Ophidius [COMIC/2001.1.11 ~ 4.5]

★★★★☆

  When it comes to the Doctor cracking jokes, there is a certain sweet spot between the completely straight (to a comedic extreme) delivery of Four and the swanky swagger of Eleven. I have always believed the Eighth Doctor to be the proud owner of that domain, and it's good to see that I'm not the only one to believe so. This comic is where the "I demand to die naked!" line comes from, and the entire comic is worth finding for that moment — expectations will be exceeded, I assure you.

  Ophidius is a rollicking ride through and through, never afraid to try out new ideas on the perfect medium to try out new ideas (floating seats that stay a nanosecond ahead of you and vanish from perception, a giant snakelike spacecraft with an Orwellian creature hell bent on riffing on Invasion of the Body Snatchers). The art style is crisp, expressive and colorful, and the large panoramic panels are especially impressive in scale and detail.

  Perhaps the most interesting addition to the Doctor Who mythos that this adventure brings to the tale is Destrii, and she makes an immediate impression: savvy with Earth subculture, ruthless and bloodthirsty to a fault and ultimately a bit too mischievous for her own good. The final note ends with an unexpected bang, nonetheless a terrific finale to such a bombastic story, and I can't wait to see how the repercussions of Destrii's actions on Izzy are explored next.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ  

  God bless these comics, especially those published before the advent of the New Series. These people, just like the Expanded Universe contributors of the 1990s, were holding the franchise close to their hearts and branching out in all sorts of ambitious directions. Ophidius is the kind of story that no TV showrunner would dare to emulate onscreen, classic or new, and it goes to show how the comic medium has carved out its own portion of the mythos at this point. This thing is bloody fantastic.