Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #2 - Titan Comics

DOCTOR WHO: TIME LORD VICTORIOUS No. 2, November 2020

Despite pitching the Tenth Doctor and the Daleks together against a common foe, Jody Houser’s narrative for Issue Two of “Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious” probably contained far less action than its 6,000 readers anticipated. Indeed, apart from an all-too brief confrontation between the oddly rusty Prime Strategist and a lone Hond scout, not a single gunstick is fired in anger until this forty-four page periodical’s end, when unsurprisingly the extra-terrestrial pepper-pots turn upon their former ally in order to eliminate him; “The Doctooor is no longer of use to the Daleks. Exterminate!”

Up until this point, the bloated book’s plot predominantly focuses upon the fast-talking time traveller and his dilapidated guide to the Vault of Obscenities simply discussing how to access the derelict building’s “power not seen by any Dalek in living memory” and its weaponry’s subsequent use to defeat "the primordial ooze given sentience as an embodiment of the concept of pain.” Such a lengthy conversation might somehow manage to work on the small screen given actor David Tennant’s remarkable energy and a dynamic music score with which to underpin any tension the long-winded, word-heavy sequence was trying to convey. But in the medium of a comic it debatably just plays out as a seemingly endless carousel of well-pencilled panels portraying the brown-suited Gallifreyan pontificating about all life in the galaxy being of prime importance.

In addition, the presence of a lone Hond advanced guard on Skaro makes little sense when the publication’s entire purpose is to supposedly tell the story of how the titular character stopped the Dark Times terrors from ever reaching the Dalek’s home world; especially when it is intimated that if they did so then the universe would come to an end. To make matters worse though, it is never explained how the ‘immortal slime’ is in a position to tear its way up from the bowels of the planet straight into the most heavily-guarded fortification that Davros’ creations have ever built. The unkillable creature just suddenly appears in the Vault’s epicentre and starts up a conversation with its two enemies.

Perhaps this comic’s biggest disappointment however comes with its inclusion of the Thirteenth Doctor to supposedly save both her former incarnation’s bacon and ultimately, the day. Nonchalantly stood waiting for her predecessor to run by whilst being chased by a posse of angry Daleks, the apparently omnipotent blonde-haired “live wire” doesn’t actually do anything but run down a few corridors alongside herself. Yet the adventurer’s condescending arrogance and dislikeable demure strongly suggests that if she hadn’t shown up at the last minute, the Tenth Doctor would somehow have failed to escape from his gun-toting mechanical pursuers…

The regular cover art of "DOCTOR WHO: TIME LORD VICTORIOUS" #1 by Andie Tong