A review by brnineworms
Doctor Who: The Tenth Doctor, Vol. 2: The Weeping Angels of Mons by Robbie Morrison, Elena Casagrande, Daniel Indro

adventurous dark tense fast-paced

2.0

I didn’t like this comic. The idea of Weeping Angels hunting in the battlefields of WWI has potential, but the execution is just plain bad. What a waste.

So, this is actually the second volume of the series. I was a little concerned about having missed the companion’s introduction in the previous volume but I needn’t have worried; she didn’t have particularly strong characterisation and wasn’t given much to do (something akin to series 7b Clara). To be honest, the story might have worked better had it been a solo adventure with just the Doctor post-Donna, like The Waters of Mars. Or the Sixth Doctor and Peri, since that’s how they’re written.

The Doctor is awful throughout. Yes, this incarnation is prone to anger, callousness, and arrogance bordering on megalomania, but this was just cringey. He dunks on a clergyman for idk being religious, I guess? “You’d have to ask why your God would let this war happen in the first place.” Hm.

There’s tons of clumsy exposition about the Weeping Angels, but nothing that hasn’t already been said in Blink so it’s of no consequence to the reader. A simple “don’t look away, don’t blink” primer/recap would have sufficed.

Far too much emphasis is placed on the Angels’ claws and fangs, even though that only works as a jumpscare and their serene expression is honestly scarier. The artwork is so reliant on the (overestimated) shock value of that rawr face that it seems to lose track of what makes the Weeping Angels so iconic, namely the way they move almost instantaneously when not observed. I think there’s a lot you could do with that concept in this medium. Play with darkness; an Angel points at a light, the next panel is pure black, the third shows the Angel in a different position. Have scenes in dark places – with lots of black shadows like in Mike Mignola’s work, not just a blue tint that suggests shade – making the reader feel as though the characters could slip into the shadows at any moment and lose track of the Angel that’s stalking them. Even the turning of pages could be used to simulate the effect of blinking. But no. All we get is >:O

The story has a hole in it. Not a plot hole, exactly, but a cavity nonetheless: faith. The clergyman’s faith is dismissed and ridiculed, so it’s clear the author doesn’t want to seriously engage with the topic. But the Doctor describes the front lines as “the perfect hunting ground” for the Weeping Angels because of the countless soldiers and civilians killed or missing. It’s unclear why this is significant. Is the implication that they can get away with hunting a few soldiers since no one will notice they’re gone? That makes no sense because so what if someone did notice? The quantum-locking mechanism is supposed to make the Angels impervious to attack so they have nothing to fear from humans. Another interpretation: people are desperate, so they actively seek out the Angels. That would explain the Doctor’s claim that they “[tap] into primal fears and religious beliefs.” Maybe some of the soldiers believe the Angels to be divine emissaries they ought to commune with. Or maybe they witness the Angels transporting people elsewhere and see that as a way to escape the horrors of war.

Spoiler

There’s something to be said about where the soldiers end up. Many find themselves in dangerous situations where they presumably die soon after. Those who don’t meet violent ends somehow find their way back to WWI, such as the man who led a long and happy life only to have a heart attack upon reading about the war’s outbreak in a newspaper. They’re doomed. There is no escape. They perish one way or another, and the Angels feed off their “future” and “potential.” A tragic waste of life.

See? It almost works. Almost. Some of the pieces are there but not all of them, and those that are present don’t quite fit together. The only pious character we see is the clergyman. He’s hardly a stand-in for all the soldiers and civilians caught up in the war. We don’t see expeditions to seek the Angels out. We don’t see an Angel waiting calmly in the ruins, arms outstretched as if to embrace a shell-shocked soldier. We don’t see a deserter being touched by an Angel and sent back to the trenches he fled. We see >:O

There’s a lot more I could criticise but you’ve probably had enough of my complaining.

Positives? I think the cover art is stunning. And, as I said before, I think the story really did have potential. It’s just a shame that that potential wasn’t met.

CONTENT WARNINGS: war, violence, death, animal death, railway disaster, some body horror, some fatphobia, the whole thing feels vaguely misogynist too