Star Trek/Doctor Who: Assimilation 2 #1
Written by Scott & David Tipton with Tony Lee
Art by JK Woodward
Lettering by Shawn Lee & Robbie Robbins
Covers by JK Woodward, David Messina & Joe Corroney
IDW Publishing
Release Date: May 30, 2012
Cover Price: $3.99

As the world’s first and foremost NON fan of Doctor Who, I went into Star Trek/Doctor Who: Assimilation 2 #1 expecting to like the Star Trek parts and hate the Doctor Who parts. Well, you learn something new every day, right? While I’m not going to go out and buy one of those weird R2-D2-like trashcan things from Doctor Who, I now have a different view of the franchise than I did before.

What I loved about this issue is that it starts off with NONSTOP action, something that’s not really the norm in the Star Trek universe, but it’s a heck of a lot of fun. This issue, the Star Trek part anyway, takes place in the Next Generation universe. Writers Scott & David Tipton, accompanied by Tony Lee, lay out a really interesting comic here. There’s two big A-List villains teaming up, but we’re not sure how or why – a nice mystery that will come into play later in the series, I’m sure. Then, we switch over to the Doctor Who half of the story. I found this surprisingly entertaining. Again, I know next to nothing about Doctor Who and I came away from this issue actually liking the character of The Doctor. Now THAT’S writing! If you can make a reader interested in a character that they had NO interest in, you’ve done your job and then some.

This May, the worlds of Doctor Who and Star Trek will collide in comic book form with an all-new series coming to IDW Publishing.

The 8-issue series, called Star Trek TNG/Doctor Who: Assimilation2, will see the two scifi powerhouse franchises together for the first time in comic book form when The Doctor teams up with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and his crew aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Star Trek The Next Generation/Doctor Who: Assimilation2 will be written by Scott and David Tipton (Star Trek: Infestation), with help from longtime Doctor Who writer Tony Lee, and will feature fully painted artwork by J.K. Woodward (Fallen Angel). The comic will see the villainous Borg and Cybermen joining forces against our heroes. Check out the full cover here below.

Doctor Who Volume II: Issue #11
Written by Tony Lee
Art by Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff
Lettering by Shawn Lee
Covers by Mark Buckingham, Charlie Kirchoff, and Matthew Dow Smith
IDW Publishing
Release Date: November 9, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

“I’m a woman now: women are cool…”

Many decades ago, the concept of swapping the minds of two characters became a very clichéd plot device. Used across the genres of horror and science fiction, the device eventually found its way into more family friendly media such as Freaky Friday, and has even been used in a few of our favorite Looney Tunes cartoons in years gone by. Doctor Who Volume II #11 (and its predecessor, #10) takes on this plot device, and though clichéd as it is, it fits nicely into the Whoniverse.

Doctor Who Volume II: Issue #9
Written by Tony Lee
Art by Josh Adams
Colors by Rachelle Rosenberg
Letters by Neil Uyetake
Covers by Mark Buckingham, Charlie Kirchoff, and Ben Templesmith
IDW Publishing
Release Date: October 05, 2011
Cover Price: $3.99

The major point you need to know about this issue of IDW’s Doctor Who, is that while the Doctor is with Rory and Amy, he has a new companion.

An intelligent robot dinosaur called Kevin the Tyrannosaurus.

This concept is as ridiculous as it is brilliant! The writers obviously leave it unexplained how Kevin enters and exits the TARDIS, but his sheer presence in this issue is marvelous. For all intents and purposes, Kevin becomes the celebrity of this Doctor Who comic, playing a pivotal role as the story reaches its conclusion.

The closest the Doctor ever got to Jack the Ripper on TV was in the Tom Baker episode of Doctor Who entitled The Talons of Wang-Chiang. The Doctor, with companion Leela, arrives in Victorian London. The Doctor wears a Sherlock Holmes-style hat during the episode and the concept of the crimes of The Ripper are vaguely hinted at through the episode.

But now, for the first time ever, Matt Smith‘s incarnation of the Doctor will pit him up in an adventure that places him in the path of Jack the Ripper, in a new comic book from IDW Publishing.

io9 got the scoop on the comic book release, where the Doctor ends up in Victorian London again, this time with companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams, in a situation that makes them discover that Jack The Ripper is on the prowl, and it may turn out that he may not necessarily be a human serial killer… in fact he may not even be human at all.