Doctor Who review: The Lost Dimension: book two (comic)

Continuing where book one left off, book two of Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension brings the story to a climax. But is it a satisfying resolution?

Doctor Who: The Lost Dimension brings together the last four issues of the arc. What’s interesting though is how many of these have a direct impact on it.

Because the first two issues don’t really seem to be important to the key story. While the Fourth Doctor and Romana issue is fun, and perhaps explains a little of his Doctor’s role in the series, it’s really just a good excuse to bring back some very old-school monsters in a new way.

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The River Song special seems to be even less crucial to the arc. While it certainly references it and what’s going on in the universe throughout this series, it feels like just a consequence of everything else, more than a key part of it.

Crossover

Thankfully, the last two issues are definitely crucial. Featuring both an issue from the Twelfth Doctor’s own comic series, plus the final special, these issues are what the fans are really interested in.

Not only do we find out a lot more about what’s going on. Not to mention what happened to Twelve and his friends after the cliffhanger seen in The Lost Dimension‘s opening issue.

We also finally have the Doctors start to meet each other. All the different stories begin to merge here in the Twelfth Doctor’s issue, and are developed even further in the Omega special.

Seeing all the Doctors interact with each other was a joy to read. Especially after Supremacy of the Cybermen. This previous crossover did feature all of them, but virtually all of their storylines were independent of each other for the whole story.

It’s particularly fun seeing Nine interact with his future selves. It’s a big moment when he finally meets them, and the story knows it. Even in comics, we haven’t seen Nine meet his other incarnations properly before.

The final issue answers a lot of questions. It’s very satisfying seeing all the threads finally come together, and see what the series has been building towards. And how the situation is resolved is definitely epic.

Image credit: Doctor Who/Titan Comics.

Image obtained from: www.titan-comics.com.

The overall arc

How well did The Lost Dimension achieve its aim of telling an actual crossover across several Doctor Who comic series?

On the whole, rather well. Focusing on each Doctor was a great way of giving us a clear idea of just how big things were getting in the universe during this story. More importantly, they also let us know piece by piece of what was really going on.

However, there is admittedly some filler. Particularly in a couple of the specials. While the Jenny special in book one was great to read, neither the Fourth Doctor nor River specials seemed to add much. Since they were both in the same volume, that does affect book two’s overall quality considerably.

The artwork was also a little hit and miss. Sometimes, it would get the Doctors and the characters spot on. Other times, however, the artwork would barely look anything like the characters we know. So that affected my enjoyment of the series.

The epic climax

But the final two issues were definitely worth it. It was great to see how all of these different threads came together into a real crossover story. And it’s always fun to see Doctors interacting with each other. Perhaps more than you might be expecting.

On the whole, The Lost Dimension was a fun experiment for Doctor Who comics. I hope they attempt something like it again at some point. But I also hope that they improve on it.

While The Lost Dimension may be satisfying in the end, with a few fun issues along the way, it also has too much filler. With just a little more focus and a tighter story, we could get something truly brilliant.

Next: Could Sutekh return in the New Series?

What did you make of The Lost Dimension as a whole? Which half did you enjoy more? Were you happy to see Doctors meet each other? Let us know in the comments below.