Hunger from the Ends of Time! by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway and lettering by: Annie Halfacree

 

“Hunger from the Ends of Time!” is written by: Dan Abnett with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree.  It was released in The Incredible Hulk Presents issues 2-3 (October 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: Nemesis of the Daleks by Panini Books.

 

The second story to be featured in The Incredible Hulk Presents covers two issues of the magazine.  As such “Hunger from the Ends of Time!” is allowed to develop far more than “Once in a Lifetime”.  Dan Abnett writes a story that feels like a precursor to the New Adventures in terms of setting and supporting characters.  It’s a planet that has been converted into a digital library containing all the galaxy’s knowledge, predating “Silence in the Library” and “Forest of the Dead” by 19 years, but it is besieged by bookworms.  These bookworms are giant, alien insects that are eating the books.  There is a group of space marines called the Foreign Hazard Duty who have been called to purge the worms, and the Doctor must go into a digital world to stave off the bookworms.  The twist of the story is that the library is storing its catalog in time and not in space, so the bookworms are going to collapse the web of time.  What’s particularly nice is that the Doctor treats the bookworms not as evil, but a problem to be solved, instead of killing them just exiling them back to their proper place at the beginning and end of time.  This is a grab bag of ideas that are going to become integral for several New Adventures, Timewyrm: Revelation, Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible, Love and War, and Birthright come to mind, so it’s interesting to see them all in a comic meant for young children.

 

The story is simple, although the Doctor is characterized as a touch too generic.  Some of this might be because this is meant to be for a general Marvel Comics reading audience and not the readers of Doctor Who Magazine, but it does mean that as a focal character the Seventh Doctor is a touch too boring a character in this story.  It is certainly closer to the Doctor than many of the Seventh Doctor Doctor Who Magazine strips up to this point and far easier to swallow than the characterization in “Once in a Lifetime”, but there should be more to the character at this point.  On the other hand, this strip is ten pages long and drawn entirely by John Ridgway.  Ridgway’s style is unmistakable and helps to elevate some of the ideas which would very easily become generic.  There is a particularly great use of background inks for the scenes set indoors on the planet, making everything evoke a computer even when the scene is set in reality.  The differentiation into the time vortex with the bookworms is also quite well done, Ridgway is the strongest of the artists brought in for The Incredible Hulk Presents and it shows.

 

Overall “Hunger from the Ends of Time!” works best because of its art and the twist of what the bookworms are is at least a little creative.  There is still the issue of the format being five page installments, giving this story two issues allows it to develop more as a story which is then tempered by writing the Doctor as the generic audience point of view character.  It is at least an enjoyable little story and a massive step up from the first installment of The Incredible Hulk Presents.  6/10.