WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Doctor Who: Missy #3 by Jody Houser, Roberta Ingranata, Enrica Eren Angiolini, Shari Chankhamma and Comicraft’s Richard Starkings, on sale now.
Titan Comics’ latest Doctor Who series stars the fan-favorite female version of the Master, Missy. At the start of the comic series, Missy infiltrated the Stormcage Containment Facility and liberated her previous self, the original version of the Master, as part of her plan to find a fragment of the Key to Time. The artifact has been locked away by the Doctor, and she needs help in opening the door. In the second issue of the series, the Master devised a plan that would allow them to unlock the door to travel back in the Doctor and the Master’s timeline.
Now, in Doctor Who: Missy #3, the Master and Missy travel through their own timeline in their search for the key — and in doing so, they end up revisiting iconic moments from Doctor Who history.
With a device that searches for the correct time/space energy signature the Master and Missy need to locate their key, the pair of Doctor Who villains visit moments from their own timeline. To start off, they don’t go in the past — instead, they go to the future, where they witness events from 2020’s Season 12 episode “Spyfall, Part Two.” In London in the year 1834, Missy and the Master hide as Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor tangles with Sacha Dhawan’s twisted Master. The original Master is impressed with this future Master, but the two come to the realization that the energy signature they need isn’t in this time period.
Afterwards, they go to the past of the Master’s timeline, ending up in Essex, 1138, in a small amphitheater. Missy sees her past self sitting in the crowd, along with the Doctor’s companion, Clara Oswald. Then, Peter Capaldi’s Twelfth Doctor makes a splash of an entrance when he barges in on top of a tank, riffing on an electric guitar. This is an iconic moment from 2015’s Season 9 premiere, “The Magician’s Apprentice.”
With no signal to be found, Missy and the Master head further back in time. This time they wind up outside London in 2009, observing John Simm’s demented Master as his body phases in and out uncontrollably. In the wastelands, the Master’s insatiable hunger leads him to kill other humans in a need to consume their energy. Missy and her counterpart don’t stay in this spot for very long, but the setting of this scene is unmistakable: it comes from David Tennant’s two-part farewell episode, “The End of Time,” which aired in 2009.
After this, the duo travel back to Gallifrey, during the Time War. While this latest visit doesn’t refer to a specific episode, it does feature an appearance from John Hurt’s War Doctor, who famously appeared in Doctor Who‘s historic 50-year anniversary special, 2013’s “The Day of the Doctor.” Unfortunately for the two villains, this location also doesn’t hold the energy they seek. Therefore, they resort to traveling further back in time, in a montage that includes many other scenes from classic Doctor Who, including the 1996 Doctor Who TV film starring Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor and scenes from 1981’s “The Keeper of Traken” as well as 1971’s “The Terror of the Autons.”
It’s a long search but, eventually, the Master and Missy find what they are looking for. This tour of the Master’s Doctor Who history showcases many different iterations of the villain, and it’s a delight to see them all in the same issue. Of course, there aren’t many interactions between multiple Masters outside of Missy and the first Master, but that doesn’t mean a huge team-up can’t happen as the series progresses, especially if Missy comes to the realization that she will need all the help she can get.
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