A Little Help from My Friends was the only story in the second year of the Doctor Who: The Thirteenth Doctor comic series, published in 2020.
This multi-Doctor story tied into the events of the series 3 TV story, Blink, taking place in 1969 during the time when the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones were stranded there by a Weeping Angel.
Quite unusually for this series, the first two parts of the story had their worldwide debut not in the ongoing American comic series, but in its UK sister series Doctor Who: Tales from the TARDIS, appearing in the first and second issues of its third year, less than a week before their respective American printings. Regardless, the fine print on the issues' contents pages still credit 13DY2 1 and 13DY2 2 as their original printings.
The story ended on a cliffhanger, which led into the Doctor Who (2020) story, Alternating Current.
The Thirteenth Doctor is back with her friends – Yaz, Ryan and Graham – in a brand new time-travelling adventure. This time she faces the horrific Weeping Angels – who else can help her out but one of her previous incarnations: the Tenth Doctor himself! Landing in the swinging 60s, the Thirteenth Doctor and fam are stranded in the middle of a territorial battle between the Angels and the creepy Autons, all the while having to avoid her former self and causing the universe to implode! What could go wrong?
- Yaz pretends to be a time agent when interacting with the Tenth Doctor.
- This is the first Titan Comics story to make its debut in the UK before the US, at least as far as parts one and two are concerned.
- This comic story is contentious to date in the Thirteenth Doctor's era. The intention, evidently, was that the story was meant to be set during Series 11, noticeable due to details such as the TARDIS interior. However, several TV stories after the comic's release would bring this into question. First, Series 12's TV: Spyfall would illustrate Ryan, Graham, and Yaz still showing confusion about the Doctor's ability to change bodies, implying that they had never been a part of a Multi-Doctor event. More perplexing, Series 13's TV: Once, Upon Time, which premiered after the exit of Ryan and Graham, would feature Yaz meeting the Weeping Angels for, according to her, the first time. As with most continuity issues in the franchise's history, the solution to these contradictions are left to personal interpretation.
- While in 1969, the Thirteenth Doctor says the Weeping Angels are "22 years away", which would be 1991.
- For consistency, issues 1 and 2 of the American comic shall be treated as the original points of publication of parts 1 and 2.
- Not so long ago, the Tenth Doctor and companion Martha Jones were attacked by the menacing Weeping Angels - aliens that feed off of the potential energy of their victims' lost future by stranding them in the past. Now, the Thirteenth Doctor and fam travel to 1969 to party at Woodstock! Or so they think…
- The Tenth Doctor has trouble tracking time energy - meanwhile, the threat of two deadly enemies forces the Thirteenth Doctor to get investigating!
- Thirteen and fam have found themselves in swinging '60s London! That would be groovy - except the Tenth Doctor is stranded with Martha in the same time and place. But a deadly paradox might be the least of their problems - there's something strange going on - it's almost as if they're being watched…
- The Weeping Angels have made their move! Now the two Doctors have a deadly choice - work together and risk time imploding, or leave the fate of the world in the hands of the Angels…
- London, 1969: Thirteen has teamed up with Martha Jones to investigate an apparent break-in at her shop, with mysterious mannequins not far behind… Elsewhere, the fam have been following Ten around hoping to find clues - instead, they're ambushed by a Weeping Angel!
- The two Doctors must now work together to stop London falling to both the Autons and the Weeping Angels! But time's running out - can they succeed before a paradox tears the universe apart?!
- The Weeping Angels are trying to break into the TARDIS! Autons are ready to attack the streets of 1969 London! Now, Ten and Thirteen must risk a deadly paradox in order to stop the Earth from becoming an alien battleground…
- The Doctor has returned to the present to find Earth taken over by a hostile alien force! She'll need the help of an old friend to set things right - but all is not as it seems…
The Doctor's library cards.
