ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is an extremely good way to launch the comic strip adventures of the Fourth Doctor, and in many ways the story foreshadows the following year’s television story The Seeds of Doom, with men transformed into vegetable matter and a building under attack from a large plant. The story also has unusually detailed characterisation, with Sillett coming to realise that he’s on the wrong side. Sarric, meanwhile, makes a great villain, and is actually quite horrific for a TV Comic strip. The strip’s only real failing is a somewhat abrupt ending and the convenience of having the Sarricoids destroyed by water.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 1204 - 1214
COVER DATES: 11 January 1975 - 22 March 1975
ON TV: Robot - Genesis of the Daleks (Season 12)
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics, Issues 5 - 6, March - April 1993, with colour by Louise Cassell.

On a crisp January morning in 1975, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane drive in Bessie to the remote Vegpro factory in Dorset on behalf of the Ministry. There they meet Mr Malcolm Sillett who shows them a man-made plant called the Sarricoids created by Professor Sarric, an important new food source. Their conversation is monitored by Sarric, whose face is heavily bandaged.

The Doctor and Sarah-Jane depart, but the Doctor is troubled and detours to the village of Suffingham. There, in the local pub, they talk to Joe who tells them about Frank Lampard’s accident whilst working at the factory fourteen months before which left him mindless. They set off for the Lampards’ cottage, but the landlord phones the factory to warn Sarric about the Doctor’s snooping. Sarric orders a little accident to be arranged. Seeing Frank Lampard, the Doctor notices a strange mark on the man’s arm.

The Doctor hurriedly leaves, intending to call London for reinforcements. He says Lampard’s condition is transforming him from man to vegetable. However, he finds the local telephone box vandalised and soon they are being followed by another car. As the Doctor attempts escape, he realises Bessie’s brakes have been cut. They are heading down a steep hill right towards a Vegpro lorry.

The Doctor uses an anti-gravity device to avoid the lorry, but he and Sarah-Jane are soon being pursued on foot. They elude capture by hiding in a wood, then head back to the Vegpro factory. Told of the Doctor’s escape, Sarric decides to bring things forward and ‘activate’ Lampard. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane climb a tree to get over the electric fence around the compound, but the branch breaks and Sarah-Jane plunges towards the ground.

Sarah-Jane manages to clear the fence and the Doctor catches her. They slip away into the compound but the guards are suspicious and alert Sillett and Sarric. Waiting for dark, the Doctor and Sarah don protective clothing and enter the Sarricoid growing chamber... just as Sarric planned. His tendril-covered hand reaches for a switch to stimulate the plants.

The plants attack, bombarding the pair with spores. The Doctor manages to get Sarah-Jane and himself out, but they are then confronted by Sillett, armed with a pistol.

The Doctor questions SIllett about Sarric, unnerving him by suggesting that Sarric is an alien. Taking advantage, the Doctor overpowers the man and they escape into the compound. There they plan to use a forklift truck to get over the electrified fence.

The Doctor crashes the forklift through the fence and he and Sarah-Jane escape, heading for the village, but Lampard, controlled by Sarric, begins to close in on them as Sarah-Jane twists her ankle.

The Doctor leads Lampard away, losing him at a stream because the Sarricoids do not like water. Returning for Sarah-Jane, the Doctor says they must get to a telephone. Sillett, meanwhile, spies on Sarric and realises that he is indeed an alien. Sarric knows Sillett has seen his true form and orders his capture, but Sillett bluffs the guards and prepares to escape.

Sillett escapes the compound in a jeep, but Sarric gives Lampard orders to stop him. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane, meanwhile, head for the Lampard cottage. There the Doctor explains the situation to Mrs Lampard who takes him to the vicarage. The vicar believes his incredible story and allows him to phone the ministry. Sillett crashes when Lampard appears in front of the jeep. The Doctor drags Sillett clear, but the monster that was Lampard is close behind.

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - SARAH-JANE SMITH
Almost always referred to as Sarah-Jane (much like her latter day television persona), Sarah makes her comic strip debut in the Doctor Who Holiday Special 1974 with the Third Doctor in the strip Doomcloud, though she would not join the regular weekly strip until the era of the Fourth Doctor. Her journalistic credentials get mentioned occasionally, such as in Return of the Daleks! and The Sinister Sea, when her editor sends her investigating in Scotland, and it is clear that the Doctor has a very low opinion of journalists, but she is usually a fairly generic female, getting into scrapes, spraining her ankle (though that also happens on television in The Android Invasion), and suffering the Doctor’s interminable chauvinism and outright rudeness with stoic silence. She even has to pretend to be a boy called Smithson in The Emperor’s Spy. She does

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
After the general excellence of Gerry Haylock and Martin Asbury’s artwork, a return to John Canning’s energetic but untidy and largely inaccurate style feels like a huge backward step, especially when coupled with a script as bland as this. Since the TV show hasn’t presented a pure historical adventure since The Highlanders some eight years before, this story feels markedly out of step with the series, as does the character of the Doctor, who calls Sarah-Jane ‘stupid girl’ then later goes on a tirade about how her actions are ‘just like a woman’ (ie. irrational). Just to make him even more unlikeable he has a go at the French too. That the TARDIS was knocked off course by meteorites and not directed by the Time Lords seems to oddly rattle him and he uncharacteristically wants to leave because of potential danger, as though the Time Lords direct the TARDIS on every journey. Then, once he’s decided to stay, he wants to meddle with history! In many ways this is like a leftover from the 1960s.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1232 - 1238
COVER DATES: 26 July 1975 - 6 September 1975
ON TV: The Ark in Space (edited repeat), Terror of the Zygons (Season 13)
REPRINTS: None.

Again on its way to 20th Century Earth, the TARDIS is deflected by meteorites and lands in the early 19th Century. Recognising the times as dangerous, the Doctor wants to depart, but Sarah-Jane is eager to explore and, heading for a river, sees something strange below the surface,

The Doctor and Sarah-Jane both believe the object to be an early submarine. The Doctor dives into the river to investigate and saves Sir Adrian Stapleford and his servant Sam from certain suffocation. Sir Adrian then saves the Doctor from being arrested as a French spy by Captain Livesy. Later at Sir Adrian’s home, the Doctor reveals that the submarine was sabotaged.

Livesy expresses his suspicions of the Doctor and Smithson to Lieutenant Childers, but the Doctor decides to help Sir Adrian improve his submarine, despite Sarah-Jane’s fears about meddling in history. However, his efforts are watched by Lord Trumpworth, who disapproves of Sir Adrian’s endeavours. Still Sir Adrian, Sam, Smithson and the Doctor go down in the submarine, but Lord Trumpworth, really a French agent, tumbles a stack of logs into the river to scupper their attempt.

The submarine is badly buffeted about, but the Doctor insists they wait until Trumpworth believes his plan has succeeded before surfacing. Once they do, they investigate the scene of the mishap and there Sarah-Jane finds a handkerchief marked with a ‘T’. But they will need more proof if they are to convince the likes of Captain Livesy, who arrives with armed marines to arrest them as French spies. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane flee and Livesy gives orders to shoot.

The Doctor and Sarah-Jane avoid capture and dispatch by hiding in a tree. Sarah at first wants to leave, but then decides they have to help Sir Adrian and Sam by exposing Trumpworth. Livesy, meanwhile, is convincing Sir Adrian that the Doctor and Smithson are Napoleon’s spies. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane reach Trumpworth’s grand house on the back of a haycart, but there are mantraps in the grounds and the Doctor is about to step into one.

some of the genii, including the first three Doctors, but none of them have ever had to contend with a self-knitting scarf before. However, the Peter Cushing Doctor, who proclaims himself the real Doctor Ooh with something the small-screen pretenders can never have - box office magic! He then presses a button leaving them all stranded in space on the still-growing scarf.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
MAD Magazine’s somewhat scattershot approach to its target makes this strip rather hit or miss in its laughs, with the usual targets such as budgetary constraints and technobabble rubbing shoulders with stuff about Harry being a sailor, Peter Cushing as the big screen Doctor and, for some reason, Sarah losing most of her clothes. Don’t expect a sensible plot or a resolution, but the caricatures of the previous Doctors are rather nice and there are a few good jokes in here, though not necessarily the Doctor Who ones.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1245 - 1250
COVER DATES: 25 October 1975 - 29 November 1975
ON TV: Pyramids of Mars - The Android Invasion (Season 13)
REPRINTS: None.

