The Path of Skulls (comic story)

 was the first story of The Many Lives of Doctor Who, published in 2018.

Plot
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 materialises 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

 * First Doctor
 * Susan Foreman
 * Ian Chesterton
 * Barbara Wright

Worldbuilding

 * 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)