- The Thirteenth Doctor has a library card of her first incarnation. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
- Team TARDIS are fully aware that the Doctor used to be a man. (TV: Spyfall)
- Ryan calls Graham "granddad". (TV: It Takes You Away)
- The Doctor and Martha are stranded in 1969 after being sent back by a Weeping Angel that they encountered in 2007 inside a "haunted house". The Tenth Doctor is using his timey-wimey detector to detect the appearance of Billy Shipton. (TV: Blink)
- Martha says that being a shop girl is at least better than being a maid. (TV: Human Nature / The Family of Blood)
- Martha didn't know that time travel was even possible until "that day [she] met [the Tenth Doctor] at the hospital". (TV: Smith and Jones)
- The Thirteenth Doctor elaborates that not just gender but biological sex is more "flexible" among Time Lords. (TV: World Enough and Time)
- The Thirteenth Doctor tries to take Team TARDIS to Woodstock. The Doctor was believed to have been present at Woodstock at least twice before their seventh incarnation, (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird) with the Twelfth Doctor going so far as to imply he performed a tambourine solo there. (PROSE: The Crawling Terror)
- Two mannequins at Face Fashion are dressed in clothes worn by Ben Jackson (TV: The Tenth Planet) and Polly Wright. (TV: The War Machines)
- The Thirteenth Doctor expresses her appreciation for Janice's ginger hair, saying that she had thought about going ginger herself. Likewise, the Tenth Doctor, upon meeting his future self, expresses his disappointment that she isn't ginger. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, The End of Time)
- Ryan questions why the Thirteenth Doctor cannot simply remember what is about to happen to her past self. The Doctor tells him that memory flows very differently when crossing ones own time stream. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
- Yaz poses as a time agent when meeting the Tenth Doctor. (PROSE: Time Lapse, COMIC: A New Beginning, Hidden Human History, Old Friends)
- The Thirteenth Doctor mentions wanting custard creams. (TV: The Ghost Monument)
- The Thirteenth Doctor assures Martha that she and the Tenth Doctor do eventually get their TARDIS back using Sally Sparrow's notes, (TV: Blink) and that Martha goes on to live past her travels with the Doctor. (TV: Last of the Time Lords, et al.)
- When first encountering a Weeping Angel, the Tenth Doctor tells Ryan, Graham, and Yaz, "whatever you do... don't blink". (TV: Blink)
- Martha mentions the Doctor's love of "little shops". (TV: New Earth, Smith and Jones, Silence in the Library)
- The Tenth Doctor notes the new temporal paint job of the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS, before saying "I don't like it." (TV: The Three Doctors, The Five Doctors, The Two Doctors)
- The Tenth Doctor says he has not seen the Autons since "back when [he] first met-" before his successor cuts him off. (TV: Rose)
- The Thirteenth Doctor tells the Weeping Angels that they do not know "just how much [they have] taken away from [her]". (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
- The Tenth Doctor recalls having been in the tunnels under the River Thames "at Christmas", remarking that he didn't much like who he was that day. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
- The Thirteenth Doctor opens the doors of her TARDIS with a snap of her fingers, to the surprise of her predecessor, who has not yet learned it was possible. (TV: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead)
- The Tenth Doctor recalls there being a "big vat of goo" when he last encountered the Autons. He goes on to mention that he left all his anti-plastic "a few decades in the future". (TV: Rose)
- The Thirteenth Doctor recalls how she and her friends used a stellar net to save a star whale. (COMIC: Old Friends)
- The Thirteenth Doctor uses River Song's phrase, "Spoilers", whenever her predecessor asks a question about their future. The Tenth Doctor later admits to liking the phrase, with his successor saying that "[he] certainly will". (TV: Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead)
- When the Tenth Doctor steps out of the TARDIS underground, he says he doesn't like the look of it, to which Martha replies You're not alone. The Thirteenth Doctor calls him "impossibly thick" for not understanding the true meaning of the words said by the Face of Boe upon his death, (TV: Gridlock) that being the fact that the War Master was still alive through Yana. (TV: Utopia)
| Weeping Angel sources |
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| | For the purposes of this list, a "Weeping Angel story" is one in which one living, authentic Weeping Angel plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story. For this reason, stories such as The Lost, The Halloween Apocalypse and Once, Upon Time are not counted due to the Weeping Angels' appearance being defined by their importance to following stories, while stories such as Survivors of the Flux are absent due to the Weeping Angels' only contribution being references to past Weeping Angel stories, and stories such as The God Complex are absent due to the Weeping Angels' only contribution being as illusions. Stories like Hell Bent and Revolution of the Daleks are also not included due to the Weeping Angels' appearance being restricted to a single scene of no consequence to the plot of the story. | | | Television | | | | Webcast | | | | Audio | | | | Prose | | | | Comics | | | | Video games | | | | Stage plays | | | | Exhibits | | | | Complete list of appearances |
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| Auton stories |
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| | For the purposes of this list, an "Auton story" is one in which one living, authentic Auton plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story. For this reason, stories such as Love & Monsters are absent due to the Autons' only contribution being references to past Auton stories. | | | Television |
| | | Webcast | | | | Audio | | | | Prose | | | | Comics | | | | Video games | | | | Complete list of appearances |
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