At Station 5, latest of Britain’s tracking stations, situated on desolate Yorkshire moorland, a strange signal is picked up and then a huge, sinister ghost appears in the antenna dish. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane head off to investigate. The only explanation Professor Les Mullen can offer is that the ghost was somehow engineered by the Reverend Wagstaff, who tried to oppose the building of the station next to the ruins of his precious Tordale Abbey. The Doctor goes to speak to him, but the Reverend says he warned them the station would be cursed and now it is.

Wagstaffe saw the apparition that night and also saw a ray of light shining from a stone cross in the abbey. The Doctor examined the cross and finds an inscription in ancient Latin: ‘Hewn from the heaven-sent stone, blessed be the cross erected in the year of Our Lord 972.’ He returns to Station 5 and suggests they repeat the previous night’s events while Sarah-Jane keeps watch outside. The ghost returns and Sarah-Jane screams.

The Doctor finds Sarah-Jane ice cold and unconscious and has her taken to the station’s sick bay where she begins to recover. He has her sent to the local hospital just to be on the safe side then. The Doctor returns to the station the following afternoon with a BBC camera crew. He goes to the Abbey where Wagstaffe tries to prevent him access, but the Doctor climbs up to the stone cross. However, when he touches it he is thrown back by the energy it contains.

The Doctor is unharmed. His investigation proves to him that the cross was an object directed at Earth and activated afterwards. He wires it to the BBC van and gets Mullen to play back a recording of the strange signal picked up by Station 5. Sure enough, the ghost appears in the antenna dish. Now the Doctor is sure it’s a threat to Earth. He goes to visit Sarah-Jane in hospital, but she has discharged herself against her doctor’s advice.

The Doctor learns that Sarah received a visit from Wagstaffe before discharging herself. He gets on to the local police. As the Doctor returns to Station 5, a maintenance man is electrocuted, and the Doctor believes it is the enemy’s next move. Mullen orders an immediate evacuation of the station, but the Doctor remains with a volunteer called Stephen. The alien signal comes again. Just then someone shouts ‘Doctor!’ from the doorway.

It is Sarah-Jane, but the Doctor realises she is under alien influence when she pulls a gun on him. He knocks her out and explains that Wagstaffe and his followers are also under alien control. The Doctor goes out to confront Wagstaffe and the ghost, and a mental battle begins, which the Doctor wins, freeing the enslaved humans and destroying the station antenna.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Although it could do with rather more explanation as to why the nameless aliens have activated their device, how it actually functions and what they ultimately want (not to mention what they would have done if a tracking station hadn’t been built conveniently next to the abbey), this is a reasonable story that just about carries the interest. Sarah’s disappearance adds a bit of a twist just when it all seems about to run out of steam. The abbey is referred to as both Torvale and Tordale.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Wow, the drugs in 1975 must have been astonishingly pure, and both the artist and the writer of this strip must have taken lots of them as the story is almost incomprehensible both narratively and visually. Clearly World Distributor had no reference photos of either Sarah and Harry, who look nothing like they should do, and only about three images of Tom Baker, which are reproduced faithfully regardless of how appropriately they sit in the story. Bonkers.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Paul Crompton

REPRINTS: The Amazing World of Doctor Who, 1976 (see below for cover)

The TARDIS materialises on a young, violent planet. Stepping outside to explore, the Doctor, Sarah and Harry see huge snakes, but are soon cut off from the ship when a huge, winged lizard lands on top of it. The Doctor tells his companions to do nothing as the creatures are in their imagination, but Harry is less convinced when giant spiders appear. However, the giant spiders are intelligent and peaceful. Their ship crashed on the planet, since when they have been at the mercy of bird-like creatures called Ventros, which are also imaginary. They all head back to the TARDIS. Here the Doctor explains that the atmosphere of the planet is a living organism, highly sensitive to primal fears. The Doctor creates a biotronic neural attachment that temporarily removes fear, thus allowing them to repair the spiders’ spaceship.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Paul Crompton

REPRINTS: The Amazing World of Doctor Who, 1976

In Neuronic space, which is a maelstrom of limitless dimensions, the Doctor and Sarah are fretting as Harry has yet to materialise. When he does appear, he says he got diverted, but can explain no more as the police box is carried away. When the travellers emerge into the city of Skarol, they meet Skizos, a Neuroid, who tells them that if their ability to absorb neuronic energy is high enough they may be spared to breed on the farm. They keep a herd of humans to absorb the excess neuronic energy waste that would otherwise build up to critical in their own bodies, preventing them from exploding. The humans die as a result. They will test their ability by draining the energy from Sarah, but Harry shorts out the system by touching Sarah’s hand which blows up the machine. Back aboard the TARDIS, the Doctor still wants an explanation of what happened to Harry, and Harry reveals himself to also be a Neuroid, but one who has learnt to disperse his energy waste into the neuronic biosphere. He had to stop Skizos. They are reunited with the real Harry and leave Neuronic space.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Actually, if I described the last strip as bonkers, then this is bonkers raised to the power of ten. The storyline is virtually impossible to follow, the artwork just bizarre, with a moustachioed Harry, a Sarah who looks different in every panel and a Doctor copied from the same stock photos as in the previous strip (although there’s one frame that bizarrely and anachronistically makes him look like Colin Baker’s Doctor in costume). This is just too weird and nonsensical to be even remotely enjoyable.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John M. Burns

REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics, Issue 14, December 1993.

The TARDIS accidentally takes the Doctor and Sarah to Saxon England during a Danish invasion. Led by Ulric, son of the leader, the Danes abduct the TARDIS, believing it to be a gift from their god, Woden. The Doctor realises that their only hope of retrieving the ship is to help the Saxons repel the invaders, so he and Sarah-Jane befriend the Saxon leader Helmuth and organise a plan of attack. The Danes, believing themselves blessed by Woden, attack recklessly and are easily driven back with a flaming haycart and burning arrows, and the Saxons take care of their longboats, setting fire to them. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane celebrate with the Saxons before returning to the TARDIS.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1251 - 1258
COVER DATES: 6 December 1975 - 24 January 1976
ON TV: The Android Invasion - The Brain of Morbius (Season 13), Genesis of the Daleks (edited repeat)
REPRINTS: None.

The planet Ercos, in the star system of Relram, where live the peaceful, Centaur-like Klims, is invaded by the Daleks, who kill their leader Garu, and enslave the population. Meanwhile, on Earth, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane are heading for a meal in a country inn when Bessie refuses to move forward. The Doctor deduces that the Time Lords want him back at the cottage to go on a mission.

Arriving on Ercos, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane see a Klim being pursued through the lush forest by Daleks. They follow and witness the Klim fall into a pit where he awaits collection by the Daleks. The Doctor effects a rescue with his scarf, but the Daleks are already returning for the Klim.

As the Daleks announce the capture of the escaped prisoner to their slave workers, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane pull the Klim from the pit and make good their escape before the Dalek patrol arrives. The Klim, Ticon, son of Gulag, leads them to a secret base behind a waterfall where he explains that the Daleks are drilling for some vital mineral. However, the Daleks have captured the TARDIS and now know their arch enemy is on Ercos.

The Daleks launch a massive search for the Doctor, but cannot find him behind the waterfall. However, the Dalek commander enlists the help of a weak-willed Klim called Luco who leads the Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Ticon into a trap in the Dalek camp.

The Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Ticon suspect Luco of treachery, but follow him into a cave containing the Dalek drilling machine. As the Daleks close in, the Doctor gets the machine open and they hide inside. The Daleks kill Luco. The Doctor starts the drill and tunnels away from the Dalek ambush. He realises the Daleks purpose in employing a massive drill - it’s all a matter of revenge.

The Doctor reveals that the Klims and their planet are just instruments in a Dalek plan to take revenge on Earth - they will turn Ercos into a gigantic missile aimed at Earth. The Daleks exert remote control over the drill and the Doctor, Sarah Jane and Ticon are forced to evacuate into the cave system, but the Dalek commander orders the tunnels sealed - the caves will become their tomb.

