Blogtor Who: COMIC REVIEW: The Eleventh Doctor #4

Issue four of Titan Comics’ adventures with The Eleventh Doctor sees a new companion tagging along with Alice and her time-traveling pal. Jones, a thinly veiled version of a certain punk rock musician from the Seventies, is deeply dull, so presumably future issues will see him take the idea of naming his band "Flies From The Stars" and writing a song with the lyrics: "Mission control to Colonel John…," and running with them. The most interesting thing he has to say in this issue is to do with using the toilet. He does get to use a classic Doctor Who line though, when he finds the toilet to be a spaceship equipped with lots of men with guns.

Something is killing members of a spaceship crew who are researching beetle colonies and The TARDIS lands just as everyone starts to get a bit paranoid. The Doctor also has to deal with Alice turning against him after he carelessly describes her and other companions as "strays and stowaways."

Giving Alice some conflict with the Gallifreyan and expanding her back-story allows her character to develop a bit more, becoming more independent and taking the awe-struck Jones under her wing when the Time Lord goes off to do some investigating.

The murder mystery is deepened when The Doctor discovers the bodies of the victims. We also see the return of the rather unpleasant August Hart, but in a River Song-esque twist, before he’s actually met any of the TARDIS crew.