Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor #2.1 - Titan Comics

DOCTOR WHO: THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR No. 2.1, February 2020

Following on from the supposed “success of the first season” and apparently “created by the stellar sci-fi team of Eisner-nominated writer Jody Houser and Shades of Magic artist Roberta Ingranata", this opening instalment to “Titan Comics” second series of “Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor” probably had many fans of ‘Nu-Who’ frothing at the mouths in anticipation, when it was first announced at the New York Comic-Con that it would depict the Tenth and Thirteenth Doctor joining “forces against the Weeping Angels in a new comic series!” Yet whilst this twenty-two page periodical’s plot certainly contains plenty of ‘screen time’ for actor David Tennant’s incarnation of the Time Lord, absolutely nothing of any particular interest occurs within the America author’s script due to the TARDIS crew simply following him around Sixties London at “a safe distance.”

Disappointingly, the same can also be said for this publication’s secondary story involving Martha Jones working “as a shop-girl” at the Face Fashion clothes store. Admittedly, the sequences involving the twenty-three year-old medical student and “the first woman to play” the series’ titular character reaffirms the Gallifreyan’s blatant rudeness, when she completely blanks Martha’s ginger-haired co-worker Janice after the poor woman has offered to help her. But apart from the Thirteenth Doctor’s poor manners, nothing happens until this comic’s conclusion when Jones returns to an eerily-deserted shop having forgotten her jacket.

In the meantime all this book’s presumably frustrated audience have to enjoy are a few flashbacks to “not so long ago” when “the Tenth Doctor and companion Martha were attacked by the menacing Weeping Angels” and stranded in the past as per the June 2007 television adventure “Blink”. Unfortunately, this over reliance upon the nostalgia of a highly popular broadcast episode wears thin really quickly, especially when Houser takes an opportunity to have a dig at her male predecessor because the time traveller “was really thick back then…”

Luckily, one thing “A Little Help From My Friends” doesn’t suffer with is poor pencilling, with Roberta Ingranata desperately trying to pull out all the stops to make this dreary, dialogue-driven sequel contain at least a modicum of pace. The Italian artist does a great job of capturing the look and feel of England’s capital city in 1969, and also manages to imbue the Tenth Doctor with the infectious, highly energised “happy-go-lucky guise” his somewhat zany persona is so well-remembered for.

The regular cover art of "DOCTOR WHO: THE THIRTEENTH DOCTOR" No. 2.1 by Paulina Ganucheau