The tunnels are sealed, but the Doctor leads Sarah-Jane and Ticon along the course of an underground river. However, the Daleks have repaired their drill and are ready to explode their charges in six hours and thirty-seven minutes time, launching Ercos on a collision course with Earth. The Doctor’s party are faced by a whirlpool. With time running short, they are forced to dive in.

The whirpool delivers them to the outside world. They make it back to the Dalek camp in time to see the Daleks preparing to leave - with the TARDIS. Ticon organises a revolt amongst his fellow Klims and the Doctor and Sarah-Jane make it back to the TARDIS. Panicked by the sudden uprising, the Dalek commander launches his ship. The Doctor uses a bomb to seal the shaft. The Dalek charges explode, but with the shaft sealed, the blast is not enough to knock the planet from its orbit, creating instead a huge mountain. The Klim decide to call it Doctor Mountain.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The plot to use Ercos as a gigantic missile to destroy the Earth may seem a trifle silly, but it’s really no sillier than The Dalek Invasion of Earth. There is much action and excitement in this strip, and the tight focus on the Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Ticon in a race against time with the Daleks helps to keep the narrative tightly focused amid all the breathless daring-do. The Daleks are extremely in character here, taking slaves for mining operations and ruthlessly exterminating their temporary allies, and even show their cunning by preying on a weak-minded individual to get them what they want. It’s not the best Dalek strip by quite some margin, but it’s certainly not at all bad.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The idea of a language divide forming the basis of a Doctor Who story wouldn’t be given any significant attention in the television series until The Christmas Invasion and had only really reared its head previously in The Web Planet, but Virus takes the idea and uses it well to generate much of the story’s drama, and does a pretty good job of it too. The Doctor’s solution to the problem might be crude, but it is effective. What is striking by this stage, though, is that the writers of the TV Comic strip seem to think that the Time Lords always direct the TARDIS to its destination. I guess they must have watched this season’s The Brain of Morbius and not much else besides...
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Unknown, but in the style of Leo Baxendale. Possibly Mike Brown.

ISSUE: 39
COVER DATE: 6 March 1976

A postman collecting mail from a postbox is accosted by an elephant, a pterodactyl and, finally, Doctor Poo who are all inside the postbox, which is in actual fact the Tardizzy. When the postman leaves in a huff, Poo goes to see the Prigadier at U-NIT HQ to help stop any alien invasions, but the Prigadier reports that all is quiet. When Poo leaves, the Prigadier reports him to the police and he is soon pursued by a mob of coppers. One of them grabs him and stuffs him back in the Tardizzy. The policeman and the Prigadier are both, in actual fact, aliens in disguise.

Ah, the sort of comedy that made Crackerjack (“Crackerjack!!!”) seem sophisticated by comparison. Doctor Poo also puts in a cameo appearance in Issue 51’s Mummy’s the Word where he is hiding inside an Egyptian tomb to catch up on his sleep. Under no circumstances should this strip be confused with the same titled Doctor Poo that appeared in Viz during the 1990s. That strip isn’t quite so innocent in its humour...

days later a maid named Maria reports to the Doctor that the Germans intend to ship the art treasures back to Germany on a morning train the next day. The Doctor seems oddly pleased.

The Doctor plans to ambush the train in the mountains. The raid is a complete success, and the villagers soon have the treasures loaded aboard mules and heading back to the village, but news reaches the German force which sends out tanks  - if the villagers took the treasures, then their village will be destroyed.

With only minutes to spare, the villagers get the treasures into the church, and the Doctor, Sarah-Jane and Father Antonio load them into the TARDIS. As the Germans hammer on the church door, the TARDIS departs. They search the church but find nothing. The Time Lords flip the TARDIS forward to 1948, and the treasures are returned to Father Antonio and the village of Borosini.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It’s rather hard to accept that the Time Lords would care about art treasures, let alone direct the TARDIS to Italy to save some from the Germans. In fact, Time Lords and TARDIS aside, this is mostly just standard action fare and  uncharacteristic of Doctor Who. There is a wonderful speech balloon during the train derailment when one of the Germans cries out ‘Donner und Blitzen!’ but the story is insignificant at best.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1280 - 1286
COVER DATES: 26 June 1976 - 7 August 1976
ON TV: Planet of Evil (repeat)
REPRINTS: None.

At the giant satellite centre in Bertha Springs, Australia, the shady Professor Hepworth looks over the new satellite and makes a few modifications. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane watch the launch on television, but a sudden news flash reveals that Hepworth has gone missing. However, once the satellite is in orbit, Hepworth’s voice is broadcast to the satellite centre calling for the attention of all Earth governments.

Hepworth says if his demands are not met then he will begin to slow the Earth on its axis, but

the British government believe it to be a hoax. However, Sir Harold isn’t so sure and calls in the Doctor who reveals that a ring of satellites around the Earth could slow it and that he knows Hepworth and his threats should be taken seriously. However, Sir Harold reveals that missiles are prepared for launch to destroy the satellites. The Doctor orders them not to fire, but the order gets through too late and the missile is launched.

The Doctor orders the missile aborted, and it explodes before it reaches the satellites. If the missile had struck, then the world would have been permanently slowed. Now they must find Hepworth before he slows the planet. He launches a balloon with a listening device attached, but Hepworth is angry that they even attempted to destroy his satellite and slows the world. To stop the process, he wants every head of state placed under

arrest.

The Doctor is able to pinpoint Hepworth’s position to Mars and he and Sarah-Jane head off there in the TARDIS. The Doctor reveals that Hepworth isn’t human. Arriving on Mars, the two travellers set off for the source of the signal, but are caught in a dust storm.

In the dust storm, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane plunge into a canyon. Walking along it to the end, they haul themselves out and see something in the distance. Meanwhile, on Earth, the world powers begin to blame each other for the slowing

of the Earth. World war seems imminent.

Battling through the dust

storm, the Doctor and Sarah discover a dome-shaped spaceship and the Doctor recognises it as belonging to the Scartigs, a clever humanoid race. Entering the ship, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane tune in to a video channel and see Hepworth making a further demand for the people of Earth to turn against their leaders.

Hepworth and the Scartigs want to start a world war so they can then bring in their invasion force to mop up the survivors. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane crash a small transport vehicle into the ship, and the dust storm destroys the rest of the equipment. The Scartigs use their strange powers of teleportation to escape, but the Doctor disables the satellite, returning Earth to its correct speed. International relations ease and world war is averted.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1287 - 1290
COVER DATES: 14 August 1976 - 4 September 1976
ON TV: Masque of Mandragora (Season 14)
REPRINTS: None.

While Sarah-Jane and the Doctor relax on Earth, on the planet Damara on the outer edge of the galaxy, the Goablins, led by Lord Meekle, activate a device built around a bust of the Doctor to enslave the Doctor’s mind. At that moment, the Doctor suffers a fit and is pronounced dead by a doctor. Cause of death will be discovered by post mortem, but Sarah-Jane knows they are dealing with a Time Lord not a human being. The post mortem must not take place.

Enlisting the help of her cousin Tom, Sarah-Jane steals the Doctor’s body and speeds it back to the Doctor’s cottage aboard Betsy, but the police are soon on their tail. Meanwhile, Meekle realises the Doctor has evaded mind control by putting himself in a trance. In the cottage, Tom suddenly sees the TARDIS become active.

Sarah-Jane, with the Doctor aboard, departs in the TARDIS leaving Tom to explain to the police. Once in flight, the Doctor recovers and explains that his mental attackers will undoubtedly try again and he will be powerless to resist them this time; his life is in Sarah-Jane’s hands. As the Doctor predicts, a second attack begins and this time with some success. The TARDIS lands on Damara and Sarah-Jane prepares to save the Doctor’s mind.

Sarah locates the Goablins, and sees to her astonishment that they are tiny. She seizes Meekle in her hand and refuses to let him go until he releases the Doctor’s mind. She then takes the tiny bust of the Doctor and rushes back to the TARDIS where the Doctor is fully recovered. They depart, leaving the Goablins to their fate - the sun will explode in a matter of days.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Needless to say, a story in which the Doctor and Sarah swindle a gullible man out of half a million quid doesn’t have much in common with its parent show, and this feels rather like a strip from a holiday special or annual where authentic flavour is usually the first casualty. This is just a horrible strip. Thank the stars it’s only one part long.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUE: 1291
COVER DATE: 11 September 1976
ON TV: Masque of Mandragora (Season 14)
REPRINTS: None.

