STORY PLACEMENT THIS STORY TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE NOVEL "THE MANY HANDS" AND THE TV EPISODE "UTOPIA."
WRITTEN BY CHARLIE KIRCHOFF
ILLUSTRATED BY TOM MANDRAKE
RECOMMENDED PURCHASE IDW GRAPHIC NOVEL RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER 2009 (NORTH AMERICA ONLY).
BLURB En route to witness The Beatles' famed rooftop concert in 1969, The Doctor and Martha Jones INSTEAD find themselves in rural England in 1669, where alien interference HAS REVIVED the Black Death... |
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! SEPTEMBER 2009
Black Death is the final one-off adventure from IDW Comics, at least for the time being, and it’s a grim and spooky affair. With a 17th century rural setting, it feels quite unlike the majority of the tenth Doctor’s adventures, instead possessing the feel of an early Hammer movie. Mandrake’s dark, dingy artwork only adds to this feeling.
I have to say, I can’t understand why plague doctors haven’t been used as Doctor Who monsters before. They’re perfect - the creepiest example of a real-life entity I can think of. Their heavy cloaks and hats are spooky enough when skulking in the shadows, but it’s the beaked face-mask that really gives me the willies. In fact, it’s a shame when they rip open their costumes to reveal their true selves - the macroviruses are finely designed monsters, but not nearly as scary as the plague doctors themselves. Also, they were done on Star Trek: Voyager years ago.
Still, it’s a great idea: drawing a par- allel between the bubonic plague on Earth, and an unending war on an alien world, between glowing humanoids and the macroviruses. The humanoids are their world’s equivalent of our anti- bodies, the entire planet the equivalent of a diseased body. When one of the antiboides crashes on Earth, he is taken in by a priest, who views him as an angel with healing powers. But the viruses soon follow, leading to the outbreak of a new plague. “Viruses reproduce by invading cells,” says the Doctor, “and the people are those cells!” A fantastic idea, leading to some hideous eruption from the infected victims. Absolute rubbish, of course, but effective nonetheless. Infecting Martha also ups the threat, giving the story a real sense of a race against time. A good little chiller.
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Copyright © Daniel Tessier 2010
Daniel Tessier has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. |
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