Time Lord Team-Up in Titan's Doctor Who Crossover

by Vince Brusio

What if you were able to take the things you don’t like about yourself, separate those qualities, make them sentient beings, and then have them face-off against one another? Well, you’d be doing what Paul Cornell is doing with the Doctor Who 2015 Four Doctors TP (APR161933): he’s taking four incarnations of the Doctors, and having them square off in a popcorn rollercoaster action movie complete with a couple of old Doctor Who monsters. Read the PREVIEWSworld Exclusive interview below with Paul Cornell! Doctor Who 2015 Four Doctors TP (APR161933) is in comic shops August 24.

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PREVIEWSworld: Can you tell us what brainstorming was involved that got the ball rolling on the new storyline? What principal minds were involved? Who hounded who on email? 

Paul Cornell: Andrew James, the extremely talented Doctor Who editor at Titan, asked me if I'd like to write a multi-Doctor event.  I realized that was something I'd always wanted to do, and, being delighted by what Titan had done with its Who comics range, said yes.  Andrew had a few ingredients in mind for the actual story, which I used as a starting point.  I wrote the actual plot during the Gallifrey Doctor Who convention in L.A., and then the BBC Doctor Who production office were kind enough to agree to some outrageous things.  Indeed, we made them laugh.

PREVIEWSworld: A five-issue mini-series leaves plenty of room for introductions among the Doctors. Did you have any Q&A with editors to take notes on how initial greetings might play out in this story? Do they have to like each other just because they’re Doctors?

Paul Cornell: The Doctors in the Titan comics all come from very specific places in their own timeline, so Four Doctors happens *before* the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors meet in the TV show, and it's our job to make the continuity of all that work.  They're both mystified by how the Twelfth Doctor can even exist, and the Tenth basically loathes him on sight, so it's the job of the Eleventh to keep the peace between those two.  It's like having bits of one's personality given voice.  I think there are parts of all of us we wouldn't like if they were standing in front of us, and that's how it is with Ten and Twelve.  Doctor interaction is the most important part of this series for me, it's where the meat is.

PREVIEWSworld: Without spoiling the series as a whole, can you give us a general outline of what fans can expect from the Doctor Who Event 2015?

Paul Cornell: It's a rollercoaster action movie with a couple of old Doctor Who monsters, several reasons why it's called Four Doctors: lots of jokes, loads of Doctor-on-Doctor action.  It's about an impossible photograph that might mean the end of the universe and Clara's desperate quest to prevent what she calls 'some sort of multi-Doctor event'.

PREVIEWSworld: If you had to pick a scene in the series that would make fans talk, be it on a blog or social media, what would that scene be?

Paul Cornell: I think we've provided several mind-boggling cliffhangers, the last two of which, especially, will make fans go 'what?!!!'  We're pushing the envelope of what a licensed title is allowed to do.

PREVIEWSworld: Will you be making any rounds during convention season this year to promote this book? Will any scheduling announcements be made on any particular web site?

Paul Cornell: We're having a whole day devoted to it!  Doctor Who Comics Day, August 15th, with creators all round the globe.