When Hiram Lutz, an eccentric oil tycoon, moves into the village of Mickelham, in Wiltshire, Sarah-Jane Smith is there to cover the story for her newspaper. Lutz refuses to give money to the disabled children’s home, saying that he has bought the house not to support local charity but because it is famous for UFO sightings and he believes aliens are trying to contact him. Sarah-Jane later tells the Doctor about the mean man and the Doctor hatches a plan. A few days later, he and Sarah materialise the TARDIS inside Lutz’s house and, disguised as aliens, tell him to use his fortune wisely and give generously. The next day, Lutz gives half a million pounds to the children’s home.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1292 - 1297
COVER DATES: 18 September 1976 - 23 October 1976
ON TV: Masque of Mandragora - The Hand of Fear (Season 14)
REPRINTS: None.

Doctor Who books himself into a hotel in a secluded village in the country, but soon encounters police investigating a dead body by the roadside. The Doctor says the man appears to have been frightened to death, and for someone decorated twice during the Second World War, it must have been by something pretty ghastly.

The Doctor meets Tom Lambert, a reporter for ‘The Mercury’. Together they go to the house of the dead man, Sir Gregory Smythe-Watson, and there find a tape recorder saying the old man intended to once again investigate Professor Braun’s house. The Doctor and Tom go there at once.

Peering through a window, the Doctor sees Braun give a chemical concoction to a monkey, which immediately begins to grow in size. Fleeing to the local police station, the Doctor reports his findings, but the policeman reports straight to Braun who orders him and his meddling journalist friend to be eliminated.

Braun sends the Doctor a note, luring him and Tom to Collier’s Wood at midnight, then unleashes a giant frog, the same one that killed Smythe-Watson. Delayed by a breakdown, the Doctor is late, but the frog attacks Tom.

The Doctor arrives and concusses the giant amphibian. He and Tom take it to the Royal Research Centre of Amphibiology before venturing back to Professor Braun’s house. But the Professor, who plans to dominate the world, discovers them and unleashes an oversized chimpanzee.

The Doctor sets fire to a cloth and flings it at the enraged chimp, and soon the whole house is ablaze. The Doctor and Tom escape and the terrified Professor is rescued by the fire brigade. The Doctor intends to find peace and quiet somewhere other than Earth.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Suddenly, with the advent of Mighty TV Comic, the strip drops to a single page and the writing also takes a nose-dive. Not a good move when you’re trying to relaunch your comic’s fortunes. Gigantism isn’t a new thing in TV Comic (Second and Third Doctor strips featuring it abound) but the choice of frog and chimpanzee seems guaranteed to provoke mirth. What next? Giant killer squirrels? Death by badger? Utter rubbish.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Oh dear. This is the start of things to come, with the Fourth Doctor’s features added to old strips to give them another run for minimal expense. Sarah-Jane gets transformed into the identical Joan Brown (well, in all bar one panel when the Doctor calls her Sarah), and the Brigadier loses his moustache and turns into General Maxwell-Lennon (must be a Beatles’ fan on the editorial staff).
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1298 - 1304
COVER DATES: 30 October 1976 - 11 December 1976
ON TV: The Deadly Assassin (Season 14), The Pyramids of Mars (omnibus repeat), The Brain of Morbius (omnibus repeat)
REPRINTS: None.

An important conference is being held on the planet of the Vatheks. A Vathek agent on Earth has discovered the Doctor’s double, and Vathek One orders he be abducted and brought to their homeworld. The mission is successful. The double will be the key to the Doctor’s destruction.

The Vatheks hypnotically condition the double to wreak a trail of havoc and destruction across the galaxy. The Doctor lands on the friendly planet of Cracon, but is imprisoned. Meanwhile, the Time Lords hear of the double’s activities. They want the Doctor for a court of enquiry, but their minds are already made up - the Doctor must be put to death.

Released by the Craconians, the Doctor’s TARDIS is drawn to the Time Lords. The Doctor refutes the charges against him but he is sentenced to death.

The Time Lords decide on an even better punishment - suspended animation for one million years which will reduce his brain to a primitive level. Aboard the TARDIS, the sentence is carried out. However, following more attacks by the double, the Time Lords realise their mistake, but can do nothing for a million years.

One Time Lord reveals that the Doctor’s sentence was never carried out as he always believed in his innocence and simply had him confined aboard the TARDIS. They tell the Doctor of the Vatheks and his double and he travels back to Cracon where the double is about to destroy a new Craconian base. He injects the double with a serum before boarding his spaceship and travelling on to the planet of the Vatheks where he impersonates his own double. But the Vatheks have decided that the double has outlived his usefulness. Now they will kill him.

The Doctor uses the same hypnotism device to hypnotise the Vathek leader then places him and all his people into suspended animation for two million years. He returns the Earthman, who is called Stanley, to Earth and orders him to forget his recent exploits, then returns to Cracon to claim his TARDIS.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
There’s a fairly nice idea behind this strip, and the Time Lords recalling the Doctor and sentencing him to death would later turn up on TV in Arc of Infinity, but there are no real thrills to be had here and the climax is dumb and out of character. The Time Lords have clearly been studiously copied from photos of The Three Doctors.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Paul Crompton

REPRINTS:

On his way to Mitra B, the Doctor is forced to land on Axa, moon of the giant planet Torm. Stepping out to explore, Sarah and Harry and the Doctor are immediately transported to an underground cavern on Torm. There they meet the giant Rascla, a being who intends to use the Doctor’s body to destroy the peace talks on Mitra B thus allowing him and his army of Tormian Toadmen to take over the galaxy. He places the Doctor in a nucleonic body separator and assumes his form then, with Sarah and Harry hypnotised, returns to the TARDIS and continues the journey to Mitra B. He intends to release a deadly germ that will send the Mitrans into a killing frenzy, but he hears the Doctor’s voice in his mind: the Doctor hid his spirit in Sarah’s psyche, but is now ready to claim back his body. A battle of wills ensues, but the Doctor wins, driving Rascla’s spirit out into the world of lost phantoms.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The story is more or less coherent, if a little trippy, but the artwork does everything in its power to defocus and obscure the narrative, frequently showing the characters out of context, or showing random items (skulls, eyes, something that looks like intestines but which is probably a brain). Harry made his last TV appearance a year earlier (and doesn’t speak in the strip at all), and neither he nor Sarah resemble their television personas at all, while the Doctor appears to have been drawn from photographs of Tom Baker out of costume.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Paul Crompton

REPRINTS: Doctor Who - Adventures in Time and Space (1981, World Distributors)

The TARDIS lands on Metalupiter, a world ruled by friendly cat-faced robots, but when the Doctor, Sarah and Harry encounter a Metalupitron robot, Harry is attacked. The Doctor builds a radio transmitter to immobilise the robots within a mile radius then plugs some wires into a robot’s head to find out why they were attacked. However, when he gets no signal he realises that the whole of the robot’s brain is made of rubber. He is able to find faint traces of its memory circuits in the carbon elements and learns that the robot was called Puskeet, and that all of the robots were immobilised after a giant spaceship went into orbit around Metalupiter. The aliens enslaved them, replacing their brains with rubber and forcing them to build reactors big enough to fuse the whole planet into a giant crystal of Mithenium, a substance like diamond used to build military ships. The Doctor realises a reactor big enough to do that would kill everything in Metalupiter’s solar system, but the reaction will start today. The Doctor, Sarah and Harry try to stop the countdown, but their brains are immobilised by a device held by one of the four-armed aliens (who only have two arms). However, Puskeet advances and kills the alien and the Doctor stops the reactor exploding.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is about as incoherent as a Doctor Who story can be without becoming a string of random words. Nothing makes sense; replacing the robots brains with rubber? And how does Puskeet overcome the programming of his alien masters? The aliens are described in the text as having four arms, but clearly have two. Sarah and Harry never look the same in any two panels (and never resemble their TV counterparts) and the Doctor appears courtesy of several familiar stock photographs. The colours in this strip are horrible (brick red and deep purple) and make it difficult to see what is happening in the virtually impenetrable artwork.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

REPRINTS: None

In the disused Porthferiot Lighthouse in North Cornwall, Professor Tansbury’s experiment in accelerated growth gets out of control when a lizard is grown to gigantic proportions, wrecking the lighthouse. The Doctor and Sarah-Jane arrive to investigate and, taking a small boat out to the ruins of the lighthouse, discover a scientific notebook detailing the Professor’s experiments. Ernie Tagell and his son are out fishing when their boat is attacked by the gigantic lizard. Returning

to shore, the Doctor and Sarah-Jane find no survivors from the attack. They contact the Royal Navy who plan to finish the monster with depth charges, but the Doctor fears this will be insufficient, fears that prove grounded when the lizard sinks the ship then attacks a coastal village. Having evacuated another fishing village, the Doctor attracts the monster using the call of a female of the species then blasts it with a rocket.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Typical monster-movie/Godzilla stuff. Canning’s scruffy art is enlivened by sympathetic use of colour but this is an otherwise unremarkable strip.
 

