Missy Takes On A New Role as The Doctor in Titan Comics Newest

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Doctor Who: Missy #1

Before The Doctor regenerated into a female form portrayed by Jodie Whittaker on the popular BBC series, Doctor Who, the possibility of transgendered regenerations was telegraphed by the newest incarnation of The Doctor's greatest nemesis -- the Time Lord who went by the label of The Master. Although, once female, the name was hardly appropriate, as the newly rechristened Missy (Michelle Gomez, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) stated emphatically.

And while we have seen Missy's demise on screen (or at least we believe we have), it's easy for a long-lived time-traveller such as herself to have had many other adventures in between those times we saw her, and that's a ripe opportunity for a canny writer to take advantage of. And this is exactly what Jody Houser has done in the Titan Comics release, Doctor Who: Missy, bringing the character face-to-face with her earlier counterpart while putting her into the path of The Doctor -- both his twelfth incarnation (as played by Peter Capaldi) and his third (Jon Pertwee). 

Missy seems to be still on a path where she's trying to do some good things with her nigh-immortal life, but her machinations are still a tad Machiavellian. When we meet her in this first issue, she is dressed in oddly whimsical attire and passing herself off as "Doctor Who." This is probably the only thing I bristle at, actually referring to the character by the name "Doctor Who," as we went decades with just "The Doctor" and a name left unknown and unanswered.

However, that's a personal preference, and the rest of the story moves things along quite nicely, as Missy sets out to free her former self from imprisonment in order to secure his help obtaining something the former Master had pursued across time and space: The Key to Time. Picking such an iconic storyline from the Doctor Who mythos leads me to wonder if there are perhaps some other Doctors that might make an appearance in the upcoming issues of this adventure.

I'd have liked to have had a bit more plot advancement in this initial chapter before dropping us off at the cliffhanger ending, but I'll admit that I'm eager to return back for the next issue.

Grade: 
4.0 / 5.0