The Thirteenth Doctor comics began publication in 2019, after the cancellation of the previous three ongoing series. To mark the Doctor's first on-screen female incarnation, they had an all-female creative team of writer Jody Houser and artist Rachael Stott, who was replaced in Year Two by Roberta Ingranata. They feature Thirteen with her TV companions Graham, Ryan and Yasmin. Year One was episodic, while Year Two featured a series of meetings between the Thirteenth and Tenth Doctors.
This series contains the following tropes.
- Alternate Timeline: "Alternating Current" has an alternate timeline in which the Sea Devils conquer Earth during the twentieth century after being awakened by a Skithra ship.
- Badass Boast: Thirteen's speech to the Angels in "A Little Help From My Friends", which as usual she only gives when her companions can't hear it.
- Bad Guy Bar: The Doctor goes looking for one to find the Corsair.
- Birdcaged: The Radplinians put Graham, Ryan and Yaz in one after capturing them.
- Call-Back:
- The Doctor remembers finding out about the Corsair's death at House's hands in "The Doctor's Wife".
- In the Christmas Special, the Doctor talks about possibly meeting Santa in "Last Christmas".
- Amy and Rory previously encountered a rather different Krampus in the Doctor Who Magazine comic story "Imaginary Enemies".
- The Eleventh Doctor referred to Santa as "Jeff" (at the time, apparently a joke) in "A Christmas Carol".
- Graham suggests that the villain enslaving Friffle's people might be the Hoarder.
- In "Alternating Current", the Doctors and companions have to save Tesla and Edison from the Skithra again, after the first time in "Nicola Tesla's Night of Terror".
- Thirteen's pep talk to the Skithra Queen about trying to end her people's eternal war alludes heavily to "The Day of the Doctor".
- Christmas Episode: The two-part Christmas Special is set at Christmas time and features the Doctor encountering an evil plot to wreck Earth's Christmas.
- Cliffhanger:
- At the end of "A Little Help From My Friends" Thirteen and friends return to 2020 only to find themselves in London next to a wrecked Palace of Westminster.
- At the end of "Alternating Current", Thirteen, after a brief trip to take part in Doctor Who: Time Lord Victorious, returns to find the Corsair waiting for her along with her companions.
- Continuity Nod:
- In "A New Beginning", While jumping through a trapdoor, Thirteen remembers Eleven's "GERONIMO!" catchphrase.
- The human timetravellers' suits look familiar.
- In "Hidden Human History", the Doctor alludes to learning that saving one person can make a difference in "The Fires of Pompeii".
- The Doctor's monologue panel about running in "Hidden Human History" includes, in the background, images of the possessed Becka from "The Witchfinders", a Kerblam! robot from "Kerblam!", and an erupting volcano, which could be from several stories.
- Graham and Ryan discuss the possibility of alien horses.
- The Doctor explains that crossing your own timeline can attract Reapers.
- In "Old Friends", the Doctor warns her friends that Missy is quite capable of "wiping out a big chunk of the universe".
- The Doctor has thought about going ginger.
- And now she is Jane Smith.
- The first unambiguous Auton in the shop is wearing a police uniform, referring to the famous Auton police scene in "Terror of the Autons".
- Ten is unhappy to be under the Thames again after the events of "The Runaway Bride".
- Thirteen traps the Angels using the stellar net from "Old Friends".
- In "Alternating Current", Thirteen tells Graham, Ryan and Yaz a brief rundown of the history of Rose and her family.
- Ten refers to 1903 New York City as "New York the singular", in contrast to the New (n) New Yorks in the RTD era.
- Defector from Decadence: In "Alternating Current", the Skithra Queen born on Earth is attempting to help humans against the Sea Devils and her people.
- Does Not Like Guns: The Doctor proves her identity to the Corsair by deactivating a gun that a thug was waving around in the bar.
- Don't Go in the Woods: In "Hidden Human History", Ryan points out that creepy isolated cabins in forests are rarely a good sign.
- Edutainment Show: "Hidden Human History", thanks to the theme of the story, harks back to the show's origins as this by taking the Doctor and fam to a series of wars little-remembered in English-speaking history, or at all: the Guelders Wars
in the early-sixteenth-century Low Countries, Cary's Rebellion in 1711 Carolina, and the Fenian Raids on nineteenth-century Canada. - Evil Versus Evil: "A Little Help From My Friends" has the Angels' attempt to steal the TARDIS coinciding with another attempt to invade Earth by the Autons.
- Face–Heel Turn: Schulz and Perkins develop an unpleasantly trigger-happy and authoritarian attitude after becoming Time Agents.
- Fake Memories: In the Christmas Special, the events of the Free Comic Book Day story turn out to be a fake memory created by the Krampus after forcing the Doctor to forget their first encounter.
- Floating Continent: The sky cities of Raddplina.
- Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: The Stileans in "Hidden Human History", once they become more human-like and start developing consciences.
- Heartwarming Orphan: Magda in "Hidden Human History", although she's older than usual.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The Skithra Queen sacrifices her own life to operate the Skithra ship's Self-Destruct Mechanism in "Alternating Current".
- Hijacked by Ganon: Subverted and then played straight in "Old Friends":
- From a vague description, the Doctor thinks that the female Time Lord who stole the Gem of Naig is Missy. It's actually the Corsair.
- The Corsair's client is the Hoarder.
