From The Incredible Hulk Presents #4; Reprinted (coloured) in DWCC #21
"There Should Have Been Another Way" by Tim Roll-Pickering 19/10/98
I must first declare an interest: War World was the very first Doctor Who strip I read, back in 1989, and so will always have a special place for me. At the time I thought the story was brilliant, telling of the true cost to the soul of war and the art wonderful.
Upon rereading the story, it's difficult to see why I formed those opinions. Art Wetherell's art isn't particularly spectacular and he completely fails to achieve a likeness of Sylvester McCoy. His rendition of the robots is lifted straight out of fifties' B-Movie, whilst some of the character poses are extremely bizarre, and the 'beautiful' garden Deldran shows the Doctor doesn't look anything like the Doctor's reaction suggests.
The script is so simple that it could have come from a sixties' TV Comic story, with the Doctor arriving in the midst of a war and agreeing to help one side destroy the other, whom he makes no attempt to even meet!
There is an original twist at the end, where the Doctor finds out how he has been used, and this is the story's only redeeming moment, as it raises the question about whether anyone is 'built' for peace. However, this does not make up for the previous material. Like most of the strips written for The Incredible Hulk Presents, War World suffers from the low page count and the low panel per page ratio, resulting in little room to produce anything decent. For The Incredible Hulk Presents, this is an average strip. 3/10
Doctor Who and Philosophy by Noe Geric 7/5/22
I've no idea who was the principal target for the Incredible Hulk Present stories, but I would guess it was for children. The story is simple and just a mix of SF cliche we've seen hundreds of times before. I won't be too hard with it, as it's for younger readers and it's fairly distracting.
You've got the Seventh Doctor arriving on a world where humans are fighting robots. The humans asks for his help, and that's basically the plot. The story is five pages long, so I understand that it's quick. On one page, the Doctor leave the TARDIS; on the next, the humans capture him and don't trust him, and then on the next page they asks for his help to defeat the robot with a super weapon they've built. The Doctor just needs to repair some wires, and then he beats the evil robots. There's a little twist at the end and a philosophical line, and that's it. It's light, not bad and reasonable. The Doctor seems to be in his Season 24 persona as he walks on the planet completely unaware of anything and looks less menacing. It's even him who's been manipulated all along the story in some way.
The artwork is really simple. It doesn't looks like McCoy at all, and the other characters looks more like toys than anything else. The characterization is decent, but not incredible. No need to repeat on each page that the war has been going on for generations, we got it. The supporting cast is small. The action is quick. Everything is done before the Doctor arrives, and everything is over when he leaves. He has little impact on what happens.
War World! is terribly easy. John Freeman could've written this in five minutes. It makes a little pause for greater comics to come but... But... There isn't any "epic story" coming after this one. The Incredible Hulk Presents is for children, and all the stories are like this. Some hit the ground, and some really work, but it's all pretty average. War World! manages at least to tell something, even if it's just the two finale lines. Are we really made for peace? I wonder. It's a clever way of turning child stuff into a more reasonable adventure with a real sense. Of course, it's not because they ask a question that it becomes the greatest story ever. But I was quite surprised to find this sort of idea. Why not use Doctor Who to teach philosophy to children through comics? Of course, not some Klepton Parasite or some other TV comics nonsense, but some questions about life.
Here it's, can we leave in peace? Are some people mad enough that they'll kill themselves instead of living in peace? War World! isn't as bad as it looks. The script is rather easy, but there's a whole idea behind if you think much. And for once, I can't say I've not learnt anything. 7/10