SCRIPT: Geoff Cowan
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1305 - 1311
COVER DATES: 18 December 1976 - 29 January 1977
ON TV: The Face of Evil - The Robots of Death (Season 14)
REPRINTS: None.

Returning to Earth, the TARDIS nearly collides with a large spaceship that splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, the Doctor crash-lands the TARDIS on an isolated coral island. But while he and Sarah-Jane explore the beach, they see that the spaceship has caused a tidal wave that is coming straight for them.

The Doctor and Sarah-Jane escape into a cave and up a chimney to the cliff top. From the TARDIS, the Doctor sends out a warning to shipping and they soon see a US Navy ship closing on the island. But the ship’s presence alerts the occupants of the spaceship who prepare to attack.

In orbit above the planet, Portiba, commander of the remote-controlled alien craft, contacts Mambus, who advises him to first attempt contact as the humans may allow them to continue their mission in peace. As the Doctor and Sarah-Jane are rescued by a US Navy carrier, the spaceship rises to the surface, but US jets immediately move in to attack.

The jets open fire, but the spaceship is protected by a forcefield. The Doctor calls for peaceful communication, but the Naval captain places him and Sarah-Jane under arrest until their story can be verified. Meanwhile, Portiba, Lord of the Craytons, says that the humans have proven their hostility. If they interfere with the mission, they will be  destroyed.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is the first comic strip to show the wood-panelled console room of the TARDIS, fact fans. The story, such as it is, doesn’t work terribly well. The Doctor calls for a peaceful solution but, when given a free hand, he doesn’t even attempt to communicate, which seems a bit odd. That the Craytons suddenly decide not to cross the Time Lords also comes as an unsatisfactory conclusion.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1312 - 1317
COVER DATES: 5 February 1977 - 12 March 1977
ON TV: The Robots of Death  - The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Season 14)
REPRINTS: None.

The Time Lords send Doctor Who to the Crown Ship of the Craxons, where he is greeted by Suza who tells him their engines have failed. The Doctor takes a look a realises they need a new Diloona energy key, but there are no spares on board. The Doctor locates supplies of Diloona on a nearby planet and, with a crewman called Andric, goes to the planet by TARDIS. But there they are attacked by a savage creature.

Andric is unable to fire as the creature hypnotises him with its eyes. The Doctor breaks the creature’s gaze and Andric shoots it, but the Doctor then realises that a fallen tree is made of inorganic material and the creature is robotic.

The Doctor realises the whole planet is false. When hostile aliens land, the Doctor goes to speak with them, but they shoot him.

Andric fires back and gets the stunned Doctor away to safety, but the aliens follow them. The Doctor realises they need their help to find the Diloona, but just then one of the aliens is attacked by a huge plant.

The Doctor and Andric save the alien - a Mangan - from the plant, though he is unconscious. Andric sees more Mangans approaching, but the one they saved recovers and attacks them with sound waves.

The sound waves are a signal to the rest of the Mangans who, through their leader Solda, reveal themselves to be peaceful but proud. They built the planet to teach their young men survival and fitness. Solda agrees to have a supply of Diloona transported to the Craxon Crown Ship. But as the TARDIS returns to the ship, the Doctor discovers a faulty circuit.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Ah, the days of random attacks from random dangers takes me right back to the era of the Second Doctor, and although this has some kind of sensible resolution, it isn’t a particularly satisfying one. The artwork feels very untidy, especially in part one where there is a lot of plot to fit in. Could this be the first strip to mention the sonic screwdriver?
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1318 - 1325
COVER DATES: 19 March 1977 - 7 May 1977
ON TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang (Season 14)
REPRINTS: None.

After a mysterious fire begins in a forest in Southern England, Inspector Keel calls in the Doctor, who finds a strange crater. Nearby, an alien says that the experiment was a success and everything is ready for its masters’ invasion of Earth.

Believing the fire was created by a heat beam, the Doctor goes to Blethbridge Village Police Station to calculate its source, which he locates as being an old mansion house. However, as he approaches the house, the beam device opens fire on Betsy.

The alien known as Morag communicates with his superior, the Master of the Zandans, believing the Doctor destroyed. Recovering consciousness, the Doctor warns Inspector Keel, but Keel says Blake’s timber yard has been set ablaze. Going there, the Doctor detects alien beings in the heart of the blaze.

The Doctor identifies the alien beings as Zandans, advanced solar-based life that feeds on fire, but the Zandans recognise the Doctor as alien and capable of destroying them and seek to eradicate him. In an attempt to escape, the Doctor plunges down an old well.

The well leads to an underground river and the Doctor emerges close to the house where the solar beam is located. He gets into the house through the cellar, but something approaches.

The something is Morag. The Doctor does battle. When he throws a bag of soot at the creature, it neutralises the heat cells that form the Zandans and Morag is reduced to smouldering ashes. He destroys the solar beam, but the explosion traps him. The fire at the timber yard is spreading, the Zandans wiping out everything. The Doctor is the only hope.

Escaping the blazing house, Doctor Who takes a bicycle to get to the timber yard fire, but Inspector Keel and the army have received a report of the explosion at the house and race to the scene in a jeep. The Doctor’s bicycle careers off the road as the jeep rounds a bend.

The Doctor contacts the Ministry by field radio and, as the Zandans close in around, helicopters fly in and dump bags of soot which neutralises the Zandan heat cells. The Doctor decides to take a nice, peaceful trip in the TARDIS.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is something of a return to form, certainly not the best of the best, but far better than the stories immediately preceding it and, at least, exciting and fairly logical with a strong denouement. The Zandans are fairly unimpressively realised in Canning’s artwork, looking like nothing more fearsome than fiery fried eggs and it’s quite clear that he much prefers drawing the old house.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1326 - 1333
COVER DATES: 14 May 1977 - 2 July 1977
REPRINTS: None.

Whilst the Doctor works on repairing his ship, the TARDIS is drawn through a black hole and lands on a planet with an atmosphere identical to Earth. Stepping out to explore, the Doctor is dragged into bushes by an alien wearing furs. However, the alien, identified by his pursuers as a Braggen, is caught in a paralysing beam. His pursuers tell him to prepare to die, but the Doctor has other ideas...

The Doctor distracts and disarms the pursuer - a Kling, then he and the Braggen, who is called Petra, escape on the pursuer’s mount. Petra explains that the Klings rule the planet Earthos using their storn-sticks. They head back to the TARDIS, but the Klings have already found it. They are spotted and Petra things them doomed, but the Doctor thinks they have one slim hope...

The Doctor and Petra elude death by panicking the mount, but they are unable to rescue the TARDIS which is taken away by the Klings to their Kling masters in the temple. The Emperor, First Lord of the Dragon, identifies the TARDIS as belonging to a Time Lord. The Doctor and Petra near the city but are discovered by Klings.

The Doctor overpowers the Kling. His helmet contains a mind-controlling device. However, there are more Klings about and they paralyse and capture the Doctor and Petra, who are taken to work in the swamps collecting small crystals, which the Doctor recognises from the mind-controlling helmet. A Kling commander called Graak arrives: on the orders of the Emperor, the Doctor is to be executed at once.

