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“THE PATH OF SKULLS: THE FIRST DOCTOR TAKES A WALK AND GETS CROSS ABOUT IT”

The Path of Skulls kicks off The Many Lives of Doctor Who, a celebratory comic collection tracing all thirteen incarnations. It’s a story that captures the spirit of the First Doctor era with admirable accuracy—but doesn’t quite remember to include a story. There’s no plot to speak of, just a walk down a mysterious path in an unknown land, punctuated by the Doctor being grumpy, Ian being resourceful, Barbara being wrong (apparently), and Susan being… well, Susan.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

What The Path of Skulls lacks in story, it makes up for in atmosphere. The art is striking, with a sharp style that captures the black-and-white era through a modern lens. More importantly, it nails the mood of those earliest episodes—particularly how prickly and pompous the First Doctor could be before he mellowed out.

There’s an amusing early-days feel to the TARDIS dynamic: the Doctor is baffled by his own ship (which is very on-brand for Season 1), and Ian ends up discovering the TARDIS library before the Doctor himself has had time to explore it. It’s a cute gag that underscores how young and untested this incarnation still is.

Barbara attempts to reason out their surroundings, positing that they've stumbled upon a ritualistic altar, only for the Doctor to chastise her for being too quick to conclude. It’s the kind of exchange that happened regularly in early Doctor Who—a bit patronising, a bit pompous, and surprisingly nostalgic to see recreated in comic form.

SUSAN, STRAIGHT OUT THE BOX

In just a few lines, the comic somehow manages to channel peak Susan—wide-eyed, melodramatic, and more of a liability than a help. It’s oddly impressive how efficiently the character’s most irritating traits are brought to life. Whether this is a positive or negative will depend on your personal Susan tolerance.

📝VERDICT: 6/10

The Path of Skulls is more of a nostalgic character sketch than an actual story. It recreates the early TARDIS team with uncanny accuracy—especially the Doctor’s arrogance and Susan’s infuriating naivety—but forgets to give them anything to do. Still, as a mood piece evoking the early 1960s era, it’s oddly charming in its simplicity. Don’t expect much plot, but do expect the First Doctor to get cross about very little, which is at least accurate.

This isn’t even a story. This wouldn’t even constitute as a modern Doctor Who ‘cold open’. It’s 3 pages long, and in those three pages it doesn’t even try to set up something to pay off later. Like it has just given up at being a comic story. It’s a sweet little bit of the beloveds walking around but like, this isn’t a story. I’m just kind of confused. An editor read this and went: “Fine by me!” how? I feel like a deeper commentary is being made that I’m missing because surely this can’t be it?

The colouring is very beautifully done. Gives off a really cozy but still alien atmosphere. Fantastical pink skies and a paintlike shade over it, very cool. The actual drawings are really stiff and especially the characters look lifeless, but I guess it kinda works with the painted look?

A nice somber story

The Path of Skulls, like all stories in The Thirteenth Doctor #0 (also known as the Many Lives of Doctor Who) is very short. Keeping in mind these are shorts within a single issue of a comic book, these things are only going to be a few pages long and not have a ton of substance to them. Path of Skulls is very much that - full of lavish artwork of both the TARDIS and an alien planet, we get a lot of good visuals but very little in the way of plot. The Doctor and the TARDIS crew come across a number of skulls on a trail, and quickly deduce it is not something malignant but rather a respectful spiritual site of some kind.

I like that this suggests not every adventure in the TARDIS is some big, sweeping epic story, but rather sometimes the crew really are just travelling, but that's all one can really take from something this simple.