Ncuti Gatwa and Varada Sethu‘s time as the leads of Doctor Who may’ve come to an unexpected end after this year’s season of the show, but their characters, the Fifteenth Doctor and Belinda Chandra, will star in Doctor Who: The Prison Paradox, a new Titan Comics series arriving this November. Written by Dan Watters with art by Sami Kivelä, the four-issue series sees the Doctor, Belinda, and some new allies infiltrate “an inescapable prison facility in a forgotten part of the universe.”
Experience a Doctor Who adventure like no other as the Doctor, Belinda, and an unlikely team of allies infiltrate a prison holding monsters and villains from across the cosmos. With new friends and old foes, and some old foes who might just be new friends, it’s an adventure that will take you across the Whoniverse… and beyond!
At the official Doctor Who website, editor Jonathan Wilkins describes The Prison Paradox as Titan’s “most ambitious [comic] yet,” with the Doctor and Belinda “travel[ing] to a sinister space prison from which there is no escape. But who or what are the inmates – and who holds the keys to the cells? Writer Dan Watters takes us on a grand tour of the facility where mystery and danger lurk in every corner! Artist-extraordinaire Sami Kivelä joins the team to bring Dan’s epic story to life! Join us for an incredible adventure featuring some familiar faces and some exciting new characters making their debut in the Whoniverse!”
The comic’s announcement comes amidst uncertainty for the show’s future, with Disney apparently set to bail on co-producing and distributing the franchise internationally after this year’s live-action spin-off The War Between the Land and the Sea; this means the BBC has not commissioned another season yet, despite 2025’s finale ending on a cliffhanger, where Gatwa’s Doctor regenerated into an incarnation played by former Rose Tyler actress Billie Piper. Regardless, Doctor Who remains one of the BBC’s crown jewels, and even with the main series stuck in a holding pattern, the broadcaster are seeking pitches for an animated preschool spin-off, set to premiere in 2027.
With Gatwa’s departure, the comic will mark something of a last hurrah for his Doctor for the foreseeable future, with the BBC and its licensees (including Titan) having also announced Circuit Breaker, a multimedia project starring Jo Martin‘s Fugitive Doctor next year. Watters previously penned Titan’s first Fifteenth Doctor comic in 2024 (which featured art by Kelsey Ramsay, and co-starred Millie Gibson‘s Ruby Sunday), while Kivelä (Abbott, Machine Gun Wizards) is a first-time contributor to the Whoniverse, who has not worked with Watters until now.
Issue #1 of the series will be released with a range of covers on November 5 (shortly before the show’s 62nd anniversary), which you can check out below. Kivelä himself will provide a connecting variant cover for all four issues, while Jay Anacleto‘s main cover will also be available as a virgin foil variant, and Flops‘s will released in color and black-and-white. In the meantime, head to the official Doctor Who website for a full breakdown of the new characters, whose ranks include aliens from the show like the Adipose and the Slitheen.