The Doctor and Petra hide aboard a cart in a shipment of crystals bound for the temple, then overpower the driver. The Doctor uses the blinding light of a tactrion torch to break their chains then, disguised as a Kling, he continues the cart ride to the temple.

The Doctor and Petra head into the temple, but Commander Graak realises what they are doing and follows. The Doctor seals the doors but then they are confronted by the Kling Masters. A control is operated and he and Petra plunge down into a pit.

Again using his tactrion torch, the Doctor cuts a way out of the cell they have fallen into. Moving through the temple in search of the TARDIS, they are suddenly confronted by the Emperor.

Trapped in a mind-warping ray, the Doctor shoots out the mechanism with a storn-stick then reveals the Emperor to be a computer. He burns out its circuits with his tactrion torch. A Kling lord reveals that the Klings crashed on Earthos aboard their spaceship, escaping with their computer, and conquered the Braggens. Now they realise they were wrong. They help the Doctor get the TARDIS outside before the computer explodes. From now on the Braggens and Klings will live in peace.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The strip returns to two pages, but the artwork is now so seriously messy that it’s sometimes hard to work out what’s going on. The use of Japanese design to represent the aliens is a nice touch. This story has a breathless excitement to it and a sense of focus that makes it reasonably satisfying - at least up until the rather hurried conclusion.
 

SCRIPT: Geoff Cowan
ART: John Canning

REPRINTS: None.

Knocked off course by meteorites, the TARDIS lands in Sixteenth Century South America where the Doctor is hailed as a god by Tatrac, high-priest of the Mandrans. The Doctor defends the Mandrans from attacking Conquistadors by constructing a powerful electromagnet which effects the Spaniards’ metal armour and weaponry. Terrified by the Doctor’s apparent magical powers, the Spaniards agree to leave the Mandrans in peace.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Okay, it’s a simple enough story and more or less the same plot as the Second Doctor strip The TARDIS Worshippers, but tells it with greater conciseness and fewer jaguar attacks instigated by the Doctor. An okay strip for a holiday special.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Like the worst of the Second Doctor strips, this is utterly random in most of its plotting, with yet another mutant popping up just in time for the last panel, and a conclusion that simply happens not because of the Doctor’s ingenuity but in spite of it. The one saving grace is, again, the characterisation of Leela, which remains true to the television version, though you do have to wonder how Canning got away with drawing her bare behind as she falls into the spider’s web...
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1341 - 1347
COVER DATES: 27 August 1977 - 8 October 1977
ON TV: Horror of Fang Rock - The Invisible Enemy (Season 15)
REPRINTS: None.

About to return to Earth, the TARDIS is seized by the Time Lords and redirected to a planet where everything is on a large scale. Leela investigates a giant flower, and falls inside it as a giant wasp-like creature closes in. The Doctor draws the wasp away and it is frightened off by a falling boulder. As he rescues Leela, the spear-wielding aliens who dislodged the boulder appear.

The Doctor and Leela attempt escape, but the alien Meerags, led by Ziku, reveal themselves to be friendly. The Doctor may be their last hope. However, before he can explain further, they are attacked by a giant ant monster. Leela fights it off and Ziku is able to lead them to the safety of a city behind a waterfall. But the giant ant monsters have found the TARDIS.

The giant ants capture the TARDIS. Ziku explains to the Doctor and Leela that the Meerags once ruled the planet, until a spaceship crashed there, leaking its fuel which caused mutation amongst small native creatures. Receiving a report about the fate of the TARDIS, Ziku says it will have been taken to the nest in the poison zone. The Doctor determines to go there, armed with fire, which neither the mutations nor the Meerags have ever seen. Leela wanders deep into the caves and falls into a giant spider’s web.

The Doctor and Ziku rescue Leela from the spider’s web, but the cave roof collapses, trapping the Doctor and Leela.

Ziku goes to get men to dig the Doctor and Leela out, but the pair have already found a narrow entrance that leads them to an underground river. Plunging in, they emerge into the outside world, but fall over the waterfall. When they manage to get ashore, they are confronted by a giant monster.

The monster is driven off by Ziku and the Meerags who then lead the Doctor and Leela to the poison zone, but they are attacked en route by a monster. The Doctor destroys it with a primitive heat beam. At the poison zone, he sets fire to the vegetation to flush out the mutants, but a giant ant monster appears behind them and seizes the Doctor.

The ant monsters take the Doctor to the crash site where the Doctor is able to sprint into the TARDIS just as some drums of toxic waste explode, killing all the mutations. Ziku says they will use fire to kill any remaining mutations and the Doctor and Leela leave.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1348 - 1352
COVER DATES: 15 October 1977 - 12 November 1977
ON TV: The Invisible Enemy - Image of the Fendahl (Season 15)
REPRINTS: None.

At the Devil’s Mouth, entrance to a series of caves in Central England, a team of pot-holers, having found a sample of strange rock, attempt to go deeper than ever before, but the Doctor and Leela have been called by Professor Bindle, the head of the Major Government Research Laboratory. When the pot-holers run into trouble, the Doctor analyses the rock sample and realises that, under certain conditions, it emits a physio-molecular light form - the rock is alien in origin.

The injured pot-holer, Mason, is in hospital when he begins to emit an eerie glow and change his appearance. He has reverted to normal by the time the Doctor arrives, but the Time Lord warns that Mason must be kept isolated under lock and key. He and

Leela go to the Devil’s Mouth where Leela senses danger. Tomorrow he will descend to the chamber. But beneath ground, aboard a sealed ship, the Vrakons are waking from a slumber of centuries.

At the hospital, Mason transforms into a Vrakon and escapes by throwing a chair through the window. Hearing news of his escape, the Doctor and Leela head for the Research Laboratory, but they are too late as Mason breaches security and attacks Professor  Bindle.

Bindle survives the attack, thanks to the Doctor throwing a bucket of water at his attacker, but the Vrakon steals and destroys the rock sample. Mason then reverts back to human form, but only remembers a pulsing light and a big ball-shaped object. The object is the Vrakon ship, aboard which the Vrakons are preparing to enslave humanity.

The Doctor suspects the whole planet is in danger and, with Leela, and armed with a device of his own making, they descend into the Devil’s Mouth, having left instructions that, if they’re not out within twelve hours, the whole entrance should be sealed with liquid concrete. Realising a Time Lord approaches, The Vrakons prepare to shoot him with Mandon-ray guns, but the Doctor fires his device first and the Vrakons turn to stone then crumble to dust. The Doctor blows up their spaceship then returns to the surface where he reveals to Professor Bindle that his device fired water - a substance deadly to the  Vrakons.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Okay, so it’s a little unlikely that an alien race could find water deadly, and their plans for world conquest would end at the first rain shower, but this is a fairly solid story with a beginning, a middle and an end and some good suspense as the Doctor finally works out what’s going on and makes the descent into the Devil’s Mouth. Perhaps following the bare behind incident in the previous story, Leela is now wearing a thoroughly decent jeans and sweater combo and seems also to have lost her big knife.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
If you were going to reprint old strips with the Doctor’s face painted over, you’d choose the best ones, wouldn’t you? Nah, any old illogical and clichéd rubbish will do, such as this. You can see the original version of the story by clicking here.
 

SCRIPT: Dick O’Neill
ART: Gerry Haylock, with additions by John Canning

REPRINTS: Reprinted in its original form in Classic Comics Issue 25, October 1994

Discovering that the Marlenial elements aboard the TARDIS are badly eroded, the Doctor dematerialises in search of Marlenium. However, the ship is caught in a Gallactic storm (sic) and when the Doctor regains control he realises the only source of Marlenium close enough for him to reach is a planet whose sun will soon go nova.

The Doctor has almost located some Marlenium when he is seized by a giant ape which takes him to the ruins of a civilisation. However, once here, the Doctor realises that there is still life on the dying planet as he is confronted by a strange face that tells him it is forbidden to walk on the surface. He is sentenced to trial by combat against a warrior named Montax, and if he wins he will also win a girl named Vela.

Getting the upper hand and preparing to kill the warrior, the Doctor is astonished when both Montax and Vela disappear. He passes several more challenges before being confronted by the strange face again. It informs him that he has proven himself brave and honest and asks for his help in transporting the children of the native race to a new home. This the Doctor does, but when he goes to repair the Marlenium elements he finds they have been repaired by the Time Lords who engineered the whole mission.

