Doctor Who (Titan)/Supremacy of the Cybermen

The second of Titan's Doctor Who Crisis Crossovers, Supremacy of the Cybermen celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Cybermen and is the first to feature the Ninth Doctor.

After banishing Rassilon from Gallifrey, the Twelfth Doctor finds the universe under siege from the Cybermen. Returning home for some heavy artillery, the Doctor finds that the Cybermen have a new ally: Rassilon.

Tropes used in Supremacy of the Cybermen include:

• A God Am I: Rassilon of course.
• Alien Invasion: The Cybermen are launching them in every time period.
• Adult Fear: During the First Doctor prequel, he's ambushed by the Cybermen and tells Susan to run for her life.
• Batman Gambit: Rassilon fakes brain death, knowing that the Cybermen will plug the Doctor in as a replacement.
• Become Their Own Antithesis: As the Twelfth Doctor calls out Rassilon for, by allying with the Cybermen and plugging their upgrades into his body, he's gone against the "Time Lord purity" that he's espoused his entire life.
• Break the Haughty: In issue 5, the Cybermen do the impossible and break Rassilon's massive ego.
• The Cameo: All the other Doctors have tie-in cameos:
  • The First Doctor is ambushed by Cybermen outside the TARDIS, in an alternate version of "An Unearthly Child", telling Susan to run.
  • The Second Doctor having been upgraded on the moonbase.
  • In the midst of one of their many duels, the Third Doctor watches the Master be upgraded.
  • As the Fourth Doctor and K9 flee the Cybermen in a gothic mansion, the former sees the latter has been upgraded.
  • The Fifth Doctor and Peri are dragged through a time corridor to Skaro, finding the planet fully conquered by the Cybermen.
  • In a variation of "The Trial of a Time Lord", the Sixth Doctor runs into the Matrix to find it full of Cybermen.
  • Ace is upgraded in a dark version of "Silver Nemesis."
  • The Eight Doctor and Josie try and get back to the TARDIS only to find it swarming with cyber-mats.
  • The War Doctor fought a war against the Cybermen instead of the Daleks. At wit's end, he detonates the Moment to destroy his foes.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Ten warns Gabby not to underestimate shop window dummies.
  • Alpha Centauri fell to the Cybermen.
  • The Panopticon is now decorated with statues of Rassilon's previous selves. It's also the resting place of the Eye of Harmony.
  • "Contact."
  • Rassilon left Gallifrey in a bowship.
• Cool Gate: How the Sisterhood of Karn so casually get to Gallifrey and back.
• Cosmic Retcon: The Cybermen intend to enact one.
• Curb Stomp Battle:
  • The whole series is essentially the Cybermen showing the Whoniverse who's boss.
  • The Cybermen took over Gallifrey far faster than the Daleks ever did.
  • Seizing control of a CyberKing, the Tenth Doctor literally invokes this trope to defeat the Cybermen invading Sontar.
• Determinator: Rassilon outright admires the Cybermen's stubborn refusal to die.
• Didn't See That Coming: The General knew that Rassilon would one day come back to Gallifrey. She never expected him to have allies, let alone the Cybermen.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • It never seemed to occur to the Twelfth Doctor that some of his enemies, all of whom have Joker Immunity, might still be alive at the end of the universe and that Rassilon could run across them. In his defence, he wasn't in the best state of mind when he exiled the former President.
  • In a more humorous example, the Tenth Doctor didn't appear to consider the long term consequences of taking two teenage girls to a planet-sized shopping mall.
• Disproportionate Retribution: For exiling him, Rassilon sells out the whole of his species to the Cybermen.
• Easily-Conquered World: As issue 3 notes, Gallifrey did not put up a fight against the Cybermen. Justified on a few levels:
  • Rassilon was the previous ruler and knew the planet's defences.
  • The Time Lord military is very small and the Cybermen fleet arrived in overwhelming numbers.
  • The Time Lords are hardly paragons. A few are seen accepting the Cybermen, likely wanting to return Gallifrey to its former position of respect.
• Easily Forgiven: It's probably due to the huge threat, but the General doesn't hold the Doctor forcing her to regenerate against her. Likewise, the Doctor is rather forgiving of Rassilon in the last issue.
• The Empire: What Rassilon intends to build.
• Enemy Mine:
  • The Sontarans force the Tenth Doctor to become their new field marshal in their fight against the Cybermen.
