In Doctor Who: The Prison Paradox, the Doctor reunites with Belinda Chandra… and he also comes face-to-face with classic villains, the Slitheen.
Comic book publisher Titan Comics has been releasing Doctor Who titles for several years now, and many of them are excellent. Earlier this year, they released the full graphic novel of Everyone Must Go by Eisner-winning writer Dan Watters and artist Kelsey Ramsay. In the story, the Doctor and Ruby Sunday find themselves in the distant future, in Sanctum – the last surviving shopping mall on Planet Earth. The comic received great reviews, and now the Fifteenth Doctor (played on screen by Ncuti Gatwa) is here for another adventure in “The Prison Paradox.”
Dan Watters returns to script Doctor Who: The Prison Paradox, with Sami Kivelä joining as the series’ artist. The new series takes place on the space prison Panoptopolis, where the Doctor infiltrates as a prisoner to search for Belinda Chandra, who went missing and is presumed taken prisoner. This story takes place shortly after the Doctor meets Belinda Chandra and they learn that Earth mysteriously went missing, seemingly destroyed on May 24th 2025. In order to find a way to deliver Chandra back to her regular timeline, the Doctor uses a device called the Vindicator to collect readings from different times and places across the universe. The Prison Paradox is one of the many adventures they inexplicably find themselves on.
In the debut issue, Dan Watters crafts a story that feels so intrinsically Doctor Who. It’s an epic outer space tale brimming with familiar and new monsters. While the return of the Slitheen may be a selling point, the issue doesn’t rely on them. Instead, Watters subverts our understanding and expectations of the Slitheen, revealing that the real villain is the Warden. He is very much the puppet master of Panoptopolis, seeking out Belinda Chandra to join him in his quarters. As they spend more time together, he becomes increasingly enamoured with what life must be like on Planet Earth.
The Doctor himself, of course, is a harbinger of chaos. He attracts it wherever he goes and he very rarely helps himself out. Almost instantly after infiltrating Panoptopolis, he and the new arrivals get caught up in some trouble after the prison finds sonic interference. The Doctor’s electric energy and fast quips land brilliantly; you can read the lines in his voice. Moreover, watching the Doctor work alongside some of the universe’s greatest and most notorious villains is a joy to flick through. Each prisoner carries a unique personality. I particularly loved H-8, the living weapon, who stops at nothing to get involved in all things violent.
Sami Kivelä’s art is stunning, effortlessly capturing scale and delivering fast-paced action.
While we may not have had as much of Ncuti Gatwa’s Doctor as we’d liked, these comics are the next best thing. They capture his electric energy as well as possible within the comics medium. Between Everyone Must Go and The Prison Paradox, Dan Watters is quickly becoming one of my favourite storytellers in the Whoniverse!
Doctor Who: The Prison Paradox #1, the first of a 4-issue series, lands in stores on November 4. You can order your copy here.
