Review: ‘Doctor Who: The Prison Paradox’ #1 Starts Bare Bones

The main cover image by artist Jay Anacleto and colorist Romulo Fajardo Jr. features great facial expressions plus a sense of realism. Though the background is fantastical to a debatable level it works well to balance out the composition, specifically with the color palette.

Writer Dan Watters sadly has a portion of the script lose its tension for those readers who know what Belinda Chandra and the Fifteenth Doctor’s fates will be. Not to mention that this is a seemingly standard jail break story featuring the Doctor. Yet, even the most bare bones of the Doctor’s adventures can have something to interest fans. In this case, it is the villain and how this adventure might add to various areas of the mythos. Watters also provides some social commentary that applies to differing viewpoints, and this could give some readers food for thought about our world.

Artist Sami Kivelä provides the visual for a variant cover that is definitely similar in look to a standard panel.  Unfortunately, this means it might not be as desirable to certain readers as the other covers. Nevertheless, it features suggestions of the supporting cast of characters in this mini-series while highlighting a great sense of depth. Kivelä also does the interior art in a way where the panel borders sometimes suggest the time passing between. It is worth mentioning that Kivelä does fine when it comes to certain moments of subtle visual characterization for the less humanoid beings.

Colorist Valentina Bianconi enhances a lot of Kivelä art with the various hues. However, one early panel has a selection of colors that some might disagree with since the light source appears wrong with them.

Letterers Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith do an exemplary job with positioning the text. Yet, there is a misspelling of a word that obviously limits the quality.

The remaining variant covers are by artist Flops and Nipuni. Both artists do a good job with their respective designs. However, the colors and design by Flops, along with the extra text, evokes the mid-1980s reprints by Marvel (Doctor Who #15 [1985]). While Nipuni’s artistic style is more definitively modern, at least as of the time of this writing. Nipuni like flops does great work with the sense of depth and showing confident line work. Lastly, there is also a photo cover variant that has an arguably nice composition.

Doctor Who: The Prison Paradox #1 is out now from Titan Comics.