Doctor Who: Doom’s Day

I had no expectations about Doctor Who: Doom’s Day coming in. I didn’t pay much attention to Time Lord Victorious, the previous cross-platform multimedia event back in 2020, because I find chasing content across different venues tiring.

Doom’s Day is 24 hours in the life of Doom, a time-traveling assassin played by Sooz Kempner. She’s chasing down the Doctor in an attempt to prevent her own death at the end of the day. There are multiple parts ranging across books, comics, video games, audio, and more, but I only read the comics (which as single issues didn’t mention where else to go for more of the character, but since it’s all over now, that’s less important).

I found the guide to the event at the official BBC Doctor Who website, which also hosts the story Hour One. Hours 2-5 were in a comic included with Doctor Who magazine issue 592, and given that it’s only 20 pages long, the storytelling is very abbreviated. It’s also interesting that although she’s described as an assassin, I don’t recall her killing anyone. But the magazine is considered for all ages, so that might have affected the content they wanted to include.

Doctor Who: Doom’s Day reprints two issues. #1 covered hours 6-7, while #2 was hours 8-9. That makes the open-ish ending of the comic story make more sense. But I’m glad they set it up so you can just read this if you want. (And people do die in this one.)

The story, “A Doctor in the House?”, is written by Jody Houser with art by Roberta Ingranata. It’s primarily about Missy pretending to be the Doctor while wearing a Mad Hatter hat. Doom is seeking the Perpetual Topaz, some kind of world-destroying Maguffin, and Doctor Missy aims to stop her. The result is Doom chasing something and Missy chasing Doom.

I quite enjoy Missy as a character (although I’ve never seen her on-screen), particularly as Houser writes her. I don’t know why she’s calling herself “Doctor Who” (as opposed to “the Doctor”), but I’m sure there’s some reason somewhere. (I’m guessing it’s to impress the 12th Doctor.) There are a number of great lines included, too.

The various aliens and settings are drawn in interesting ways, although there was one bit of action I had to read a couple of times to know what happened. Given the nature of the setup, of course, Doom is less a character and more a plot device.

The remaining hours wind through a mobile game, the Extraction Point novel, an audio drama , another audio drama, and a final online chapter.

As this Doom’s Day collection is $18, while the two comics were $4 each, it might make sense just to hunt down the comics if you’re interested. I wish they’d included the magazine comic story as well in this book, but there are likely different deals cut for those.

I did like the event ending story, as it pointed out some of the cool things this overall tale did — including encountering all the Doctors. Will anyone remember this event now that it’s over and done? Perhaps as a model for a way to keep fans interested during a low point for content, as the new Doctor Who TV episodes were in production. (The publisher provided a digital review copy.)