SCRIPT: Dick O’Neill
ART: Gerry Haylock, with additions by John Canning

REPRINTS: Reprinted in its original form in Classic Comics Issue 23, August 1994

The Daleks destroy a series of automated tracking satellites in orbit around the  Earth. The East blames the West and the West blames the East, and whilst the situation reaches boiling point, the Daleks land their saucer beneath the sea where they set up a base.

The Doctor, meanwhile, is summoned to an important meeting in a bunker beneath Whitehall. Here he debunks a theory about a malfunctioning

SCRIPT: Dick O’Neill
ART: Gerry Haylock, with additions by John Canning

REPRINTS: Reprinted in its original form in Classic Comics Issue 27, December 1994

In Galaxy 593, the twin planets of Raffar and Farraf both support humanoid life, but whilst the Rafs are peaceful and live in a paradise, the Fars are warlike and power hungry and plan to bomb and invade Raffar. However, Far leader Soton is a worried man - the mineral deposits of his planet are spent and only a successful attack on Raffar will keep his people from revolting. But they have insufficient energy to launch the attack, until chief scientist Venin hatches a plot to dupe someone from a higher race into helping them. They send a message which is received by the Time Lords, and soon the Doctor is dispatched to Farraf.

He is greeted by Soton in disguise who tells him a tale about how their forefathers wrecked their world, but the Doctor is suspicious and that night breaks out of the cell he has been placed in to follow Soton. He discovers an underground city gearing up for war.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock, with additions by John Canning

REPRINTS: Reprinted in its original form in Classic Comics Issue 19, April 1994

The TARDIS drifts back on a time beam to 1940s France where the Doctor is quickly arrested by the Gestapo. Threatened with torture if he doesn’t talk, the Doctor puts himself into a self-induced trance. He is taken to Professor Schmidt at a nearby chateau who thinks him a perfect specimen for his new truth serum, but when the Doctor awakes he switches glasses with Schmidt and Schmidt drinks the serum instead. From him the Doctor learns that the Nazis plan to crush the Reynard resistance group by using a spy they have concealed in their ranks and, convincing Schmidt that he is a high ranking German official, leaves the chateau. He goes immediately to the village and contacts the resistance, but they are dubious about him and test him before trusting him and his information. By radioing a message to London demanding the chateau be bombed they expose the traitor but are arrested and returned to the chateau. However, the Doctor frees them and takes them to Professor Schmidt who is forced to help them trick the General by saying that the message was never sent to London. Soon after the chateau is bombed.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Another weak choice receives a clumsy Canning makeover. You can see the original version of the story by clicking here.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Unknown

COVER DATE: 26 November 1977
ON TV: The Sunmakers (Season 15)
REPRINTS: None.

This one page spoof, featuring Doctor Boo and his lovely assistant Squeelia, has the Doctor accidentally unleashing Saturnian sobbing gas. When the Daleks (here renamed Wahleks) start crying they also start to rust, so the Doctor finishes them off with rust remover.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
What to say about this comic strip equivalent of a Crackerjack (‘Crackerjack!’) sketch? Well, it isn’t terribly well observed. It isn’t terribly well drawn. It is terrible.
 

the Doctor and Leela to the mainland complex that houses the Cycrans’ energy source, but as they surface they see the TARDIS under attack from the robots.

Leela destroys all three robots, saving the Doctor’s life in the process, but in Antlantea the earthquake has begun and evacuation orders are given.

Armed with a weapon from the TARDIS that reflects energy waves and overloads the

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The story is just about okay, although why you’d build robots with neutron bombs in their brains is anyone’s guess, but the artwork really hampers the telling of the tale. The art isn’t quite as weird as some of Crompton’s other efforts, but it is still distractingly odd enough to impede the storytelling. Why Sarah is still in the strip is anyone’s guess; she left the television series over a year before.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Although Crompton’s artwork is still a little abstract in places, a strong script with a great resolution makes for an unusually memorable comic strip, especially for an annual where depth and emotion are seldom if ever the order of the day. Crompton clearly relishes portraying the psychotic killers which gives the strip a nicely ghoulish flavour, and there’s even a charming shot of a man having his brains bashed in with blood spraying across the panel.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Simplistic, juvenile, moderately well drawn and nicely coloured, this strip is unremarkable filler. The companion looks like Sarah (sort of) but is never referred to by name. Could be that Joan again...
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1361 - 1365
COVER DATES: 14 January 1978 - 11 February 1978
ON TV: Underworld - The Invasion of Time (Season 15)
REPRINTS: None.

The TARDIS is drawn to Earth by a strange ceremony conducted by Tibetan monks. Landing in the Himalayas, the Doctor is knocked unconscious in an avalanche. He recovers in a monastery where he meets Lang-pur, the head monk. The Doctor wants to get to the TARDIS, but the monks tell him it is dangerous outside. Indeed it is, as something large and hairy strides through the snow.

The snow devils attack the monastery, but the monks barricade the doors. They explain to the Doctor that for two moons the devils have attacked them. The monks summoned the Doctor hoping he would know why. At first light, the Doctor, accompanied by Chin-Li, goes to locate the TARDIS, but it has been dragged away by Snow Devils, who hope to lure the Doctor to them. Meanwhile, on the mountain, the ground gives way beneath the Doctor and Chin-Li.

Soft snow breaks the Doctor and Chin-Li’s fall. They are in ice caverns, little realising that the Snow Devils are close by, trapped for too long on Earth and hoping for rescue. The monks in the monastery use their powers and fear the Doctor and Chin-Li are in dangeras a Snow Devil appears before them.

The Doctor and Chin-Li attempt escape but are captured by the Snow Devils, in reality alien Kurags who crash-landed and have been trapped for centuries in the ice. They tries to get help from the monks, but the monks were too afraid. The Doctor is suspicious but agrees to help, collecting some items from the TARDIS. Lang-Pur communicates telepathically with Chin-Li telling him they are mounting a rescue, but the Doctor says they are terrible danger as he doesn’t trust the Kurags.

The Kurags plan to dispose of the Doctor and the monks once their usefulness is at an end, but when they show their true colours, the Doctor uses an energy reflector to bounce the fire from their stunner guns back at them. He and Chin-Li go to save the other monks, but when the Doctor uses the reflector to topple a huge rock onto the Kurag leader, the monks heal the alien, teaching them a lesson in mercy. They leave the Himalayas in peace.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Introducing an enemy (no matter how absurd) then introducing a second enemy and playing them off against each other could generate a potentially interesting storyline. Unfortunately, this isn’t it because the plot feels neither fresh nor exciting and its hard to care about the fate of the Dovans. The arrival of the second threat in the form of the space pirates adds a slight twist to liven things up, but it soon becomes apparent just how things will be resolved, plus we’ve had quite a few space pirates in the comic strip over the years so it doesn’t feel exactly new. Canning’s art here is some of the most untidy, sketchy and hurried-looking he ever produced. Am I the only person who always reads Bendra as Brenda?
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 1371 - 1372
COVER DATES: 25 March 1978 - 1 April 1978
REPRINTS: None.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Like an annual strip where exciting and/or mysterious incident is much more important than any kind of plot logic, this strip falls back on that glorious old chestnut so favoured by TV Comic writers, the meteorite with strange properties. The Doctor counters it with the kerosene link fuse, which has equally strange properties that change according to what the situation calls for, first repelling a sword, then tracing energy, then destroying a meteorite. This strip is TV Comic at its most basic, least inventive and most juvenile, but the artwork is at least much less scruffy than recent strips with some fairly nice shading on some panels.
 

A party of Bukats led by Weldor accompany the Doctor to the Turags’ ship, overcoming various illusions en route, but, as he approaches alone, the Turags imprison the Doctor in a forcefield. He is trapped.

