Dreadnought [COMIC/1996.6.1 ~ 8.3]

★★★☆☆

  Part of the joy of being in love with something as gargantuan as Doctor Who is finding niche tidbits of its mythos tucked away in the dustiest corners of the Internet. Say what you will about it and its sometimes unpleasant denizens, the Worldwide Web provides opportunities for us to discover and experience out-of-print and/or forgotten Doctor Who adventures we wouldn't have been able to discover otherwise.

  Dreadnought, the first release of the short-lived Eighth Doctor Radio Times comic strip series, is very much a by-the-number introduction to the then-incumbent incarnation, a new companion and the basic setting. There's a mysterious traveller known as the Doctor, he rescues people from the brink of death, and he prevents monsters such as the Cybermen from taking over the universe. Understandably, the characterisations of both Eight and new companion Stacy Townsend have nothing much to them; the former had been introduced to the world less than a month before publication, and the latter is a new character who's simply not given enough room to develop with all the Cyberman stuff going around her (this, also, is to be expected in such a short comic story). 

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  Then again, as a beginning of a new (albeit in retrospect, short-lived) comic series, Dreadnought certainly does its job; a new Doctor, a new companion, and promises of adventures in time and space. There's no denying that it's a very condensed Doctor Who adventure, that it feels like a Cyberman two-parter played at 1.5 speed, but it's still an enjoyable comic strip. Lee Sullivan's illustrations add a bit of class to it as well; I absolutely love this Cybermen design.