Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

The relationship of the Doctor Who Magazine strip to the television programme upon which it is based is occasionally a strange thing. The strip is often at its best where there is no tv show—or when it's pretending there is no tv show. But even when it's tied into the show, it rarely delves into its history: very few strips are direct sequels, Big Finish–style, to tv stories; recurring monsters from the show are used pretty sparingly. I think you could have quite successfully read all the strips from #355 to now and not even known there was a Time War, for example! This collection features multiple stories that take a very different approach... but then, it is the fiftieth anniversary of the tv show. If the strip is ever going to celebrate the show, this is the moment!

Again, it's always interesting to me to compare reading the strip in collections against my memory of reading it as it came out. I have vague memories of The Broken Man—mostly the two-dimensional aliens—but very strong ones of Imaginary Enemies, one of my favorites. I remember liking Hunters of the Burning Stone, but the impact of the part one cliffhanger was muted by the fact that I live in America, and thus read all about the surprise on GallifreyBase long before I got to read the issue!

The Broken Man
By this point, I think we have to accept that I am just simpatico with Scott Gray's approach to the strip, and I will like everything he does. Add in Martin Geraghty and David Roach, and how can you lose? I don't think Moffat would have done something like this story on screen—maybe if it was a bit more stylized, like a spy movie, to fit in with the "every week's a new film" vibe of series 7A—but Gray and his artistic collaborators perfectly plunge Moffat's TARDIS trio into a Cold War espionage story with a strong character focus. There's a likeable British spy, an evil Soviet mastermind, creepy two-dimensional aliens, lots of good bits for Amy, a charming protestor, a creepy golem disguised as an alien robot. Good twists, great jokes. Is it in my top ten? No. Is it a solid adventure, just what one wants DWM to deliver month-in, month-out? Absolutely. I breezed through this and had a great time, but it is seasoned with real horror and tragedy, too.

Imaginary Enemies
I'm not a big fan of the River Song story arc of series 6. One thing that doesn't work for me is the retrospective reveal that Amy and Rory were friends with their daughter all along, a reveal that not even Moffat does anything with beyond the confines of the single story in which it appears. We have no hint that this gave them any kind of retrospective closure. So I appreciate this for being the one Doctor Who story in the entire universe to actually be interested in Mels. It's a Doctor-less flashback adventure set at Christmastime, about Amy and Rory coming under threat from the Krampus. Cute stuff, and a fitting send-off for Amy, especially that gorgeous final page montage of Amy and Rory growing old in twentieth-century America. It is so tv-heavy, though, it is kind of jarring to read. My hypothetical strip-only reader would probably be more confused than ever!

Hunters of the Burning Stone
There were a lot of fiftieth-anniversary spectaculars in 2013. Every tie-in medium was obligrated to produce one. DWM's was one of the most interesting and clever of the lot, I reckon. Instead of focusing on the fact that it was the fiftieth anniversary of all Doctor Who, Scott Gray zooms in on the fact that it was the fiftieth anniversary of the first Doctor Who story. Hence: the long-awaited sequel to 100,000 BC! (Yes, because this is what the story is called in DWM-land.)

I imagine it could be dumb. It is in fact great. As I said above, this is a lot more focused on what was happening on screen than we usually get in DWM: return appearances by Ian and Barbara, plot points turning on specific details from a tv story, lots of montages from the history of the show, not the strip. But it works because of one of Gray's usual strengths: his focus on the character of the Doctor. On screen, the eleventh Doctor was largely without the Time War angst that characterized his two predecessors, but there were hints of it, and Gray picks up on those hints with a story that focuses on the Doctor rediscovering who he was from the beginning. There are lots of clever reveals and turns; the whole police box thing is cheeky but inspired. It's great to get "London 1965" Ian and Barbara back, the kind of thing that only the strip could do, and their interactions with the eleventh Doctor are pitch perfect. The Tribe of Gum returns... and why not? The Doctor has been woven into the history of humankind, and it all started with them!

And yet, the story also manages to reflect the history of the strip and to face forwards as well. This is also a sequel to The Flood, picking up on the MI6 thread of some eighth Doctor strips, and it deftly pulls together the threads Gray had been weaving since his return to the strip with The Chains of Olympus. Plus, a return to Cornucopia, and the return of the Lakes indicate that this is no nostalgia fest: the strip is continuing to develop its own ideas and settings as it always has.

I will say Gray's weakness as a writer is that many of his stories have this bit where everything stops so someone can explain a complicated backstory, and I am not always sure I follow it. Why did the aliens want the Tribe of Gum to be flying around in space? Probably the answer is in here, but I am not sure I got it. But this is again great stuff, well illustrated by the dependable Geraghty/Roach team, with amazing visuals and strong character work.

"What is buried in man?" I am so glad I forgot about that reveal so that I could experience it all over again!

Other Notes:

• I imagine this was more obvious reading this at the time, but I wouldn't have known without the backmatter. Scott Gray indicates that the stories in The Chains of Olympus take place during series 6, while Amy and Rory are actively travelling with the Doctor, while The Broken Man takes place during series 7A, when he just picks them up for occasional adventures.
• With a run as (one of) the strip's main companion(s) from #421 to 455, Amy has the third-longest of any companion, below only Izzy (#244-328) and Frobisher (#88-133), though Ace beats her out if you combine her two runs (#164-92 and 203-10). I don't think I would have guessed offhand that Amy would have had the longest run of any of the tv companions. In every other tie-in medium, it's always Ace who racks up the big numbers!
• Issue #456 debuted a new size for Doctor Who Magazine, which was slightly shorter and slightly fatter. But as the editorial staff knew Hunters of the Burning Stone would be collected alongside strips in the old size, Martin Geraghty had to draw his pages to work at both sizes! This meant content along the top and bottom of each page that could be cropped off to appear in the actual magazine, and only appear here. He says in the backmatter this mean more of people's legs and space above people's heads! Exclusive to this collection, folks!
• "JUST A TRACER" WATCH: Just three artists on this volume, only one of which works on every story, but only two on the cover. Don't make me say it!

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