Nature of the Beast! by: Simon Furman with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Nature of the Beast! is written by Simon Furman with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 111-113 (March-May 1986) and are reprinted in their original form in Doctor Who: The World Shapers by Panini Books.

 

It is at this point in the history of Doctor Who Magazine where the writing team began to shift away from having a singular run to a series of alternating writers.  This is the first Doctor Who story from Simon Furman, a comics writer most well known for his work on Transformers, as well as contributor to one Big Finish audio drama, The Axis of Insanity.  His debut story Nature of the Beast! is a three part story that honestly feels like a good idea dragged across too many issues.  The plot is fairly standard, the Doctor, Peri, and Frobisher arrive on a planet where a hunting party is trying to kill a beast.  Of course, the Doctor steps in to save the defenseless creature and not all is as it seems, there is a galactic war that is the cause of strife on this planet, and finally a lost love is reunited.  It’s a nice little story, but the big issue here is that it’s a story where there isn’t a whole lot for me to actually talk about.  Furman as a writer here is incredibly dialogue heavy which means the pace of the three installments feel not quite like they move along that previous writers on the strip had understood is necessary for the quick pace of the lower page counts.  The twists about the nature of the beast is kind of standard and really what you might expect from a script, and while there is this attempt with an epilogue set in the TARDIS to make it feel like there’s a groundbreaking change in the world, it really doesn’t come together in the end.  John Ridgway is still on art duties and his style is wonderful to look at though the reproduction of these strips in The World Shapers is one that I don’t think works as nicely as it could.  Perhaps more restoration was needed to properly make this strip pop and of course another draft on the idea may have adjusted things to work for the better.

 

Overall, Nature of the Beast! may have been a story with potential and the writer clearly became lauded for other comic works, but the ideas aren’t really fleshed out enough and need something more to really make them pop.  The art is still wonderful, and it’s at least a very quick read due to the low page count and the fact that it is only three issues long.  5/10.