Torchwood #1

Torchwood “World Without End” Part 1 | Writers: John Barrowman & Carole Barrowman | Artists: Antonio Fuso & Pasquale Qualano | Color Artist: Marco Lusko | Letterers: Richard Starkings & Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt | Publisher: Titan

Captain Jack is back! John Barrowman and his sister Carole are the authors of this series, Torchwood “World without End,” which is, I have to say, pretty adorable. I can only hope that in 10 years, my brother and I will be doing something that awesome together. Let’s get to the story.

Since the loss of their friends from the Torchwood series and Torchwood: Miracle Day, both Jack and Gwen tried to retreat into regular life, but as an apocalypse looms, they are back in action on the alien-augmented ice-rigging ship, the Ice Maiden, along with its crew and an AI, Mary Shelley. Jack gets into a jam on an alien planet and transports himself back to the cloaked ship. The vortex sucks a bystander in with him, and she becomes a stowaway.

Meanwhile at the Torchwood House in the Scottish Highlands, time traveler Captain John Hart (played by John Marsters in the series) kills Sir James Sterling III, a polymath and perhaps time traveler who cracks Doctor Who jokes, and steals his astrolabe. I haven’t read the other comics, but I assume they meant James Stirling, an English spy during the French reign of Robespierre in the original Doctor Who S1 story “The Reign of Terror,” or perhaps this is his grandson. Long story short, he’s dead and Spike killed him.

Elsewhere on the shore of Newport, Wales, Gwen Cooper and her husband Rhys are attempting a little getaway while their daughter Anwen is away for a few days. But, that is not to be. The ship comes to fetch her and off she goes. None too soon, considering a fishing boat in Norway has just been sucked into the sea by a giant squid/alien/thing and now ninjas on jetskis are descending from a UFO.

Jack leaps onto a jetski and… that’s it.

It’s hard to gauge where the story is going, so I can’t grade based on the plot, but so far, so good. The art is nicely done, vibrant, crisp colors and interesting fonts with thoughtful little details here and there like a Celtic tattoo, Gallifreyan doodles, and architectural blueprints. Of the three original characters, Rhys looks most like himself and Gwen the least. I really liked the clever captions like the Ninjas on Flying Jetskis cell and the character introductions, punches of personality from the authors. It seems that there are quite a few plots here, so I am interested to see where it’s going, especially with the kraken. The back matter is a gallery of alternate covers; my favorite is a dreamy, foggy sketch of Jack and Gwen by Rod Reis.