The Turags activate the mind-warp, which renders the Doctor unconscious, then bring him aboard their ship. Imprisoned in a cell, the Doctor cracks the door code, but he is then confronted by a Turag. It tells him he has passed the first test, but if he fails them now, they will all die.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Sorely lacking in internal consistency (the Turags talk early on of killing the Doctor despite claiming to be peaceful, and, as it turns out, they have nothing to lose by trusting him as their ship is about to blow them all sky high anyway), and generating its ‘twists’ by outright deception rather than clever misdirection, The Image Makers still manages to tell a passably good story, even if the strip has been slightly overdoing the crippled spaceship storyline of late (that and the meteorite with strange powers). It’s a great shame, though, that the regular run of original comic strips should end in quite so average and unspectacular a fashion.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The last of TV Action’s Big Picture ‘story of the week’ strips gets a Canning makeover, and a right pig’s ear he makes of it too, not even trying to merge the two styles. The result is that a panel like the one opposite suddenly pops up among Haylock’s fine line drawings or - worse - a sketchily drawn Doctor is inserted into a panel of fine line characters. Horrible. You can see the original here.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock, with additions by John Canning

REPRINTS: Reprinted in its original form in Classic Comics Issue 27, December 1994.

A new sonic weapon aboard a satellite malfunctions and cannot be switched off. The only way to stop mass destruction on Earth is to raise the frequency above the level of human hearing.

Fearing the worst, the Doctor lands the TARDIS on an island in the North West of Scotland and ventures on foot to the research station responsible for the testing of the new weapon. However, his warning that the sound wave is upsetting the natural order is not believed by Colonel Higgs and he is accused of being an alien spy.

The sound wave, meanwhile, begins to cause chaos as animals and birds turn on humans all around the world. As the satellite orbits once more above Scotland, the research centre is attacked by birds and only the Doctor’s quick thinking saves the staff. The self-destruct fails to work so the Americans launch a missile to destroy the satellite, but the sound wave scrambles its guidance systems and causes it to miss.

Finally forced to trust the Doctor, Colonel Higgs allows him to go back to the TARDIS, materialise it in space close to the satellite and beam the self-destruct code across thus destroying the satellite and ending the animal aggravating sound.

test: the Doctor must snatch three ball bearings from a table before Clive brings an axe down on his hand. The Doctor cheats by using a magnet, which the gentlemen applaud, but the real test will be to face Clive in a duel with pistols at dawn. However, as the duel is about to begin, the Quarks are watching and waiting to kill the Doctor if Clive fails.

The duel goes ahead. Clive fires and misses. The Doctor shoots but only to disarm his opponent. The Quarks then open fire, but Doctor Who evades their shots too, hiding in the woods. With the regency rogues and the Quarks at each others throats, the Doctor sneaks back to the TARDIS, but a Quark is waiting for him. His death is but a moment away.

The Doctor’s death is delayed by the intervention of Richard and Clive, who capture both him and the Quark and return them to the mansion. There they are forced to fight with whips on a board above a fire. They claim the winner will go free, but the Doctor has his doubts. The Doctor unbalances but does not destroy the Quark and Richard decides to finish them both off with his pistol, but the Doctor uses the whip to disarm him and then to swing himself out of the mansion through a window. The manhunt is on!

The Doctor eludes his hunters for a while, but soon has a skirmish with Richard. He knocks the man to the ground and steals his horse. When he comes across the Quark ship he realises he can use it to find the TARDIS in the dark, but the gentry are waiting for him outside the ship. The Doctor fires all the engines and the noise causes the horses to stampede. The Doctor lands and slips away in the TARDIS.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
And so begins the beginning of the end for Doctor Who in TV Comic, as they embark on a series of reruns with something loosely approximating Tom Baker’s features drawn over top of whoever the previous Doctor might have been. In this case, it’s Patrick Troughton (see the original strip here) but Canning has hardly bothered to Baker him up at all, not even adding a scarf and generally not even changing his hair. Kids of 1978 must have thought Quarks were just more silly TV Comic robots.

estate. The local rector says it confirms that the folk at the hall are dabbling in the black arts. He plans to raze the place to the ground - and with it the TARDIS.

The Doctor heads to Treawtha Hall to warn Philby, but the arrogant fool refuses to listen, and soon the house is aflame. The Doctor escorts him and his manservant Thomas into the TARDIS and makes an emergency dematerialisation, landing in No-Man’s Land, Christmas 1914, in time to see the football match between British and German troops, but as the game ends, they are captured by German soldiers and put before a firing squad. However, as the soldiers take aim, the Doctor and his comrades are saved by the

Waldeau, meanwhile, fears his treachery will soon be discovered as the King is sending someone to investigate the Lord’s dealings. However, Signus hatches a plot to transfer Waldeau’s personality to his brother’s body, and his own personality to the Doctor’s body.

The Doctor wakes Sir Geoffrey from his trance then gets Haval away from the castle by means of a primitive hang glider to summon help. However, Signus is aware of their actions and prevents the escape of the Doctor and Sir Geoffrey. As the ceremony to transfer bodies begins, the two men concentrate their wills against Signus and, as Haval and a party of the King’s men come to their rescue, Signus and Waldeau are terrified by an apparition of Signus’ own conjuring and jump into the moat - a moat Signus has previously lined with stakes.

The Doctor lands aboard the ship and meets Alto who explains that Thusion scientists predicted the death of their world with accuracy and so they built the largest spaceship they could and selected those who would travel on it to a new world. These survivors were placed in suspended animation whilst a crew of twenty piloted the ship in search of a new home. But they made a solemn vow not to land on any planet already supporting intelligent life, and so their quest continues seemingly endlessly.

The recovered sleeper - Zeros - discovers the number of worlds rejected because of the vow and also discovers that the ship is running low on fuel. When the Doctor and Alto find him, he is armed and determined to wake the other sleepers and take over the nearest habitable world regardless of what life lives there.

The Doctor and Alto take shelter in the TARDIS until Zeros gives up his attempt to kill them and goes instead to rouse the other sleepers. The Doctor then connects the TARDIS to the ship’s controls and moves the ship to another galaxy where a suitable world awaits them.

The sleepers claim their new home and Zentos is deposed.

SCRIPT: Paul Crompton
ART: Paul Crompton

REPRINTS: Doctor Who - Adventures in Time and Space (1981, World Distributor), Doctor Who - Journey Through Time (1985, Clivedon Press)

Shem is home to three sentient life forms. Princess Azula is the rightful heir, but at her coronation Orga, ruler of the Monashem, and Zig, leader of the Ragashem, fight. The winner will snatch Azula’s kingdom and with it the Power - a mysterious force that unites the people.

The Doctor, arriving late for the coronation, distracts Orga, who is killed. In the confusion Azula escapes. Zig claims the crown and immediately puts the Doctor on trial.

The Doctor is thrown into a pit of savage beasts and, unless he reveals the secret of the Power, Leela will be eaten by wild pigs called Porgs.

Fortunately the Doctor is wearing an anti-gravity belt he was intending to give to Azula as a coronation present. As he rises from the pit, he is attacked by Zig.

Azula returns, explaining that the secret of the Power is contained in a book that she intends to share with all of the people. The Doctor uses his anti-gravity belt to knock Zig into the pit where he is killed.

The coronation of Azula resumes and the book containing the secret of the Power is presented to the people.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: John Canning

REPRINTS: None.

A meterorite crash lands into the North Sea close to an oil rig and immediately begins emitting strange power. The Doctor and Miss Young go to the Government Research Laboratory to meet old friend Professor McBane, who introduces them to Karl Moreton, head of Bentick Petroleum. They are flown out to the rig but on their approach they see a ship attacked by seaweed. The Doctor collects  a sample of the weed and tests it at the Research Laboratory, realising that is affected by a force from outer space and is drawn by sound. Fearing for the safety of the rig, the Doctor and Miss Young take out a small boat armed with a gadget that emits super-strong sound waves. Luring the weed towards them, they drop petrol drums in the water then ignite the petrol. The weed burns as they escape by helicopter. Navy divers confirm that the meteorite has burned out and disintegrated. The Doctor and Miss Young depart.

eat metal. He also discovers that they can be controlled by radio waves.

The McTurks, meanwhile, send their deadly insects to attack a military manoeuvre, but the insect attack is overseen by foreign spies who track the McTurks to their remote Yorkshire farmhouse. The McTurks are busy trying to extort a one million pound ransom from the government, but when the spies attack and steal some of the insects a fatally wounded Professor McTurn orders Catriona to release the insects.

Through the police, the Doctor traces the McBrides. He races there with the authorities, but narrowly misses the spies’ car, which crashes into a tree. He is able to save one of

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
To see the original comic strip click here.