Changes by: Grant Morrison with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Changes is written by Grant Morrison with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 118-119 (October-November 1986) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The World Shapers by Panini Books.

 

Grant Morrison is a legendary comic book writer and like many legends that came out of the United Kingdom, they had some of their early work in Doctor Who Magazine.  Changes is the first of three comic stories provided by Morrison and you can immediately tell it is from their style.  This is a simple, two issue story set entirely in the TARDIS and it’s clear from the offset that Morrison has given artist John Ridgway the freedom to explore what the interior of the TARDIS looks like in more detail and an almost surreal nature.  None of the corridors actually look the same and there are several different styles, historic, futuristic, and the just plain weird that makes these two issues so very fun to look at.  Morrison wastes no time in getting a plot going, the Doctor tells Peri and Frobisher that there is an intruder aboard the TARDIS and not to follow him.  Of course, they both do and it’s eventually revealed to the audience that the intruder is a monstrous shapeshifter taking first the form of the Doctor and then Peri, before the story ends with a big battle between the Chimera and Frobisher.

 

What’s fascinating about Changes is the way that Morrison characterizes the Doctor: here he is far more whimsical and mischievous than he has been portrayed previously while still feeling this is meant to be the Sixth Doctor.  Gone are many of the outbursts and in their place is a stern sense of caring for his two companions.  Peri actually is allowed to be proactive in the plot of the story, she’s the one who gets Frobisher to come with her and try to find the creature while questioning the Doctor’s habits of collecting artwork and plays from the famous artists of Earth’s history.  It’s fascinating to read this immediately after Salad Daze where she was basically Mel, but here having Frobisher as her reluctant companion adds this nice little layer of friendship.  Frobisher as a character is by no means a deep character, he’s essentially a joke character and while Morrison brings his shapeshifting back so the story can have a climax, it’s a unique aspect to the character that makes Frobisher work.  They’re also clearly having fun writing this little story, despite it just being like any other job for them.  There is a sense of Morrison wanting to shift the strip to something greater which makes me wonder what it would had been like if Morrison had a full run of Doctor Who Magazine comics and not just three stories.

 

Overall, Changes brings the strip back to many of the fun storytelling days gone by for the strip.  While it does not attempt to set up any sort of new arc as the strip continues its rotation of authors from this point, the title is one that genuinely calls into question how Doctor Who was changing at this point as the end of 1986 approaches and the news of Colin Baker being fired from the role would be breaking.  Morrison’s whimsy and surrealism melds perfectly with John Ridgway’s art to create the first genuinely great strip in a while, reenergizing a run of strips.  8/10.