Review: ‘Doctor Who Circuit Breaker’ #1 Helps Start An Event
by Benjamin Hall
Summary
The Doctor travels to a part of Earth’s past and encounters a populace in fear of their deities. Can she disprove the existence of these “Gods?” Also what do these allegedly divine beings have to do with the Daleks? For that matter why does The Doctor not know of the Daleks?
Overall
7/10Writers Dulce M. Montoya and Dan Watters craft a relatively okay script. The dialogue seems appropriate for the characters. Also, the narrative gives enough information to allow readers of any type to understand the story. However, the plot and character summaries have certain things that are arguably unsatisfactory about them. An example of the plot being less than satisfactory is that the opening apparently relies on knowing the start of this multi-media event. Not to mention that various kinds of Whovians may find it confusing how certain characters know of one character. While the summaries are providing a decent amount of information, they are missing the details regarding why the Doctor had anything to do with Division.
Artist Roberta Ingranata and colorist Valentina Bianconi are the creators of the interior visuals. In this reviewer’s opinion, they are a bit out of sync when it comes to mixing their skills together. Yes, there are some incredible panels and pages. However, Bianconi’s choice of colors is more vibrant than Ingranata’s style may need, and this results in a debatable combination. Nevertheless, those who aren’t studying the visuals in a critical manner should find them to be great, minus the minimalistic elements which go too far.
Letterers Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith input an extra copy of a word in one panel. Other than this one flaw, their work ranges in quality from high to a very high medium.
The various non-photo covers are by artists Jay Anacleto, Robert Sienicki, and Flops. While the photo cover is eye-catching, the image being used is debatably too dour because of The Doctor’s expression. As for the covers with Anacleto’s art, they are both high quality and display a great use of inks. Sienicki’s cover feels like it should be part of an all-ages comic or a children’s book. Thus, it is not fully combining well with this issue’s rather dark cliffhanger ending. Finally, Flops exhibits a lot of skill by fitting so many Daleks on one page, but the cover is otherwise overly generic.
Doctor Who Circuit Breaker #1 (2026) is out now from Titan Comics.
