Tony gets his swagger
on:
Torchwood’s back in the hands of the Barrowman’s.
Torchwood was originally a
great idea in the barking mad mind of a Welshman. As a Welshman with a barking
mad mind, I appreciate that fully. But like any successful TV show, it stopped
being the exclusive property of Russell T Davies very early on, and has found a
host of other impressive minds to nestle in and grow. Chris Chibnall was one.
The writers at Big Finish have added significantly to the world. But it’s also
fair to say there wouldn’t be Torchwood without John Barrowman, anchoring the
show as Captain Jack Harkness. Since Miracle Day, John and his sister Carol,
have become two of the many keepers of the Torchwood flame, writing a Torchwood
novel together (among their other literary collaborations), The Exodus Code,
which took Jack and Gwen off on a whole new adventure, collecting a whole new
bunch of Torchwooders (Torchwoodees? Ohhhh dear) along the way.
What The Exodus Code made
perfectly clear to any doubters is that the Barrowmans can not only write, they
can write Torchwood, and they can do it in ways that keep the heart of the
original show beating, but free it up to find new strands to its destiny, fresh
ideas and adventures in a wider universe.
Well, hellllo!
Torchwood in comic-book
form was surely a no-brainer from the start – like Doctor Who in the 90s and
early 2000s, Torchwood might have dropped off our screens, but it’s never
dropped off our radars. It keeps bubbling away, emerging here and there in new
forms – by no means in small part to the relentless (seriously, we think he’s
probably plugged into the mains overnight) energy of John Barrowman himself,
who, while going on to find new roles in which to immortalise that
cheese-cutting jawline and that supernova twinkle, has always retained a sense
of passion for Torchwood and for Captain Jack, as well as going out of his way
to be good to the show’s fans. After all, you don’t write a novel unless you’re
passionate about the subject, so getting The Exodus Code out there was a sign
of his continuing commitment to the man in the really good coat, and his eager
participation in the Big Finish Torchwood audios has also done a lot to keep
Torchwood alive in our consciousness.
Titan Comics is riding
high at the moment on a wave of Who – multi-Doctor stories, six separate
strands of single-Doctor releases, and it’s also publishing the manga version
of the showrunner’s other baby, Sherlock. So what could be more natural than
Torchwood in comic-books? Apart from anything else, comic-books are a perfect
audience-fit for Torchwood – perhaps perversely, they’re a little bit more
grown-up, with a greater freedom for sex and violence, which is practically
Torchwood’s signature remit: Who, but human and aimed at slightly more
grown-ups. It’s a marriage made in storytelling heaven.
Getting the Barrowman’s on
board to write the first Torchwood story in comic-books has a feeling of
jigsaw-rightness, of coming home, and of exciting potential. But does it work?
Are you freaking nuts, of
course it works!
The tone is perfect – it
has some fast cutting, it has a good deal of Jack-swagger, it has Gwen and Rhys
being authentically Gwen and Rhys, it even has an old frenemy dropping by to do
what they do best (cause chaos and kill things), and it also has some Torchwood
storytelling staples to make you go ‘Oooh’ and ‘Ahhh’ and do the job of any
good writer – get its curiosity-hooks deep under your skin and yank you
forward, wondering what the hell happens next, and ready to spend good money to
find out.
So if you’re only familiar
with TV Torchwood, you won’t be disappointed by this first issue; it has plenty
of what you remember of the show: the Welsh, being as dry and down to earth and
occasionally divvy as they are; Jack being saucy, and brave and handsome and
making it look a whole lot better than your Jack Reacher’s or your Jason Bourne’s
could ever dream of; a weird potentially alien MacGuffin, stolen from the safe
place it’s been kept for x-number of years, meaning it’s now in disreputable
hands; a disappearance from a Welsh beach; and Gwen and Rhys fabulously failing
to get it on in a knackered old caravan when Jack comes calling. TV Torchwood
fans – buy this thing, you’re gonna love it.
But make no mistake about
it – this is post-Miracle Day Torchwood, and the Barrowman’s grab Torchwood
fans by any damn thing that dangles loose in this issue to say ‘There’s this
book we wrote. Go with it – Torchwood’s moved on from Miracle Day. Here are the
new people you’ve missed.’ The Barrowman’s’ writing style allows for the
cunning use of captions to bring the TV purists up to speed – there’s a ship
which is more than a ship, there’s a crew which look traditionally
Torchwood-hot and occasionally semi-naked, there’s an AI with attitude. As
writers, they take no prisoners, because they can’t afford to – they have to
please both audiences, the TV-only and those who’ve followed the extension of
Torchwood through their novel. Do they pull it off? Oh hell yeah, this is the Barrowman’s
for god’s sake, you knew they would when you walked in the door.
It’s not just about the
balance of expectations for audiences, though. This is Torchwood, we expect
innovation, and no, of course they don’t disappoint on that score either –
there’s a creepy-as-all-get-out idea right on Page 1, resonating with Series 9
Who on some levels, added to the abduction, the MacGuffin theft and the general
Captain Jack brooding that gives the issue its balance between action and
zap-pow mayhem and a mood of Something Big A-Coming. The Exodus Code crew bring
their own innovations with them, meaning this is a Torchwood with different
abilities to the TV version, an expanded sense of scope – without ever feeling
remotely invincible (however ironic that may be, given the leading man’s
signature move of coming back from the dead).
What’s perhaps more
questionable than the Barrowman’s storytelling skills going in is the artistic
tone. Torchwood was a show positively dripping in tone from the very beginning,
which makes it actually perverse that the tone also changed from episode to
episode, from series to series, as dynamics and personnel shifted. That means
getting the artistic tone right is crucial – get it wrong and it won’t feel
authentically Torchwood, it’ll feel like something that sounds like Torchwood,
but doesn’t deliver.
The tone adopted here by
Antonio Fuso and Pasquale Qualano on artistic duties is one that stops short of
photorealism, but, for instance, never slights the actors who stamped their
personalities so forcible on the characters we know and love. Eve Myles has a
very distinctive face, frequently used to great effect on the show to invest it
with heart and its funny bone, and Fuso and Qualano do her good service here,
as indeed they do to Captain Cheekbones – again, get those wrong and Torchwood
in comic-book form collapses. Fuso and Qualano knock them out of the park.
The style also brings with
it the freshness and inventive flair of The Exodus Code though, bringing a
‘best of both worlds’ feel to this debut issue, a sense helped along by some
light-handed colourwork from Marco Lusko, which can deliver the dankness and
slither-up-the-spine creepiness of the initial sequence, but make the Welsh
seaside look positively idyllic as – jusssst occasionally – it can be, and give
the interior of the Torchwood ship a combination of functionality and frolic.
So ultimately, what are we
saying?
Well again, you knew this
coming in, but we’re saying grab your army greatcoat and swagger to your
comic-book supplier of choice. Give them a white-toothed grin, smooch their
face off, and lay down your coinage for issue #1 of the Torchwood comic-book.
The Barrowman’s take their Torchwood just seriously enough, while lacing it
with its TV-traditional tongue in cheek humour, and the artists and colourists
that have been assigned to bring Torchwood back in the visual medium know
enough of their stuff to let you relax in their hands. If you ever had any
interest in the show at all, you’re gonna be jussssst fine with the Barrowman
crew.
It’s the 21st
century, and Torchwood is ready for your comic-book collection.
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