The Doctor follows a distress signal that leads him to a space station in the middle of a hundred million light years of nothingness. The inhabitants refer to the station as the Great Refuge; a place where the survivors of a plague gathered together over hundreds of years. There's also been a murder, a murder in which the suspect in custody is quite an interesting lifeform. His name is TX and the fact that he's a member of the Counter family means that he lives his life on the opposite timeline to all other species...
He lives backwards.
This is not a normal comic book. The first page carries a warning for the reader that parts of the book may read better backwards rather than forwards. This carries a couple of different meanings when I read something like that. My first reaction is to say "Oh no. Another writer is trying to be more clever than the reader so they can be Mr. King Britches of whatever fantasy kingdom is in their head". My second thought is that I hope their narrative isn't smarter than I am and that I understand whatever their take on twisting the form is. Thankfully Rich Johnston splits the difference between those thoughts and I ended up having fun with it. His story isn't spoonfed and the reader does have to put some effort into deciphering it's layout, but it's enjoyable and not heavy handed at all.
Anytime you're dealing with a character from film or television, the artist has the deck stacked against them somewhat in the fact that they have to portray the physical likeness of the actors from the source material. Eric J does an admirable job but it's hit and miss for the most part, as is the art in the book overall. The Doctor is also a bit overly witty at the beginning, his every reply is smart-ass in nature, but once the story settles in he smoothes out nicely.
Cover art to DOCTOR WHO: ROOM WITH A DEJA VIEW by Tom Mandrake
As a casual fan of Doctor Who, I still picked up on Johnston's portrayal of the character and it felt right. You could see this as an episode of the show and his handling of the Doctor is consistent with the way he's handled on the small screen. The almost puzzle-like form of the story isn't perfect but it is interesting. Johnston's use of a character that's living "backwards" is risky in the fact that the stories success hinges on whether the reader is ok with that or not. There's more to it than just the murder mystery that I mentioned above, but if the reader doesn't go with the reverse format that shares the book then it's a lost cause. I admire the chances that were taken and also that those same chances didn't take anything away from the fun of the story for me, but that's going to be a very subjective thing from reader to reader. I thought that it dodged the bullet of being strictly about form because there's still a decent tale at it's heart and for that I'm grading it at a B-.
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