4-Dimensional Vistas by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Mick Austin and letters by: Jerry Paris and Steve Craddock

 

4-Dimensional Vistas is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Mick Austin and letters by Jerry Paris and Steve Craddock.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issues 78-83 (June – November 1983) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

This one was honestly a surprise.  After Lunar Lagoon left me quite cold on where the Fifth Doctor’s comic adventures was going, 4-Dimensional Vistas is the final six issue epic from Parkhouse for the Fifth Doctor that wraps a lot of the threads up from the strip and building towards the point where the Doctor is going to regenerate.  The story ends with a character predicting the death, and at the time of this release Colin Baker had already been announced as the Doctor and Peter Davison would have been filming The Caves of Androzani while this story was wrapping up.  It gives the Fifth Doctor one last epic to essentially go out on with the implication being the final story of the strip, The Moderator, being focused on setting up the Sixth Doctor’s run which would begin as soon as The Twin Dilemma finished airing in March 1984.  The story is one that deals with the building towards the end of the universe in a nice parallel with The Tides of Time, where the Doctor discovers that all of the troubles he has been facing since Stockbridge have been the work of the Meddling Monk who is attempting to use Earth and its history to build this crystal with the Ice Warriors to take over the universe.  The twist appearance of the Monk and the Ice Warriors comes right out of left field, as the last time a returning villain appeared in the strip was Junk-Yard Demon and before that was Dragon’s Claw.  The strip makes the wise decision to pass between the Doctor and the Monk, the Monk just doing it for the psychotic joy of being able to change history.

 

The first issue is a really nice epilogue to Lunar Lagoon which gives us the Doctor on the beach being attacked by Gus, an American soldier who was in the background in the last story, but is upgraded to companion here.  He is not trusting of the Doctor throughout the first issue and we get this great reveal that World War II was not in the 1940s, but in the 1960s in this particular universe, giving the Doctor the first real moment of what has been going on.  There is this utterly charming moment where the Fifth Doctor feels like the Fifth Doctor where he gets lost in thought and wanders off into the sea, nearly drowning.  This partially feels like a little bit of action to keep the first issue moving and get Gus to save the Doctor so he can get a companion for this and the next story.  Gus as a character is a bit one note, he is essentially there to have the companion role and being American is interesting as it gives the Doctor someone to explain things to, but he is not given much character on his own.  That’s where a lot of 4-Dimensional Vistas falls apart in the back half, when a bunch of faceless soldiers are added in to build towards the conclusion as it just becomes some all out action.  The action isn’t bad, it’s still drawn quite nicely despite not having some of the best backgrounds with Austin’s art, yet it still flows nicely from one scene to the next.

 

Overall, 4-Dimensional Vistas, despite continuing the trend of having very odd titles (I think it’s supposed to be a reference to the parallel dimensions featured), brings the Fifth Doctor’s Doctor Who Monthly strip back to what it had been.  The long running threads of time being messed with are tied together mostly nicely with a return from a character who people wouldn’t be expecting at all.  8/10.