Hogan Reviews

“Four Doctors” (because “The Four Doctors” had already been used, that’ll be a while before that appears in this marathon, mind you!) was the first Titan Comics crossover event and without a doubt the best, written and released at the height of their run, where the Tenth, Eleventh and Twelfth Doctors all had successful runs of at least good if not great stories. It had been ages since I read this last so I’d forgotten some of the odd plot twists and really enjoyed them all over again. Intrigued? Well, why not read the rest of the review!

The story actually opens up with the War Doctor on Marinus, where the local Voord have evolved to be far more intelligent and have weird living organic armour for good measure. The Doctor is helping them defend against the Daleks but admits that should the Time Lords win the war he can’t guarantee Marinus’ timeline won’t revert to the time when they were more simple. We then roll on to the three Doctors that are the actual focus of the story as coincidentally The Tenth Doctor and Gabby, the Eleventh Doctor and Alice, and the Twelfth Doctor and Clara are all heading to the same café in France but Clara has been given a photo of Doctors 10-12 having a shouting match on Marinus and told that it would cause a serious issue so she goes into the café ahead of time to try and convince Gabby and Alice to take their Doctors and leave but it’s too late as Doctors 10 and 11 soon enter the café, shortly followed by 12, who had no idea what Clara was up to. The three Doctors then begin arguing, the key topic being that the Twelfth Doctor can’t possible exist because the Tenth is late enough in his life to have used his second-to-last regeneration and if Doctor 11 is after him then they should be out of lives. This was a fun plot point I didn’t really think about at the time.

The War Doctor surrounded by his Voord allies.

The Tenth and Twelfth Doctors touch and cause a major paradox complete with Reapers and one of their TARDISes becoming just a regular box, all ala Ninth Doctor story “Father’s Day”. They make it to the Twelfth’s TARDIS (which the Tenth thinks is the Masters, and later accuses the Twelfth Doctor of being the Valeyard, so… he’s a bit twitchy) and they defeat the Reapers by merging all three of their craft together and then unmerging them just as the Reapers appear. The three Doctors reconvene and Clara shows them the picture but all it does is convince them to head to Marinus together to figure it out and despite all the danger they end up in the exact pose and get their photo taken, quickly followed by being attacked by “death rays”. All the Doctors are paired up with other companions (including Clara being with her previous Doctor, and we see unlike Doctor 10 Doctor number Eleven finds knowing there is a Doctor after him a great relief) and soon they find their way back to each other at the site of a “Dalek Continuity Bomb”, which goes off in their faces and sends them into a space-like dimension where they visit three other timelines as ghosts and have to “pick one” to make reality so they can physically interact with things again (I know, it’s weird but just roll with it…)

I don’t know if it was intentional but I love how I get the feeling that the Twelfth Doctor looks more annoyed at his previous self using the phrase “Explody Death Rays” than anything else.

The choices are a timeline where the Tenth Doctor lets Wilf die in the radiation chamber rather than sacrificing himself and ends up a heartless dictator (or the “Time Lord Victorious” before that was a multi-media event), a timeline where the Eleventh Doctor decides to stay with River in a the “all of time happening at once” timeline instead of fixing the universe, and one where the Twelfth Doctor has gone somewhat crazy with loneliness after he believes Clara had betrayed him. Given one leads to them being assassinated as a tyrant and the other means the end of the universe they choose lonely beardy Twelfth Doctor timeline. The somewhat crazy Twelfth Doctor agrees to take them all home (and is delighted Clara has “come back”) but he soon reveals they’re in a pocket dimension linked to the Continuity Bomb and leads them out to take readings, only to reveal they’re in a city where the highly advanced Voord of Marinus have been hiding and that this Twelfth Doctor is their leader…

It somehow gets even weirder before it ends but it’s a really fun story and the art is consistently good, again just like the early Titan runs. In fact reading this right after the three recently released Titan crossovers is quite the eye-opener as to how far they’ve fallen.

The Continuity:

A rare look at three TARDISes next to each other, something that doesn’t actually happen that often in these crossovers…

Obviously the big one is the Voord from Marinus, who first appeared in the First Doctor TV story “The Keys of Marinus”. Part 1 also features lots of references to Ninth Doctor TV story “Father’s Day”.

As mentioned, the alternate timelines branch from “The End of Time” for the Tenth, “The Wedding of River Song” for the Eleventh, and for the Twelfth it’s safe to assume the betrayal is from her actions in trying to undo Danny Pink’s death in “Dark Water / Death in Heaven”, just with The Doctor not forgiving her.

Overall Thoughts:

The Tenth Doctor desperately tries to figure out how he can have two future selves…

“Four Doctors” is one of the better multi-Doctor stories as it has plenty of Doctor interacting hijinks but also has a really fun twisty plot that may be a little hard to follow if you’re not paying attention but reading all five issues over two days meant I found it quite easy, and due to the good art and writing, very fun indeed.

The Alternate Twelfth Doctor quickly proceeds to string up all the other Doctors and Clara while Alice and Gabby run for it, though Alice is straight up gunned down as she tries to make for a door. In a moment of despair Gabby realises she was still carrying around a package of “French Comics” The Eleventh Doctor was walking around with and opens it, revealing a tiny Weeping Angel that zaps her back in time to just as all the companions met up in the café. She tells her younger self as well as Alice and Clara about what happens before fading away as proof that the timeline was being rewritten. The three companions explain the situation to the three Doctors but the Twelfth Doctor points out that Clara is still holding the picture and therefore they must all still head to Marinus, so they do!

Funny how the titular “Four Doctors” is really “Three Doctors but two Twelfth Doctors”, though I guess that’s not as catchy a title…

This time though after taking the picture, dodging the death rays and activating the Continuity Bomb they pick the Eleventh Doctor timeline and due to all time happening at once the Dalek Saucer is on Marinus so they use that tech to arrive at the Voord city by themselves. The Twelfth pretends to be his alternate self and has the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors sent to different places while he confronts his future self. He and Clara manage to get through to him about how out-of-character he was acting and then the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors reveal that due to their meddling the barrier protecting the Voord city from the acid ocean had been turned off, therefore the only way to save the Voord he came to love was to undo the alterations to their timeline via the Dalek equipment and regress them back to their old selves, therefore his timeline won’t exist and neither will he. The Alternate Twelfth regrets his actions and allows himself to be undone, and soon all the Doctors separate to their individual timelines (though not before seeing the Ninth Doctor and Rose in the same café and remarking how he wasn’t involved despite also being a post Time War Doctor and how that must mean there wasn’t an alternate timeline where he went evil that could be used), before we see Clara’s picture now showing a black white background.