Script: Jacqueline Rayner Art: Martin Geraghty, David A Roach, James Offredi
Blue Blood by Noe Geric 5/1/20
Jacqueline Rayner, authors of many great Dr Who audios story and some nice novels, is the first woman to write a story for the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. And she was given the task to bring back one of Clara's splinter from The Name of the Doctor.
The story begins with the Doctor and Clara visiting a university in Antarctica in the future. They meet the most obvious villain we've ever seen in the show and also find out that people are disappearing at the university.
Clara quickly finds that one of the students is her own splinter/echo. There's a whole subplot around that, with Clara thinking her splinter will need to die to save the Doctor. There's also a useless other subplot with the Doctor, who finds that Snowcap university was built on the ruins of Snowcap base: the place where he first regenerated (that's funny because the first and twelfth Doctor will meet in a future episode, exactly near Snowcap base). That whole subplot doesn't add anything except continuity references and nothing else. It quickly resolves.
The characters are all well done, but Audley's intentions are really obvious. Martin Geragthy is perhaps my favorite artist who've worked on the DWM comics but here, his drawing seem a bit strange. It seems less detailed than when he was doing the 8th Doctor adventures.
The story is interesting enough but it's probably due to Clara's splinter apparition. For once Clara isn't annoying and the Doctor is exactly like he was in Series 8.
Finally, it's one of the best DWM comics I've read. Lots of things are happening (even if some are useless), and there are some good characters. I give it a 9/10; nearly perfect, but there are some flaws.