Review: Agent Provocateur (Public)
Doctor Who: Agent Provocateur written by Gary Russell, art by Nick Roche, Jose Maria Berdy, Stefano Martino, and Mirco Pierfederici. TPB, 136 pages, IDW Publishing, 2008.
There's not too much out there about this book, most likely because it was an American exclusive. In this six-part adventure, the Doctor and Martha search for the best chocolate milkshakes in the universe, discover some very realistic sand-statues, and embark on an epic time-traveling adventure.
Note: besides the regular spoilers there are some spoilers for a few of the novels I've reviewed already, as I compare them to this book.
*Warning: SPOILERS* Doctor Who has a long tradition of reusing stories and ideas, and most of the time that's a good thing. This one, though, reads a bit like a hodge-podge of previous adventures. The first installment, which is mostly stand-alone and probably the most worth reading, brings back the Sycorax, or at least one of them, who's collecting the very last one of every species and running a hunting scam. This reminded me a bit of The Last Dodo, but it was different enough to work. (I think that one of the Doctor/Donna books has a very similar premise, but I haven't read that one yet.)
This first story works pretty well, with the chocolate milkshake adventure, a good dynamic between the Doctor and Martha, and an old enemy up to no good. My major problem with it was that the artwork really didn't look like the Doctor to me. One of the constraints of artwork based on a TV series is that despite artistic differences, the characters really need to look something like the actors who portrayed them. I was especially peeved that the Doctor's hair looked very blonde in the first adventure, although I suppose that one is colorist Charlie Kirkoff's fault. The introduction explaining the Time War and where the Doctor came from seemed to indicate that this is marketed to relative newcomers to Doctor Who, but I definitely wouldn't choose this book for introducing a friend to Who.
The second story has some of my favorite lines in this book, such as the Doctor saying 1974 is "good year for yomping" when Martha questions his word choice. It also has a little side trip in which Martha takes the opportunity to buy vintage clothing, and the Doctor complains that she's just using him. The main adventure is against a cat-creature turning people into sand, which is an interesting enough adventure (although something similar was done in The Stone Rose). This leads into the main storyline for the rest of the book, with the idea that this smaller adventure (and possibly the one preceeding it) was a test for the Doctor, to see if he meets some unknown requirements.
The main storyline doesn't really work. It has some good ideas to it, but there's tons of exposition, which slows down the reading a lot (if I wanted a novel I have plenty of those to read, thanks). There were also a number of inconsistancies and out-of-character moments, like the overly revealing outfit Martha chooses in chapter 3. The ooh-let's-line-up-all-the-planets-for-some-evil-scheme plot was done to much better effect in one of the novels (won't say which as that's a rather major spoiler). The creature at the end was probably stolen from The Impossible Planet, and the list just goes on.
The way the artists changed was also an issue. This could have worked with the "test" subplots, as was done nicely in the Fables prequel 1,001 Nights of Snowfall, but instead the swaps seemed random and occured in the middle of the main plot.
Normally I would say, if you're interested just buy the first issue, not the whole book, but the artwork problems in #1 make me loath to recommend even that. Although there were a few things I liked, this was not worth the price of admission. Buy it only if you're a die-hard fan, otherwise get it at the library if you feel the need to read it. If you have extra money, the Doctor Who Classics series is better.
That said, I have heard good things about the recently released Doctor Who: The Forgotten, so I'll probably give the next one in this series a try. At least it sticks to one artist, and the many references to Classic Who are sure to make me happy.
There's not too much out there about this book, most likely because it was an American exclusive. In this six-part adventure, the Doctor and Martha search for the best chocolate milkshakes in the universe, discover some very realistic sand-statues, and embark on an epic time-traveling adventure.
Note: besides the regular spoilers there are some spoilers for a few of the novels I've reviewed already, as I compare them to this book.
*Warning: SPOILERS* Doctor Who has a long tradition of reusing stories and ideas, and most of the time that's a good thing. This one, though, reads a bit like a hodge-podge of previous adventures. The first installment, which is mostly stand-alone and probably the most worth reading, brings back the Sycorax, or at least one of them, who's collecting the very last one of every species and running a hunting scam. This reminded me a bit of The Last Dodo, but it was different enough to work. (I think that one of the Doctor/Donna books has a very similar premise, but I haven't read that one yet.)
This first story works pretty well, with the chocolate milkshake adventure, a good dynamic between the Doctor and Martha, and an old enemy up to no good. My major problem with it was that the artwork really didn't look like the Doctor to me. One of the constraints of artwork based on a TV series is that despite artistic differences, the characters really need to look something like the actors who portrayed them. I was especially peeved that the Doctor's hair looked very blonde in the first adventure, although I suppose that one is colorist Charlie Kirkoff's fault. The introduction explaining the Time War and where the Doctor came from seemed to indicate that this is marketed to relative newcomers to Doctor Who, but I definitely wouldn't choose this book for introducing a friend to Who.
The second story has some of my favorite lines in this book, such as the Doctor saying 1974 is "good year for yomping" when Martha questions his word choice. It also has a little side trip in which Martha takes the opportunity to buy vintage clothing, and the Doctor complains that she's just using him. The main adventure is against a cat-creature turning people into sand, which is an interesting enough adventure (although something similar was done in The Stone Rose). This leads into the main storyline for the rest of the book, with the idea that this smaller adventure (and possibly the one preceeding it) was a test for the Doctor, to see if he meets some unknown requirements.
The main storyline doesn't really work. It has some good ideas to it, but there's tons of exposition, which slows down the reading a lot (if I wanted a novel I have plenty of those to read, thanks). There were also a number of inconsistancies and out-of-character moments, like the overly revealing outfit Martha chooses in chapter 3. The ooh-let's-line-up-all-the-planets-for-some-evil-scheme plot was done to much better effect in one of the novels (won't say which as that's a rather major spoiler). The creature at the end was probably stolen from The Impossible Planet, and the list just goes on.
The way the artists changed was also an issue. This could have worked with the "test" subplots, as was done nicely in the Fables prequel 1,001 Nights of Snowfall, but instead the swaps seemed random and occured in the middle of the main plot.
Normally I would say, if you're interested just buy the first issue, not the whole book, but the artwork problems in #1 make me loath to recommend even that. Although there were a few things I liked, this was not worth the price of admission. Buy it only if you're a die-hard fan, otherwise get it at the library if you feel the need to read it. If you have extra money, the Doctor Who Classics series is better.
That said, I have heard good things about the recently released Doctor Who: The Forgotten, so I'll probably give the next one in this series a try. At least it sticks to one artist, and the many references to Classic Who are sure to make me happy.