‘VOYAGER’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Voyager and Astrolabus with the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher
This ‘Doctor Who’ comic adventure shouldn’t be confused with the ‘Star Trek: Voyager’ TV series. 😀 My Mum made the mistake when she saw the title of the graphic novel, which I placed it on my bed.
‘Voyager’ is a five-part comic story featuring the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher. Steve Parkhouse is the story’s writer and John Ridgway is the artist. I enjoyed ‘Voyager’ a lot more than ‘The Shape Shifter’.
With that said, I think the story sagged a bit when it came to ‘Part Four’. This could account for the fact that Frobisher is absent from ‘Part Four’. Most of it is also exposition for a character’s backstory.
The story has the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher in Antarctica. Frobisher has adopted the penguin identity that ‘Doctor Who’ fans know and love. He also goes by ‘Frobisher’ instead of ‘Avan Tarklu’. 🙂
However, things take a turn for the worst when the Doctor and Frobisher meet Astrolabus and the mysterious Voyager at the edge of the universe. Astrolabus may or may not be a Time Lord here. 😐
Each of the five episodes in ‘Voyager’ has titles, including ‘It Was a Devil Ship…’, ‘The Lighthouse at the End of the World…’, ‘The Lighthouse…’, ‘Dreams of Eternity’ and ‘The Final Chapter’. It’s unusual.
I would have preferred it if ‘Voyager’s episodes were just called ‘Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five’ without the subtitles, as the Fifth Doctor comic stories and ‘The Shape Shifter’ weren’t given titles.
Astrolabus is a very unusual character, sometimes going on to the point of being insane. Apparently, Astrolabus owns a variety of books in the story and he even stole ‘The Book of the Old Time’ from Gallifrey.
It’s implied that Astrolabus may be both a Gallifreyan and a human at the same time. This is because he was a human in Alexandria in ancient times. Perhaps he used a chameleon arc to become a human.
I’m not sure if at this point Frobisher has monomorphia, which is the condition that makes him stuck as a penguin. Throughout ‘Voyager’, we see him as a penguin when travelling with the Doctor.
I enjoyed the interaction between Frobisher and the Sixth Doctor in this comic story. They seem to have travelled together for quite a while. I wish audio adaptations of these comic stories were made.
It would be great to hear ‘The Shape Shifter’ and ‘Voyager’ fleshed out more in order to appreciate the scale of the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher’s friendship and how it’s developed during their travels. 🙂
The Voyager ship is pretty unusual, especially when appearing in the Sixth Doctor’s dreams. Sometimes Voyager is this old sailing ship; sometimes he’s an old man and he looks like a Time Lord.
The visual imagery featured in this story is interesting, especially when the Doctor is interacting with Voyager in his dreams and when he falls out of a lighthouse into space before he ends up in the sea.
There’s a point in ‘the final chapter’ of ‘Voyager’ where Astrolabus’ lighthouse turns out to be a TARDIS. It also turns out to be a rocket, mirroring ‘State of Decay’, before it explodes after its launch.
There’s a moment where the Doctor uses a ‘little technique’ he learnt from Houdini to escape his bindings after being tied up. This reminds me of ‘Smoke and Mirrors’ and ‘Circular Time: Summer’. 🙂
A minor complaint I have is that so far, the comic stories featured in ‘The Tides of Time’ and ‘Voyager’ graphic novels are in black-and-white, whilst there have been colour reprints of these stories.
I’m curious why Panini didn’t include the colour reprints instead of the black-and-white versions of these stories. Mind you, these would have been how they were presented in ‘Doctor Who Monthly’.
I liked it when Frobisher went out and rescued the Doctor from drowning in ‘Part Five’. Then again, the disguise of him wearing a pair of glasses and a false nose was a little silly before he rescued him.
I wonder whether he got that false nose from Tommy Cooper. 😀 It was amusing that the Doctor had left Frobisher alone once with the food machine. The console room had been filled with Mars bars. 🙂
‘Voyager’ is an enjoyable comic story to check out in ‘Doctor Who’. It did lose its way for me in ‘Part Four’, but I enjoyed the interaction between the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher when I was reading it. 🙂
‘Voyager’ rating – 7/10
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