An all-new story arc begins! In the wake of Clara’s exit, the Doctor is flying solo – and finding just as much trouble, danger and cosmic wonder as when Ms Oswald was around! The Doctor travels to the Twist, an artificial world with “the best punk scene this side of the 40th century!” But when an old-fashioned murder mystery requires his detective skills, he uncovers something far more sinister buried in the Twist’s history…!Plus! A new comics companion for the Twelfth Doctor? Find out here…!

No disrespect to Clara Oswald, but I wonder why Titan Comics waited this long before dropping her from the comic. After all, she ceased to be a companion on the television show last December. Perhaps the BBC would not confirm her departure to Titan until the event had actually been transmitted, or maybe they were initially reluctant to allow the publisher to create a comics-only companion for the Twelfth Doctor.

In any event, the first episode of The Twist introduces us to a potential new fellow traveller… but who is it? Writer George Mann presents us with two possible candidates – bass guitarist Hattie and hunted fugitive Jakob. The obvious choice is Hattie. She doesn’t exactly set this issue alight with any distinctive personality traits, but she fits the usual type of feisty young female, as opposed to Jakob with his cybernetic eye. Peter Capaldi himself has said that he prefers his Doctor to have a female companion, not a young man who might usurp his position as action hero. But who knows, the writer might be trying to pull the wool over our eyes…

Talking of confounding expectations, I half-expected the crab-like Macra to turn up when Jakob started telling the Doctor about “beasts… that creep around in the darkness.” The conversation plays out rather like a discussion between the Second Doctor and the rebel Medok in The Macra Terror: “But no one believes you, do they…?” replies the Doctor. “No,” says Jakob, “none of them will admit the truth. They don’t want to believe there are monsters here on their precious colony. But I’ve seen them…” However, the feral creatures on the Twist turn out to be something else entirely. How’s that for a twist?

One Macra does finally show up, though – on Colin Bell and Neil Slorance’s funny page! For those of you who are pining for her, Clara remains a presence here, in much the same way that the humour strip in Titan’s Eleventh Doctor comic has always featured Amy and Rory rather than the comics-only companion Alice.

As for the main strip, it’s beautifully illustrated by Mariano Laclaustra (especially a double-page establishing shot of the space station itself), but story-wise it seems to be only just getting going. Still, there are two more episodes to go…

6

Richard McGinlay