ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Despite a great deal of what could really be considered padding in its third, fourth and fifth instalments, The Tides of Time is one of the truly great Doctor Who comic strips, filled with humour, surrealism, mind-bending concepts and strong characters, not to mention fantastic artwork. Peter Davison’s difficult likeness has never been captured better than here in his first comic strip appearance, and many of the panels are truly stunning, especially the scenes of the Time War (surely part of Russell T. Davis’ inspiration for the new series’ backstory), Melanicus’ eruption from the Event Synthesizer, the evocation of an English village in summertime, and many sequences of panels set in Melanicus’ twisted domain. A breathtaking debut for the Fifth Doctor and an incredible new high for the comic strip.

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - SIR JUSTIN

Sir Justin was a wandering, God-fearing and philosophical righter of wrongs from the Middle Ages. He was about to cross swords with Sir Hector of Richmond when a time anomaly scooped him up and deposited him close to Stockbridge in Gloucestershire in (presumably) 1982. Concussed and taken aboard the TARDIS by the Doctor, Justin quickly befriended the Time Lord.

Apparently even on his narrow path he had encountered  devilry, magic and demons.

He sacrificed his life to destroy the demon Melanicus. Merlin built a statue of him in the Stockbridge village church to commemorate his bravery. We later learn in Endgame that the church has been named after Justin as Saint Justinians.
 

Dave Gibbons said: ‘When I drew the first episode, I had the most tremendous difficulty getting the likeness of Peter Davison. He was like a blancmange - blond hair, light skin and no eyebrows! The trouble was that there was very little reference available - all there had been were publicity shots of him in tabloid newspapers and the Radio Times.’

“[Peter Davison’s] agent wanted to stop the first episode being printed because he felt it made his client look ugly! The upshot of that was that Peter Davison very obligingly let me and then DWM editor Alan McKenzie take reference photos on the set. After that the likenesses improved greatly, and in a true sense I actually ended up getting a better likeness of him than I had done of Tom Baker, which was more of a caricature.’

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A short, atmospheric and poignant tale detailing one man’s partial redemption in the eyes of the community in which he lives. Simple and mysterious and, again, with fantastic artwork, though - alas - this is Dave Gibbons’ swansong for the strip. This would not be the last time Maxwell Edison’s name would turn up in the world of the Doctor Who comic strip, and the mystery of the ship would be resolved in the following adventure...

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Glenn Rix

COVER DATES: 1983 (but annuals are always released towards the end of the proceeding year in time for the Christmas market)
REPRINTS: None

After playing about with a ‘sort of dream machine’ aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan land on Isopterus where giant radioactively mutated termites have overrun the planet and rounded up the humans there for food. The Doctor uses his handy ‘dream machine’ to tune into the termites’ wavelenth and convince them that there is a food source on the other side of the planet, thus leading the poor insects to certain starvation.

Job done for another day, he promises Adric a turn on the dream machine...

SCRIPT: Steve Parkhouse
INKS: Paul Neary (1-2, 4-5)
ART: Steve Parkhouse (3), Mick Austin (6)
PENCIL ART: Steve Parkhouse (1-2), Mick Austin (4-5)
LETTERS: Steve Craddock (6)
EDITOR: Alan McKenzie

ISSUES: 70-75
COVER DATES: November 1982 - April 1983
ON TV: K9 & Company (repeat), Arc of Infinity - The King’s Demons (Season 20)
REPRINTS: Reprinted first in Doctor Who (Marvel US) Issues 20-22, May 1986 - July 1986 (covers below), then in Doctor Who Classic Comics Issues 21 - 23, June 1994 - August 1994 (covers below), then as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ The Tides of Time (The Complete Fifth Doctor), published in May 2005, and then by IDW in Doctor Who Classics Issues 8 and 9, June-July 2009, then in IDW’s Doctor Who Classics Omnibus Volume 2, released August 2011.

An impression of the TARDIS is found embedded in the limestone of the Stockbridge quarry. The Doctor goes to see if his ship is still where he left it but finds it covered in a type of mud that will one day form the basis of sedimentary rock. While investigating the impression in the stone, the Doctor encounters a forest fire. At the center of the fire is an Elemental Being who seems to be controlling the fire. Surrounded in flames, the Doctor dives into the TARDIS and dematerializes.

