The Path of Skulls (comic story)
The Path of Skulls was the first story of The Many Lives of Doctor Who, published in 2018.
Summary
After a bout of exploring the bowels of the TARDIS, Ian Chesterton arrives back in the TARDIS control room, gushing over the ship's interior dimensions before the ship materializes on a new planet.
Arriving, Susan runs off as always, heading down a path. Digging into the ground, Ian pulls free a Pathicol skull, a race that, like many in the galaxy, the First Doctor knew nothing about, even if he often acted otherwise.
Though Barbara theorizes that the path is a sacrificial site, the Doctor is quick to deduce that the path honours the dead, with its position facing the sunrise marking rebirth and renewal.
And as a Time Lord, of all beings, should know, life depends on change and renewal.
Characters
References
- The Doctor lands the TARDIS on an unnamed planet with a pink sky.
- The skull path was laid to honour the dead.
- Barbara initially believes the altar to be a sacrificial site.
Continuity
- The skulls are from Pathicols. (COMIC: The Great Shopping Bill)
- The Twelfth Doctor recalls how his first incarnation was always "trying to be old and grumpy and important", and justifies the attitude due to his youth. (TV: Time Crash)
- He also recalls how Ian had thought the TARDIS interior to be an illusion. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
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