Empire of the Wolf [COMIC/2021.11.17 ~ 2022.2.9]

★★★★☆

  Empire of the Wolf feels different. It has its own, lingering sweet taste that leaves you feeling both warm and cool. The best way to describe how I felt reading this comic would be, oddly enough, to compare it to enjoying a mild autumn night breeze — not too strong, not too weak, with just the right amount of rubs and kisses on the emotions. I've only known a select few Doctor Who adventures to give me this specific feeling — like having a spoonful of homemade strawberry jam, with the fruitiness, sweetness and the slight twang of a burnt aftertaste — and Empire of the Wolf is the latest of the bunch to satisfy me in such a unique way.

  I have my nitpicks about Roberta Ingranata, yes. Her illustrations seem far too reliant on still/promotional photos of her subjects (Hidden Human History also had this problem), and she seems to have difficulty in drawing material she's not used to (in particular, the Eighth Doctor in how his panels are mostly traced from still photos, as well as her not drawing his unique TARDIS interior at all). These are all presumptions, of course, and I harbour no ill will for her. At any case, I bring her up because despite all these misgivings, she feels like a perfect fit for Jody Houser's stories. Ingranata's illustrations bring out a certain warmth, a familiarity (and no, this is not my digging at the traced panels), and with a story such as Empire of the Wolf's, her talent shines even more. 

  Rose Tyler is, of course, the center-stage character; her two selves are as distinct as they come, and yet they're both equally wonderful. This story serves as a coda of sorts — one final, frantic and fun chapter of her time in the Doctor Who mythos. It was a stroke of genius to let her meet the Eighth and Eleventh Doctors; one is a youthful spirit who's about to face the Time War, and the other is an old soul (trapped in a young body) that has had one too many losses this time around. In interacting with these two Doctors and having her domestic life with her Meta-Crisis husband and teenage daughter revealed to readers, Rose feels more than ever like an actual person... and I think that's magical, and incredibly conducive to a story that's centered on her. I really must commend Houser for using nostalgia in such a fascinating way; it's not just an element that's used in a few panels for the sake of it, but rather incorporated into the heart of the story to give it that feeling I've talked about so many times now. I can hardly describe it in a legible way, and I love it. Needless to say, Eight and Eleven are a blast to have both on their own and with each other, and Rose brings out the best in both of them.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  Once you look past the fact that this was, for some reason, promoted as a 25th anniversary celebration of the Eighth Doctor when it's clearly a celebration of Rose Tyler's character, this is a fantastic slice of Doctor Who. What looks on the surface to be a silly parallel-dimension romp turns out to be the comic equivalent of Big Finish's Thicker Than Water: a sweet and dreamy final adventure for Rose, and one final kiss to the days she spent with the most wonderful man in the world. I love it so much, and I hope Titan Comics surprises me again with a quality comic such as this.