To some extent, everything about the Fifteenth Doctor’s era signalled a shift towards a younger audience again. As with around two-thirds of the Thirteenth Doctor’s time in the Tardis, there was an emphasis on primary colours, relatively straightforward storytelling, and an easy-to-understand moral compass, with only very occasional shades of complexity.

That feels very much like the territory we’re in for issue #1 of The Prison Paradox from Dan Watters and Sami Kavela.

Set during Season 2 of the Fifteenth Doctor’s run, the premise is pretty straightforward – and also dripping with nostalgic nods to previous eras, to help the whole thing slide into your brain that little bit more easily.

The Doctor and Belinda, having stopped off to get a Vindicator reading, have been separated. Belinda’s been kidnapped by the warden of an impossible prison, to act as their latest chatty pet and entertain them with stories from a planet that doesn’t exist, so they don’t get bored while looking after – to coin a phrase – “the worst scum of the universe.”

The planet of course is Earth – which in Season 2 has been vapourised for aeons, in line with the series arc. The warden runs the prison belonging to the Shadow Proclamation, law-guardians of a substantial chunk of space and time. The prison’s on a space station skimming the event horizon of a black hole.

And the Doctor’s got himself arrested so he can mount a rescue mission.

Prison Break

All up to speed? Good, good, because there’s not a whole hell of a lot more to tell you about issue #1. Once you know all this, the issue is fairly standard fare – the Doctor chats with a handful of other new inmates, gets in trouble for bringing the sonic screwdriver on board, starts a riot, bish bash bosh. Nothing that you haven’t especially seen before, and nothing that ruffles your feathers at all. It’s pretty typical Doctoring, the like of which you could expect from practically any incarnation.

What gives issue #1 its frisson of interest is two things. Number 1, it becomes a fairly obvious Suicide Squad parody about two-thirds of the way through, with the Doctor joining forces with a member of the Slitheen family, a junior Adipose whose only crime is existing in the wrong place at the wrong time, a cyborg weapon-pirate, and a squidly tentacled “drowner of worlds”, to tackle a giant (fairly Robot Revolution-looking) “RiotBot”. 

And number 2, the warden, watching events unfold from their central position in the web of the station, is somewhat joyously bored by the whole thing. They have quashed many riots in their time, and this seems to be nothing that concerns them in the slightest. 

The Promise of Prison Potential

In essence then, issue #1 is not particularly scintillating in terms of its base story – there are things you’ve seen before here, just with a reasonable rendition of the Fifteenth Doctor’s dialogue and character, and a cheeky tweak on the premise of a movie franchise thrown in to keep things spicy.

But what it does have is promise. It promises a lot that could be coming for both the Fifteenth Doctor and for Belinda. It promises potential plunder of the Who-universe’s jewels lying ahead within the confines of the prison (not least in its “Next Time” panel, which is simply titled “Underwater Menaces” and which shows one such jewel in the Doctor’s future. And it promises a whole universe of possible reveals that could turn this story arc from just a Suicide Squad-cum-prison-break storyline into something that justifies the use of the word “paradox” in its title. 

It doesn’t especially hurry its storytelling – you get a couple of pages of “establishing shots” at the start, showing the prison station, while sidebar monologues explain why it’s a terrible place to end up before we even get a Doctor-reveal. 

And the ending of this issue is a soft-shock, too, rather than what might be called a cliff-hanger – we simply get to understand a little more of the peril in which Belinda finds herself, Scheherazading like her life depends on it, telling tales of the wild insanity that is the system of coffee shop loyalty cards to divert the warden’s more…erm…beheady tendencies. But this issue does invite you to get comfy at the start of a whole Season 2 side-quest that has a lot more potential to share with you down the line.

The Visuals

Artwise, Sami Kavela brings an interestingly retro vibe to the party, with some things rendered in a kind of shorthand, while others, like the RiotBot in particular, have a precision that makes them stand out and solidify the world in which the adventure is taking place. 

Colour work from Valentina Bianconi is helpful here too, giving certain plot elements the essence of tangentialism where necessary – the fact that the Doctor has started a riot in the mega-prison is downgraded in importance because it is “reported” mostly through viewscreens that make it seem like just a TV left on for white noise while the warden quizzes Belinda about Earth, the muted colours of the screen helping to make it feel like the most commonplace thing in the world. 

By contrast, the RiotBot is delivered in the kind of vivid colours that we identify with the Fifteenth Doctor’s era, which intensifies the immediacy of the presence and the threat it delivers.

Is issue #1 of The Prison Paradox an absolute instant classic? 

Nnnno, it’s a slow-build to not a whole hell of a lot of beans. But it does more than enough to make you wonder where it’s going from here, and to make you want to “tune in” next time to find out.

Which is, after all, the job of every competent first episode. Tony Fyler

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