Doctor Who dropped one of its best ever twists at the end of recent BBC centenary special “The Power of the Doctor,” when Jodie Whittaker regenerated not into Ncuti Gatwa as expected, but David Tennant. The Tenth Doctor icon will now be playing a whole new incarnation of the Time Lord, the Fourteenth Doctor, for three specials set to air in November 2023, to mark the show’s 60th anniversary.
Whovians had reluctantly prepared themselves for a long wait for more of this new Doctor with a familiar face, then, but in a welcome surprise, the first adventure for the Fourteenth Doctor has already been revealed. The latest issue of official tie-in mag Doctor Who Magazine has released this Thursday, and it comes with a fresh comic storyline that picks up directly after the events of the latest TV episode, with the newly regenerated Doctor struggling to adapt to returning to an old body.
The TARDIS takes the Doctor to Wembley Stadium,1966, where he witnesses the famed World Cup Final between England and Germany, which ended in the former nation’s historic win. Everything seems to be going par the course, until the Time Lord discovers some “time tourists” in the crowd, a group of aliens wearing psychic shields to appear human in order to watch a key historic moment play out. But it turns out they aren’t here to catch the game. They’re here for the alien invasion that’s about to take place.
A familiar spaceship then appears above the stadium, from which streams a horde of Daleks. The comic is revealed to be titled “Liberation of the Daleks,” a 13-part mega-arc that will carry readers through next November and lead directly into the first of the 60th birthday specials. So anyone looking to stave off the hunger for more Who until then now knows exactly where to go for their fix.
Tennant returns to our screens next fall, before Ncuti Gatwa takes over as the Fifteenth Doctor sometime during the festive season.