December Books 2) The Forgotten, by Tony Lee

The Tenth Doctor wakes up in a mysterious museum which appears to contain relics of his past lives; tended by Martha Jones, he finds himself reliving certain experiences of each of his previous nine incarnations, until he works out what is really going on. (Set shortly after Journey’s End.)

With any multi-Doctor story, you have to assess the writer’s success in characterising each Doctor (and companions), and with comics you have to grade the artists’ ability to depict the actors’ faces as well. The Forgotten scrapes a pass mark on both counts. There are some seriously jarring notes in both the One/Ian and Three/Brigadier scenes, which suggests that Tony Lee doesn’t quite get the male companions (Jack Harkness is in the vicinity but unseen at a later point in the narrative). And unfortunately Stefano Martino, the artist for issue 3, is rather awful at portraying Ten, Four and Five. (Pia Guerra and Kelly Yates are at least adequate for the other five issues.)

At the same time there is definitely cause for fannish glee. There are an awful lot of companions featured here (in order: Susan, Ian, Barbara, Steven, Jamie, Zoe, the Brigadier, Jo, Sarah, Harry, Leela, Romana II, Adric, Nyssa, Tegan, Turlough, Kamelion [!], Peri, Mel, Ace, Rose and Martha) and most of them are at least half-decently done. Putting aside my whining about the recognisability of the faces, the art is excellent. The story has a certain internal integrity and ties in rather well (as it turns out) to New Who’s Season Four, though with a decent number of continuity references to the whole of the series. Thoroughly good fun.

One thought on “December Books 2) The Forgotten, by Tony Lee

  1. Huh. I generally like Bear, and perversely your dislike of the book makes me want to give it a go. 🙂

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