Issue #2 of the Fifteenth Doctor’s latest comic book adventure is a delicately balanced thing. On the one hand, it delivers a hefty amount of exposition in non-dialogue panels, telling the story, rather than allowing the characters to advance the story through their interactions.

On the other, the lead focus character of this issue is non-verbal, so whaddaya gonna do?

The central premise of the story-arc – a trek through a multi-environment prison built by the Shadow Proclamation to house the worst and most recidivistic criminals in the universe, to rescue Belinda from the creepy jokes of the Warden – allows for issues to show the variety of life that has arisen in the cosmos, and this issue capitalises on that premise, being mostly an aquatic schlepp through a watery part of the complex – through which only one of the Doctor’s escape squad (of course he has an escape squad, this story is essentially Suicide Squad meets Doctor Who!) can move without the use of pressure suits and external oxygen.

Before we even get to that though, there’s a significant casualty, in the form of one of the ostensibly most dangerous fighters on the team, who is left as little more than a head before the issue’s trek really starts swimming.

Dawn of the Tentaculons

The issue focuses on the life and crimes of Methelough, a sentient squid from a race known, with a certain depressing Terry Nation-style literalism, as the Tentaculons. Methelough is very much a “good kid gone wrong” – one of her first crimes in the wider universe was escaping from a tank in a sushi bar, which puts us firmly on her side. She’s never even met another of her race, because when she made her way back to her home planet, Tenta (yes, really), her oceans had been drained by a species familiar to Doctor Who fans (Spoilers! Although, not huge spoilers, because they’re right there on the cover of the issue), and which is described as the natural predator of the Tentaculons.

Absolutely, that makes very little sense from everything we’ve learned about the species, but there it is. 

What raises the stakes here is that Methelough finally meets another of her species, though any connection between the two is more or less doomed from the outset – they’re starring players in a Doctor Who story, after all – and with what could easily be read as cynical storytelling, the two are brought to a point of needing the Doctor to intervene in an attempt to save them from their arch-predator, leaving Methelough with a sense of indebtedness and friendship to the Doctor. 

You know enough to understand how that plays out without us actively spoilering you.

Insert Villainous Chuckle Here

Meanwhile, the reason for the trek, Belinda being held a kind of cosy captive by the Warden of the prison, who (in keeping with the theme of Season 2) has no understanding that “the Earth” was ever a real planet, is here kept very much to the end, a kind of post-credits sequence that gives the whole thing a Trial of a Time Lord vibe, as the two watch the Doctor’s progress through the complex and then discuss the action they’ve just observed.

As with Trial, the Doctor’s antagonist here has some classic and high quality sneery villain dialogue, but it all feels a touch redundant and played-to-camera when the Warden has done nothing whatsoever (or at least, nothing that we’ve seen) to either help or hinder the Time Lord’s progress with his squad throughout the issue, then pops up to carp at the end.

All in all, there’s a good logic and a solid-enough storyline in the second issue, but there’s also a degree of Who-by-numbers about it which lets down the premise and leaves you with a sense of “So what?” that, in fairness, also chimes significantly with some of the stories in Season 2.

But Is It Art?

Artwise, the demands of the storyline are reasonably well met, with Sami Kivela adopting a relatively retro style compared to some in the Titan Doctor Who range in the last decade, with mostly indicative rather than specific faces and a large number of mid-range shots to obscure harsh detail. While that works in terms of the storytelling, some of the action can feel a little static, particularly in an issue when the whole point is progress through an environment. 

Significant praise is due for Valentina Bianconi on colourwork duties though, for giving the underwater sequences a recognisable and intelligent sense of light moving through an aquatic environment, and for giving some vividness to earlier panels too, which work well enough to get readers into the ongoing quest to reach and rescue Belinda from the Warden.

Is issue #2 of The Prison Paradox an example of earth-shattering Doctor Who in comic book form? Nnnno, perhaps not, but it’s at least interesting enough to deliver the dopamine you might be hoping for, and make you wonder what’s coming next. Will each member of the squad have their stand-out moment? Will they all survive to meet the Warden? Will any of them? 

The Coming Next teaser promises an issue in which Annie the Adipose takes the spotlight while the Doctor is out of commission. Given that Annie is an Adipose baby, as seen in Partners In Crime, rather than the fully-grown Adipose we have yet to see anywhere, that feels like a fun challenge, and more than whets the appetite enough to keep going with the story. Although it does rather make us wonder what the poor little fat globule can have done to end up on the prison planet in the first place.

I guess we’ll have to check in with issue #3 to find out. On the basis of the first two issues, that should be no hardship whatsoever… Tony Fyler

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