The Silvering [COMIC/2016.1.13]

★★★☆☆

  Immediately more up my alley with its Victorian mystery and body horror, The Silvering is yet again a very fun Titan Comics adventure. It's a bit of shame, though, that while these are perfectly fine on their own, there's a sense that their stories have the potential to carry longer comics than one-parters. I think that both this and Music of the Spherions felt like they had so much more to give, and had to be shortened by George Mann to fit the format. I know Titan has a few longform comic releases (such as Empire of the Wolf), and perhaps Titan didn't think the Eighth Doctor would be one of the more popular Doctors, but these ideas can definitely carry greater lengths. 

  Take The Silvering, for example -- a mysterious magician with a magic mirror, which is a gateway into a prison inside a parallel dimension. All sorts of half-formed reflections turn into the magician's goons, and the Doctor and Josie must journey into the far-off land to save the day. From the premise alone, and from Emma Vieceli's brilliant illustrations, the entire thing is bursting at the seams with imagination. There's always mystery around the corner, another aspect of this story that is dying to be discovered and explored, except the one-part structure simply won't allow it. Frustrating? Probably, but I'm still happy with what I got. As of yet, Josie Day's in the 'I've done the introduction story that shows a unique aspect of me and now I'm coasting through adventures wherein I'm the typical kind-brave-and-a-little-sarcastic companion' phase, and therefore I'm looking forward to seeing more aspects of her in the comics to come.