If you thought you’d have to wait until next year to see the first story for David Tennant’s shock return as Doctor Who’s 14th Doctor, then think again: his first adventure is already here, just not in the format you were expecting.
Today’s release of Issue 584 of Doctor Who Magazine also sees the start of a major new experiment: for the very first time in its history, the magazine’s monthly comic strip will be a part of current Doctor Who continuity. Set immediately after the climax of “The Power of the Doctor,” which saw Jodie Whittaker’s 13th Doctor regenerate into the familiar face of David Tennant, the new comic, penned by Alan Barnes and illustrated by Lee Sullivan, will provide the 14th Doctor’s first story, as they attempt to discover who they are and why they carry the face of a former incarnation. The story will run for 12 months, each part releasing in every monthly issue of DWM until the 60th Anniversary specials air next November, presumably picking up where the comic will leave off.
“From day one, I wanted to increase ties between the show and the magazine,” Davies said in a press release accompanying the latest issue’s launch. “I love it when we’re in sync! A lot of people will be thinking, David’s not the real Doctor, he’s a trick, an illusion, a flashback. But no. He’s real. And DWM can help us underline that.”
Davies is an avowed life-long reader of the magazine, and previously contributed a regular column to it while he was Doctor Who’s showrunner from 2005 to 2010 — a column he will now return to from DWM #584 onwards. Time will tell just how much the new comic will actually matter when Doctor Who returns to TV screens in 2023, but given Davies’ long desires to have a cohesive Doctor Who transmedia empire — desires he might be able to actually act on in this new era — it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the tentative first steps for it taken by bringing the 14th Doctor’s very first story to the pages of DWM.
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