- Hungry Menace: The Doctor points out that the Stileans are simply trying to survive and that "dangerous" isn't the same as "evil".
- Hurl It into the Sun: The Doctors dispose of the Angels in "A Little Help From My Friends" by dumping them into the core of a star, although even that will only trap them for a few million years.
- I Hate Past Me: In "A Little Help From My Friends", Thirteen is repeatedly saddened by Ten's failure to notice Martha's feelings for him.
- I Have Your Wife: In "A New Beginning", the Hoarder keeps his servants compliant by kidnapping their future descendants.
- I Never Told You My Name: Thirteen says "good bye, Martha Jones", but hasn't heard Martha's surname.
- Indy Ploy: In "A Little Help From My Friends" Graham is shocked when Ten talks about making a plan... at which Ten confesses that "plan" is a euphemism for making things up as he goes along.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: The Doctor uses almost those exact words when arriving at the Dutch village in "Hidden Human History".
- Kangaroo Court: Implied to be the legal system on Devivian.
- Knight Errant: Unable to feel happy on a peaceful Earth, the Rose from the Sea Devil occupied timeline in "Alternating Current" asks the Tenth Doctor to take her to other worlds to fight injustice.
- The Krampus: aka "Mr. Henderson", the villain of the Christmas Special. She is referred to as female, and as being an entity that feeds on fear and an enemy of Santa. She was plotting to send out brainwashed alien "Santas" to terrorise Earth, in order to nourish herself and discredit Christmas for a generation.
- Lamprey Mouth: Found on the blood-sucking Stileans in "Hidden Human History".
- La Résistance: Rose is leading one against the Sea Devils in the alternate timeline in "Alternating Current".
- Literal-Minded: The Stileans hear the Doctor's reference to "mind-blowing" in "Hidden Human History" as a literal threat.
- Lost Him in a Card Game: In the Free Comic Book Day special, Graham loses a sideshow game and gets captured by the proprietor, along with previous losers, as a "prize" for the eventual winner.
- Meaningful Background Event: On the first few pages angels can be noticed in the background, then they keep getting closer.
- Mistaken Identity: In "Old Friends", the Doctor is assumed to be another female Time Lord wanted for theft.
- Murderous Mannequin: The presence of the Autons in "A Little Help From My Friends" makes this inevitable.
- Never the Selves Shall Meet: Thirteen is trying to avoid meeting Ten, because she is afraid to cause a paradox.
- No Name Given: The villain of "A New Beginning" is only named as "the Hoarder", the nickname Schulz and Perkins gave him.
- Our Vampires Are Different: The Stileans in "Hidden Human History" are blood-sucking aliens who dislike bright light, although it doesn't actually harm them. They gradually take on the form of whatever species they have been feeding off most often.
- Pass the Popcorn: Ryan jokes about this during the argument between the Doctor and the Corsair.
- Poison and Cure Gambit: In "A New Beginning", the Hoarder seeks to control Schulz by injecting her with poison and supplying her with the antidote.
- P.O.V. Sequel: "A Little Help From My Friends" depicts some of what Ten and Martha were up to while stuck in 1960s London during "Blink".
- Really 700 Years Old: In "Hidden Human History", "Bethany Brunwine", the podcast host, is actually the Stilean leader, her life extended by drinking the Doctor's blood, talking about events that she witnessed.
- Shout-Out:
- The Doctor compares the Hoarder's actions to Fagin's in Oliver Twist.
- Ryan compares infiltrating the Hoarder's temple base to Indiana Jones.
- Ryan persuades Yaz to help steal the star whale by alluding to Free Willy, and later tries to make friends with it by saying that he never read Moby-Dick.
- In the Free Comic Book Day short, Ryan compares the alien carnival to Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the Doctor responds that she once met Ray Bradbury and took him to see Mars.
- The Doctor mentions meeting famed baseball player Babe Ruth.
- Sobriquet Sex Switch: In "A Little Help From My Friends", Thirteen uses the alias "Jane Smith" as a variation on the Doctor's usual alias of "John Smith".
- Space Whale: The McGuffin in "Old Friends" turns out to be a baby star whale.
- Stable Time Loop:
- In "Hidden Human History" the Doctor's travels are guided by the H3 podcast and by the Time Agency's prediction of her movements, both of which were themselves inspired by her.
- In "A Little Help From My Friends" the Angels are attracted to 1969 by the energy of Thirteen's TARDIS, which was only there due to the presence of the Angels.
- Subverted Catchphrase: In "A Little Help From My Friends", Ten says "I don't like it" about the slightly-redesigned outside of the TARDIS, rather than the usual use of the phrase in multi-Doctor stories to refer to the interior.
- Torches and Pitchforks: The Doctor stops the Stileans from eating her and her friends in "Hidden Human History" by pointing out that when Magda rallies the villagers they'll be highly outnumbered and will be facing a hostile mob.
- The Walls Are Closing In: The second stage of the pit trap in the Hoarder's temple.
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Perkins while quitting his slavery.
- You Are Who You Eat: In "Hidden Human History", the Stileans take on the appearance and characteristics of humans by feeding on them, and their leader gets an extended lifespan through feeding on the Doctor.
- You Wouldn't Shoot Me: The Doctor's reaction to Perkins trying to hijack the TARDIS in "A New Beginning". It's just her giving him the chance to be good, as the TARDIS wouldn't have let him shoot her anyway.
