Doctor Who [2020] #2 - Titan Comics

DOCTOR WHO No. 2, January 2021

For those readers of Jody Houser’s “Alternating Current” narrative whose heads weren’t already spinning from the plot’s incredibly confusing mix of different incarnations, companions, allies, and popular monsters, the American author’s inclusion of the villainous Skithra in Issue Two of “Doctor Who” as the supposed saviours of humanity will surely have done the job. Indeed, the sudden appearance of the extra-terrestrial scavengers as the Thirteenth Doctor’s apparent rescuers comes completely out of the blue, and arguably just makes an already convoluted plot packed full of long-winded interactions between characters who should never really meet in anything but the worst fan fiction, even more outlandish.

Of course, the explosions, death rays and subsequent foot-chases which follow the hive species’ prison break does at least imbue this comic’s seriously sedentary storytelling with some much needed energy and action. However, a lot of the dynamism generated by the Skithra’s shocking entrance is sadly soon diluted by the writer’s insistence of pairing their Queen up with the current TARDIS crew as they almost nonchalantly make their way back to the time machine and revisit the usually somewhat humorous set-piece of a new visitor describing the ship’s dimensionally transcendental interior as being “inside bigger.”

Quite possibly this twenty-two page periodical’s biggest disappointment though is the lack of chemistry shown between the Tenth Doctor and the Sea Devil enslaved Rose Tyler. The nineteen-year-old Londoner is understandably a little reluctant to believe a madman in a box who inadvertently lets slip that her still living parents should actually be dead. Yet that initial unease lingers throughout the couple’s uninspiringly long conversation, and doesn’t cease even after the heavily-armed young woman has entered the Gallifreyan’s spacecraft, and this comic’s audience have been subjected to another “bigger on the inside” scene.

Fortunately, for those bibliophiles able to negotiate such a debatably bizarre book, there is at least the enjoyment of looking at Roberta Ingranata’s artwork. The Italian does a very good job of sketching the central cast just as they would appear on the small screen, and captures all the awkwardness of the Sea Devils when they awkwardly lumber after their escaping workers whilst cutting down several of the humans’ scorpion-like rescuers in the process.

The regular cover art of "DOCTOR WHO" #2 by Peach Momoko