  • At the end, Rassilon and the Twelfth Doctor have to work together to defeat the Cybermen.
• Evil Is Petty: Rassilon's smug ass smirk when he kills his successor as President and reclaims his gauntlet.
• Eviler Than Thou: The Cybermen to Rassilon.
• Face Ship: Before they moved onto Gallifrey, the last remnant of the Cybermen lived in a giant asteroid modelled in the likeness of a Cyberman head.
• Foreshadowing: Not that the Cybermen betraying Rassilon was a surprise by any means, but the Flash Back to Rassilon meeting them shows that they've been observing Gallifrey for a while now.
• Four Lines, All Waiting: The story jumps between four storylines with none of them interacting.
  • The Ninth Doctor's part is set in 2006 as he, Rose, Jack, and Jackie try to get the TARDIS back from the cyber-converted St. Paul's Cathedral.
  • In the 24th century, the Tenth Doctor, Cindy, and Gabby are abducted by Sontarans while at Cosmomart with Ten being drafted into the Sontaran war machine.
  • The Eleventh Doctor and Alice head to prehistoric Earth, to pick up some fruit for Vastra, and run across Cyber-Silurians.
  • After running across some Cybermen already, the Twelfth Doctor crashes on Karn and tries to get to Gallifrey for help, which is where the meat of the plot takes place.
• Friendly Enemy: It could be due to the Cyberman threat, but the Tenth Doctor seems rather genial towards the Sontarans here.
• Higher-Tech Species: The miniseries really shows how dangerous Time Lord technology can be in the wrong hands.
• Hope Spot: Nine, Ten, and Eleven each get one.
• I Did What I Had to Do: How Rassilon defends allying with the Cybermen. It's the only way to restore the Time Lords to their pre-Time War glory.
• Ignored Expert: The Doctor keeps telling Rassilon that he can't trust the Cybermen. Sure enough, issue 4 proves him right.
• In Medias Res: Issue 1 opens with the TARDIS already having been shot down by the Cybermen.
• In Their Own Image: Both Rassilon and the Cybermen intend for themselves to be the template of the universe.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: Every era of the first twelve Doctors gets revisited.
• Kryptonite Factor: Regeneration energy for the Cybermen.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Using Time Lord technology, the Cybermen undo their various loses at the Doctor's hand.
• The Man Behind the Man: The Cyber-Planner. He openly refers to Rassilon as "the puppet."
• My God, What Have I Done?: Rassilon when he gets shoved into a loom.
• Mythology Gag: The Time Lords have been wired into looms, the asexual method of reproduction from the Cartmel Masterplan.
• Near Villain Victory: The Cybermen were minutes away from rewriting the universe.
  • An individual Cyberman nearly kills the Tenth Doctor before Sontaran-Prime tackles him out of the way.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Jackie Tyler is right to say that the current mess is the Doctor's fault. It's just not the Ninth Doctor's fault.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: By the end, the Twelfth Doctor is the only one who remembers everything, though he hopes that Rassilon does as well.
• Running Gag: "You've redecorated. I don't like it."
• Shout-Out:
  • Cindy erroneously refers to the Cyber-Kings as "Cybertrons."
  • When they're flying their pod, Cindy and Gabby call Ten "Red Leader." Nine later tells Rose that the TARDIS flew the Kessel Run.
• The Starscream: Rassilon really should have known better.
• Taking You with Me: The Ninth Doctor tries to do this via blowing up the TARDIS but Rassilon stole its power.
• Unwilling Roboticisation: It's the Cybermen. It's sorta their calling card.
• Villain Team-Up: Rassilon and the Cybermen.
• Villain World: Gallifrey is ruled by the Cybermen and the setting very nearly becomes a Villain Universe.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Bizarrely, given the miniseries' status as a sequel to "Hell Bent", Clara Oswald is never mentioned.
• The Worf Effect: The Cybermen have conquered/destroyed the entire Sontaran Empire, overrun the Silurians at their peak, and enforced marshal law on Gallifrey.
  • In the Fifth Doctor flashback, the Cybermen have wiped the Daleks out of existence.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
  • At the end of issue 4, the entire Time Lord race to the Cybermen.
  • If it means the ultimate upgrade, then the Cybermen will gladly destroy the whole universe for a brand new one.