'Doctor Who: Gaze of the Medusa' – Rennie, Beeby, Williamson, Hi-Fi (Titan Comics)


I had big plans to get loads of reading done this holiday, I'll give you three guesses how that one turned out... To be honest though, I wouldn't swap what I have done though and not only because it includes the now infamous game of 'Daleks vs Sylvanian Families'. Christmas used to be about nothing but reading, now it's about hanging out with my kids and having fun :o)

I have got a little reading done though, just a little ;o) There are many TBR piles in my flat and one of them is for those moments where I've got a little time free and fancy a comfort read. These days, that invariably involves some 'Doctor Who' so when I saw 'Gaze of the Medusa' in Forbidden Planet, I grabbed a copy as a little insurance against one of those moments. I also grabbed it because it had the Fourth Doctor on the front and I love the Fourth Doctor. The other night, I was no good for anything else except reading a comic book, and that's when 'Gaze of the Medusa' came into it's own...

When the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith took a trip to London in 1887, they didn't count on being dragged into a petrifying alien conspiracy that stretches all the way back to Ancient Greece! Pursued through the streets by the fearsome Scryclops, and at the mercy of the mysterious Lady Emily Carstairs, the pair must team up with Professor Odysseus James and his adventurer daughter, Athena, to avoid a horrifying fate – one already set in stone!

'Gaze of the Medusa' really doesn't hang about, it gets things moving straight away and that's pretty much the pace of the rest of the book. There's a mystery to be solved and while that's happening, if people aren't chasing answers then they are being chased by monsters instead. There isn't a lot of 'set up' needed here (information is doled out as and when we need to know). You could argue that things are a little lightweight but while I agree with that a bit, I think it makes for a nice change to have an adventure that can be tied up over the course of a book instead of a multi-episode/comic epic. That's the great thing about 'Doctor Who', there's room for all kinds of adventures and right now, I love an adventure where I know that it's all there in the one book.

I enjoyed the story and it's little hints of how Greek mythology may have formed out of something else entirely. I also got a lot out of just how murky 19th century London is and how this brings out the urgency of the plot when the Scryclops suddenly appear out of the mist (all credit to Williamson and Hi-Fi there). What I really enjoyed though was getting another look at the dynamic between the Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith. Rennie and Beeby have the Fourth Doctor down to a tee, as it is, with all the mannerisms and dialogue of Tom Baker at his peak. Where they really excel though, is showing just how much the Doctor and Sarah Jane care about each other, to the point where Sarah Jane will happily put herself in harms way, just to buy the Doctor a little more time or to keep him out of the line of fire entirely. As far as all that goes, 'Gaze of the Medusa' is a book that will make you go 'awww...' Well, that's what I did.

Add a properly scary Medusa and a neat little exploration of 'timey wimey' stuff (which I almost got...) and you've got yourself a great little slice of 'Fourth Doctor action' that sits nicely amongst the TV stories (something to do with the artwork, Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladen's faces alomost look real sometimes...) And I can also say that 'Gaze of the Medusa' goes down very nicely when accompanied by a mince pie and some Baileys, just in case you were wondering ;o)

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