Unfortunately, the Elemental has attached itself to the outside of the TARDIS and manages to possess the ship’s main computer, removing it from The Doctor's control. When even the emergency shutdown fails to work the Doctor tries to make his way to the central computer core. Luckily, attempting to use the emergency shutdown alerts Gallifrey, and the Time Lords send Shayde to aid the Doctor. Shayde enters the master computer and is able to apprehend the Elemental Being.

The Doctor then heads to Gallifrey in order to repair his TARDIS and heal the wounds he received during the events leading up to the forest fire. Once that has been accomplished, however, the Doctor finds himself on trial for allowing the Elemental loose on Earth. The TARDIS’s records state that the Elemental Being possessed the TARDIS whilst it was aboard the spaceship in Stars Fell on Stockbridge and, while the Doctor was enjoying the quiet life of rural England, it took the TARDIS millions of years back in time to witness the beginnings of life on Earth. Left stranded in the past, it sank into the mud and existed on Earth for all those years until the present day where it once again possessed the TARDIS.

Shocked by all of this, and looking to clear himself, the Doctor notes that all the evidence against him comes from the TARDIS and that its memory banks have been incorrect before. The prosecutor of the trial states that the only other evidence is the impression of the TARDIS in the limestone back in the Stockbridge quarry. However, before it can be used in the trial, Shayde destroys the imprint. Left without credible evidence, the Doctor is set free but wondering why Shayde helped him and if he can ever truly be free.

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - SHAYDE (Part Two)

By the time of The Stockbridge Horror, Shayde has developed into more than a simple agent of the Matrix Lords. As it says in the strip, ‘the initiative was his to take because here he is activated by a signal sent from the emergency override switch aboard the TARDIS, fitted without the Doctor’s knowledge on his last visit to Gallifrey. Shayde enters the TARDIS computer, confronts the Elemental Being, joins with it and subdues it and manoeuvres it into the Matrix. He works against the express wishes of Rassilon and Gallifrey when he destroys the evidence in the quarry and saves the Doctor, yet the Doctor - whilst respecting him - remains unsure of his motives.

SHAYDE’S STORY CONTINUES HERE.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This story, which starts so well in the now familiar surroundings of Stockbridge (surely a comic strip ancestor of the Third Doctor’s house in the country) becomes a little vague and meandering in its plotting, but is let down most badly by its artwork. Given the musical chairs that went on behind the scenes on the art duties, it is perhaps little wonder that the finished strip looks rushed and rough (the finest instalment being the third one, which was scripted and drawn solely by Parkhouse and recaptures some of Dave Gibbons’ fantastic style) but it badly damages the strip and takes it to an artistic low not seen since the days of TV Comic, the last instalment being particularly sketchy and uninspiring. Iconic images are few and far between, but the one above may have been in Russell T. Davis’ mind when Captain Jack clung to the outside of the TARDIS in Utopia.
 

SCRIPT: Steve Parkhouse
ART: Mick Austin
LETTERS: Steve Craddock
EDITOR: Alan McKenzie

ISSUES: 76-77
COVER DATES: May 1983 - June 1983
REPRINTS: Reprinted first in Doctor Who (Marvel US), Issue 23, August 1986 (cover below), then as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ The Tides of Time (The Complete Fifth Doctor), published in May 2005, and then by IDW in Doctor Who Classics Issue 10, August 2009, then in trade paperback by IDW, May 2010, Volume 5, then in IDW’s Doctor Who Classics Omnibus Volume 2, released August 2011 (cover above).

Recuperating from his trial on an island in the South Pacific in 1963, the Doctor is captured by a Japanese soldier named Fuji. However, the Doctor’s assertion that the war is over is challenged when the TARDIS is bombed by an American plane. Fuji is injured in the attack, but the Doctor nurses him back to consciousness. They begin to form a bond, but Fuji’s sense of honour and duty is stronger and he goes to hunt down a US airman who bailed out of his plane above the island. When the two soldiers meet, Fuji fires first. However, the Doctor was worried about Fuji’s instability and removed the bullets from his gun. The American soldier shoots him dead.

SCRIPT: Steve Parkhouse
ART: Steve Dillon
EDITOR: Alan McKenzie

ISSUES: 84, 86-87
COVER DATES: January 1984, March 1984 - April 1984
ON TV: Warriors of the Deep - The Twin Dilemma (Season 21)
REPRINTS: Reprinted as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ The Tides of Time (The Complete Fifth Doctor), published in May 2005, and then by IDW in Doctor Who Classics Issue 13, November 2009, then in trade paperback by IDW, May 2010, Volume 5, then in IDW’s Doctor Who Classics Omnibus Volume 2, released August 2011.

