WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #1 by James Goss, Jody Houser, Roberta Ingranata, Enrica Eren Angiolini, Shari Chankhamma and Richard Starkings of Comicraft, on sale now.
Titan Comics' Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #1, with a story by James Goss, written by Jody Houser and illustrated by Roberta Ingranata, kicks off the highly-anticipated Time Lord Victorious crossover event that will unfold from September until the end of the year -- and even into 2021. The multi-platform event spans comics, audio adventures, novels and even an escape room that is meant to tell one massive, overarching story.
Time Lord Victorious was initially announced at the end of April and now, the event finally starts with the arrival of this first comic. All we knew from the event was that it would involve the Eighth, Ninth and Tenth Doctors, and it would reveal what happened in the Dark Times, the period of time before creation itself.
Now, the adventures begins with David Tennant's fan-favorite Tenth Doctor, who is approached by the Daleks for a most unusual request: they want to team-up with him.
Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious #1 opens with the Tenth Doctor waking up in his TARDIS, with no idea of how he got there. Moreover, he can't even remember where he was before this either. But when he steps out of his time-traveling spaceship, he finds something he has no trouble remembering: multiple Daleks, all shouting his name.
Naturally, the Doctor is quick to run away, given that he knows all too well the Daleks have a habit of exterminating everything in their path. He jumps from one planet to the next, but every time, the Daleks find him -- and every time, he runs away. That is until he stops to realize the Daleks never once attacked him. When he finally decides to face them, the Daleks don't appear to be interested in killing him, their worst enemy. No instead, they ask that they accompany him to their homeworld Skaro, where he will meet with their Emperor.
To the Doctor's shock, the Emperor requires his help. It turns out that they have an enemy in common, one that seeks to destroy all life in the universe, even their own: the Hond. The Doctor knows the Hond by name of course, given that they ran rampant during the Dark Times. But that was a long time ago. Now, the Hond are nothing but a ghost story -- but not according to the Daleks.
The Emperor warns that the Hond are coming, and if they have any hope to survive, they will need an alliance. The Doctor relishes the Daleks asking for his help just a tiny little bit before he finally decides to accept.
Next, he then teams up with the Dalek's Prime Strategist, who shows the Doctor all of Skaro's defenses and weapons -- even those included in the Vault of Obscenities, which contains all manner of weapons forgotten to time. Inside the Vault, the Doctor and the Prime Strategist help one another survive ancient booby traps, until they finally come across a frightening Hond -- and this is where the issue leaves us, leaving the story to be continued in multiple other mediums.
The Doctor and the Daleks have had a rivalry that stretches back to Doctor Who's very first season in 1963. They are the worst and the most dangerous enemies the Doctor has ever faced, and he has clashed with them throughout the years in nearly all of his regenerations. But now, if there is any hope of survival, the Doctor and the Daleks must tolerate one another long enough to defeat the Hond.
As the old saying goes, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."