De twaalfde Doctor begint dit avontuur zonder companion en belandt in Parijs in de 17de eeuw. Dat hij een companion tegen zal komen, is zo goed als zeker en al snel maken we kennis met een zeer rebellerende zangeres. Helemaal het type voor de Doctor. Grappig is dat zij hem als haar companion ziet en ook zo behandelt. Heel verfrissend om eens mee te maken.
Het verhaal is zelf ook heel sterk beginnend met een kwaadaardige priester. Maar dan blijken er nog meer machthebbers onder invloed van het grote kwaad te staan. Natuurlijk weet de Doctor dit gevaar af te wenden met slimme oplossingen.
De tekeningen zijn duidelijk met een computer gemaakt waardoor het allemaal wel heel gladjes uitziet. Van mij mag het wel wat grover. En ook herkende ik de Doctor lang niet altijd wat ik een enorm minpunt vind. Maar de kleuren zijn dan wel weer geweldig intens waardoor branden en zwarte machten heel goed overkomen.

In het tweede verhaal neemt de Doctor twee stripmakers (die een strip maken op basis van de Doctor) mee op avontuur om te laten zien dat de echte wereld nog veel gekker is dan je kunt bedenken. De vijand wordt uiteindelijk verslagen door de creatieve breinen van deze stripmakers tegenover de fantasieloze vijandige hersenen.
Heel leuk bedacht en ook lekker stripachtig getekend. ( )

I had some initial issues with Robbie Morrison's earlier contributions to The Twelfth Doctor series, but his final volume shows that he's totally worked out the kinks. This contains two stories, one three issues long and one two. The first is "Terror of the Cabinet Noir," with another between-Clara-and-Bill temporary companion, in this case Julie d'Aubigny, a real seventeenth-century opera singer-- among many other things. I don't remember taking much notice of Mariano Laclaustra's art before, but this is gorgeous and well-suited to the story. Both the twelfth Doctor and Julie sparkle in their repartee. The plot isn't going to set your world on fire, but I really enjoyed reading it.

The second is kind of goofy, and not as good as it probably should have been; the Doctor confronts the writer and artist team behind Time Surgeon, a comic series based on his own exploits (mentioned back in vol 4). I wish it had been a bit more meta and playful. Still, Morrison and artist Rachael Stott effectively communicate Twelve's dripping disdain for the entire set-up, and he gets some good jokes you can imagine Peter Capaldi nailing.

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This collection contains two stories: a historical (Terror of the Cabinet Noir) and a space story (Invasion of the Mindmorphs). My favourite Twelfth Doctor comic writer, Robbie Morrison, wrote both of these stories, so I felt they captured the voice of Twelve beautifully. The art was more hit-or-miss, though.

Terror of the Cabinet Noir had a great setting and based on a real-life person, Julie d’Aubigny. The villains were creepy too, but with some humour as well. I also liked that it featured Richelieu given that P-Cap played him in The Musketeers. Great writing, but the art felt weird and Rembrandty, rather shadowy overall but with strangely lit faces. But this may have been an intentional design choice.

Invasion of the Mindmorphs was a silly but entertaining story about the creators of a thinly veiled Doctor Who parody called “the Time Surgeon”, which reads as a bit of a mix of Doctor Who, Austin Powers, maybe the Avengers, and Doctor Strange. The Doctor objects to this comic, so he takes the creators on a trip through time and space to give them better ideas for their work. They end up having to save a planet, in classic Doctor Who fashion. The cheesy parody of the Doctor was amusing, and I laughed out loud at the Doctor’s last line of the story. The art didn’t quite look like the Doctor, but there were a couple of panels that captured his facial expression just right.

The EPUB formatting of my copy was a bit weird — there seems to be a different font for the bold text and the regular text, and the text kept getting squished together, or some letters were moved onto another line. It looked strange in both single-page and dual-page views. Not sure if it was this particular file or something on my end.

If you’ve been liking the Twelfth Doctor comics so far, you might like this too! ( )