The Moderator cruises the galaxy with a million in platinum ingots from Intra-Venus Inc, instructed to track down the TARDIS. He casually wastes exotic life forms and temples while the same tune plays over and over in his head.

Earlier, the Doctor and Gus land on a planet called Celeste where a group of high-tech soldiers called Gaunts pursue them for breaking curfew. They escape when the ground beneath them gives way, leaving them in a tunnel system below ground. Celeste is a mining planet owned by the mega-rich entrepreneur J.W. Dogbolter, half man, half frog, the most evil being in the universe. He is here to supervise the putting down of a revolt by the ruby miners, or Moles as they are known. His prime weapon is a combat robot called The Wrekka. Unfortunately this robot, armed with 300 weapons, is also brain damaged. However, it still tracks down the Doctor and Gus and arrests them as ring leaders of the revolt. When Gus’ life is threatened, the Doctor is forced to admit he arrived on Celeste in a time machine. Dogbolter is immediately interested, but the interrogation is interrupted by a Mole attack, allowing the Doctor and Gus to retreat to the TARDIS. This is when the Moderator is called in.

Three weeks later he finally tracks the TARDIS to Earth just as the Doctor is dropping off Gus. He makes an attack, running across the sand and shooting Gus who manages to return fire. Three bullets hit the Moderator, whose armour is made to deflect high energy weapons, not lead bullets. As he falls, he realises that the song that has been plaguing him was ‘We'll Meet Again’, jammed on repeat on his headset. Gus dies and the Doctor picks up his gun and puts a bullet into the headset before leaving. The seriously injured Moderator is taken to hospital where he is given a private ward. There he is visited by Dogbolter’s aide, Hob, who switches off the life-support system as payment for the Moderator’s failure.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Steve Dillon’s crisp, accurate artwork with strong black areas makes a very pleasing contrast to what immediately proceeded it, often evoking the highs of The Tides of Time and Stars Fell on Stockbridge. The story itself is given weight by the portent of doom at the end of the previous strip and by the framing device of the Moderator closing in on his prey, but is essentially a lightweight and rather throwaway affair as the Doctor accidentally falls in with a miners’ revolt and meets an unusual robot.

However, the story is given much greater depth by Gus’ untimely and unnecessary death just as the Doctor has got him almost home. That the Fifth Doctor only shoots the Moderator’s headset and not the Moderator shows just how helpless the character could be, swept along in events that he cannot control, and it is this aspect of the strip that is perhaps the finest tribute to the TV version of the character, where many events - from Adric’s death to his own premature demise on Androzani Minor - are beyond his control.
 

SCRIPT: Alan Barnes
ART: Martin Geraghty
LETTERS: Elitta Fell
EDITOR: Gary Gillatt

ISSUES: 228-230
COVER DATES: August 1995 - September 1995

The Doctor and Peri are in Hollywood, 1938, where Seth Rakoff is making a film called The Curse of the Scarab. However, the Doctor notes that one of his props is actually the scarabaeus, a four-thousand-year-old sarcophagus of a forbidden cult.

Shortly after, the producer is cut down and eviscerated by an Osirian servo-robot.

The Doctor leads Peri to a prop pyramid, actually an Osirian ship which contains two of the mummy-style robots, the producers internal organs and the star of the show who reveals that Seth plans to resurrect Kephri the beetle-god from the scarabaeus, but Seth shoots him before he can reveal any more: the ceremony is about to begin.

With Peri and the Doctor held by robots and the cast and crew of the film held in a trance, Seth begins the ceremony, but the scarabaeus is empty. Kephri already possesses the lead actor’s body, and, once free of a sacred symbol hung about his neck, transforms into a giant insect that summons flies from all across the world. The flies consume Seth, but the Doctor turns on a stage light and casts the shadow of the symbol onto Kephri, which freezes him. The Doctor then orders one of the service robots to impale Kephri with a spear which ends his  power, though the book of invocation survives and passes into other hands...

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Solidly plotted and beautifully drawn with some wonderfully detailed panels, this is a real return to form for the Fifth Doctor’s comic adventures, though another couple of episodes could have made it even better as it does feel a little short and the Doctor’s victory perhaps a little too easily won. The exploration of Osirian history and mythology is nicely done without it ever feeling like a retread of The Pyramids of Mars. The panel at the bottom of the fourth page of the final instalment is particularly amusing as it evokes the style of ancient Egyptian art.
 

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