Just before the new Doctor Who series returns to our screens – the weekend before in fact – Titan Comics will be launching their new Doctor Who comic book series featuring the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday on a journey in the TARDIS that looks like it might well fit in between the Christmas edition and the first episode to come. Saturday, the 4th of May is, as well as Star Wars Day, is Free Comic Book Day. And Dan Watters and Kelsey Ramsay are bringing the first chapter of a new story, in which the Doctor hears a siren call across Space and Time. A tune that taps into some of his darkest moments, from the earliest days of the First Doctor, the end of days of the Third, and more recent troubles for the Tenth and Eleventh.
But where will it actually take him? Why, 1789 in Yorkshire. I’m from Yorkshire and, believe you me, it often feels like 1789, even now. And it’s to the day of the execution of famed highwayman Dick Turpin. Man, everything is coming up Dick Turpin these days, one version on Apple TV, another (kinda) on Disney+, but this Dick Turpin seems to have a cyborg arm with a laser blaster on it. Which looks a little out of sorts in eighteenth-century Britain, even in Yorkshire.
As well as the first glimpse.of Fifteen in comic form, Titan Comics also have a Conan comic out for FCBD that features more than the titular Cimmerian:
Earlier this month, we followed that with the news that The Battle Of The Black Stone was not just Conan and not just the Hyborian Age. And that this was to be a Robert E Howard crossover event.
And now we have the proof, with Conan, Solomon Kane. Dark Agnes De Chastilion, El Borak. Professor John Kirowman. And the word that this is to be referred to as the Howardverse.