so you need a medium that clearly delineates movement. It's particularly clever, because Weeping Angels aren't just frozen when characters see them, but when you the audience are looking. Big Finish have done okay by them, but it's definitely been diminishing returns, and the way Big Finish must indicate movement by stings of music is often inadvertently hilarious, and people have to say things like, "Gosh, that statue wasn't there a second ago!" aloud.

Comics, I think, start out from even more of a disadvantage, in that in a comic nothing is moving when the viewer is looking at it. Possibly a clever writer could make use of this somehow, but judging from The Weeping Angels of Mons (not to mention Terrorformer), Robbie Morrison is not one. This is a generic Doctor Who pseudo-historical. Plus, if you think about it, a Weeping Angel actually isn't that scary in terms of what it does: yes, it plucks you out of time... so that you can live a long and fulfilling life! Most of the tv and audio episodes featuring them manage to get around that, but this one's setting flags up the problem. If you're a soldier in the trenches of World War I, this is actually a step up! Again, a clever writer could probably make something of that, but this story does not.

One of the real high points of Titan's first Tenth Doctor volume was the Doctor's new companion, Gabby Gonzalez, who felt like a real person with a distinctive voice. Unfortunately, there's none of that present here, where Gabby could be literally any young female companion. This isn't just a writing problem, but an art one, as she suddenly looks like a generic non-Hispanic white woman.

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Gabby & The Doctor land in No Man's Land in the midst of The Great War in 1916. There they discover that Scottish infantrymen and their German opponents are both facing a much greater danger - The Weeping Angels! The battlefield scenes of mud, smoke, and darkness are a perfect fit for the angels and the comic quickly sketches an interesting cast of guest characters. Gabby continues to be wonderful and is growing into one of my favorite companions rather quickly. The story builds on the Weeping Angels mythos created in "Blink" but not as well explored in their later tv stories.

The brilliant - if obvious in retrospect - twist is that one of the soldiers is sent back in time to a nearby French village, where he marries and settles down as a farmer, waiting to catch up to the First World War and bail out his friends.SPOILER>

The only downside to this comic is that the Doctor seems to a sanctimonious ass for much of this comic, which I guess is true to the characterization of the Tenth Doctor, but I still don't have to enjoy it. The volume also includes a one-issue story called "Echo" set in contemporary Brooklyn which is highly derivative of the Pranavores plot except these are creature who amplify sound instead of feelings. The resolution is also derivative of "Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks" so it makes me wonder if the creators of this issue were just in a rush to get something out. ( )

Doctor Who vs the Weeping Angels? Add in a good WWI story and I was hooked. The second story while good was not as strong as the first. The Tenth Doctor has been the stronger of the different version and is a must read for Doctor Who fans. ( )

As a fan of the TV series, I was ecstatic to find this book at my favorite bookstore. The storyline was great where the Doctor and his companion (not one that was on the show) wind up during the war and find the weeping angels all around. Did they escape or did they blink? I'm not giving that away.

For the rest of the review, visit my blog at: http://angelofmine1974.livejournal.com/121479.html ( )

Very good. Like the best of the Tenth Doctor's episodes. ( )