Nerdly » ‘Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor

22nd May2020

‘Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor – Year 2 #4’ Review

by Dean Fuller

Written by Jody Houser | Art by Roberta Ingranata | Published by Titan Comics

Well a lot has certainly happened since I reviewed the last issue of this book back in February. You could say in many ways the Covid pandemic is like something straight out of a Doctor Who story, though sadly rather than The Master being neatly dispatched and all going back to normal, this pandemic is very real and there is no blue police box in sight. More’s the pity. What The Doctor can provide is a healthy dose of escapism, something sorely needed in this moment in time, with a dollop of fun on the side. I say Doctor, but this issue and the last three have all been (in the real world) from writer Jody Houser and artist Roberta Ingranata, so credit where it’s due.

It’s been a fun romp, Houser constructing a story that overlaps and runs alongside the TV episode ‘Blink’. We have the Thirteenth and Tenth Doctor’s running around 1969 London, we have Martha Jones, we have The Fam, and of course The Weeping Angels and The Autons. Paradoxes all over the place, this is the kind of Who we love. So after 3 issues of teasing, we finally have both Doctor’s and all the companions together in a single TARDIS, trying to fend off the attacking Angels who want the TARDIS to feed on the temporal energy. Our Doctor, Thirteen, hits on a clever plan. She puts the images of the Angels up on the internal screens, which freezes them, as even on a screen they are being looked at. One re-materialisation in Space later, the question now is how to actually stop the Angels for good.

The companions reason, as you would, that a plan should be easy to find, with two Doctor’s clearly better than one. Not that simple. The different incarnations of The Doctor tend to be quite competitive with each other, rather than working together nicely, so plans tend to be negotiations rather than joint efforts. Still, on a practical level, two sonic screwdrivers are better than one, right? So, first part of the plan is to track down and sort out the Autons, who are tracked to the tunnels under the Thames. The plan for that is nice and simple. Show them to conquer the Earth they have to get past the Weeping Angels first. Yep, that did it. Scratch the Auton threat, they’ve been sent waaaay back in time by an Angel. If its pre-plastic, we’ll not be seeing them any time soon.

This just leaves the Angels themselves, now also under the Thames and tracking our merry band of time and space travellers. Luckily the TARDIS isn’t too far away, and The Doctor has a spare energy net lying around perfect for picking up stone statues. Where does a non littering Doctor put said statues? In the heart of a Sun. Still won’t kill them, but it will take them a long time to get free. As always parting is such sweet sorrow, especially as The Thirteenth Doctor has to leave the Tenth Doctor and Martha back in Sixties London because, you know, paradoxes. Paradoxes being what they are, this meeting of the Doctor’s will fade from memory, eventually, but these two got on pretty well. Which is nice.

I would say this ties up the 4 issue arc quite nicely, which it does of course, though it leads straight into next issue’s storyline which seems to feature a devastated London. In the present. Not good. An excellent issue, and storyline in general, from Jody Houser. Her grasp on characterisation is just perfect, she gets all the nuances and humour of both Time Lords here. She writes them as characters doing very serious life and death things, but using humour as their safety valve. Makes for a fun read. Ingranata’s panel art in general, and likenesses in particular, are superb and a perfect fit for this book.

A book that can’t fail to make you smile.