The Twelfth Doctor: Terrorformer

If I ever become Grand Czar of Doctor Who Tie-Ins, I would have a stamp made for rejecting proposals, and it would read, "IF YOUR BORING NEW VILLAIN IS AN ANCIENT ENEMY OF THE TIME LORDS, IT'S STILL BORING." This volume opens with "Terrorformer," a painfully by-the-numbers Doctor Who story with cartoonish characterization, and a terribly uninteresting villain that I'm sure we're doomed to hear more about going forward.

It continues with "The Swords of Okti," about the Doctor and Clara unravelling some kind of plot by an evil family and evil aliens across past and future India (picking up on some of the hints in the Moffat era that future India is a space power). This has its moments, but suffers from some weird tonal shifts; a guest character's dad dies, and moments later she's grinning widely and bantering about jelly babies.

I didn't think much of artist Dave Taylor's stiff, plasticky faces, especially the somewhat caricatured villains in the second story.

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The first volume of Twelfth Doctor comics contains two stories. Terrorformer is a totally outer-space story involving advanced terraforming technologies that go spectacularly wrong (hence the title). The Swords of Okti takes place on a future Earth several centuries ahead of us and features the Indian space program, along with Indian legend.

I found the stories rather good. They pretty fairly represented the Twelve and Clara dynamic, and I especially liked when Clara became possessed in the second story. In the TV show, my favourite Clara moment was when she became a Zygon. I always thought she was way more interesting as an evil character.

The art was kind of weird in places. Terrorformer in particular looked a bit sketchy, not terribly detailed, and at one point Peter Capaldi looked like Alex Trebek. I preferred how he looked on some of the alternate covers provided at the end of the volume, especially the one where he’s standing against a brick wall and the artists’ names are written as graffiti on a wall. (I have a T-shirt with this cover design.)

Overall, I enjoyed this adventure into the world of Doctor Who comics and will read more! ( )

Okay story, the Doctor's characterization isn't bad (even if some of Twelve's less pleasant personality traits take the forefront), and Clara is...Clara. ( )

Two separate twelfth doctor & Clara stories. I kind of felt that the first story was going to continue in the second half but it didn't. I can only assume that the baddie will pop up in another story later on. ( )