SCRIPT: Simon Furman
ART: Kev Hopgood (pencils), Tim Perkins (inks)
LETTERS: Zed
EDITOR: Richard Starkings

ISSUES: 134
COVER DATES: March 1988
REPRINTS: Reprinted as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ A Cold Day In Hell, published in May 2009, then in colour in Doctor Who Classics, Issue 2, published by IDW, in March 2011.

The TARDIS is captured and boarded by a Federation ship captained by Skaroux. He is looking for Olla. She tells the Doctor that she was Skaroux’s slave and she escaped his cruelty, but the truth becomes clear when she tries to kill Skaroux. She was his consort and ran away with his money to A-Lux. Skaroux takes her away to stand trial leaving the Doctor alone.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It’s good to see the characterless Olla receive a little development, but as the more interesting stuff is actually fabricated by her, it all feels rather pointless. There is nothing clever, witty or interesting in this strip, and the artwork is adequate at best (despite a lovely first page that evokes the bold style of the magazine’s better artists) and rather amateur and hurried at worst.
 

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Unknown

ISSUE: 2418
COVER DATE: 26 March 1988

The Strange Hill School mob are discussing their favourite television programmes when Eddie, the only member of the class who isn’t a monster, notices that Doctor Who is in town signing autographs. Much to his surprise, his classmates all decide to go with him, but they actually want to have a go at the Doctor for giving all those nice monsters on television a hard time.

SCRIPT: Simon Furman
ART: Geoff Senior
LETTERS: Zed
EDITOR: Richard Starkings

ISSUE: 135
COVER DATE: April 1988
REPRINTS: Reprinted in colour in the Marvel Bumper Holiday Special, Summer 1988, then again in colour in The Incomplete Death’s Head Volume 1 in January 1993, then as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ A Cold Day In Hell, published in May 2009, then in colour in Doctor Who Classics, Issue 2, published by IDW, in March 2011.

The TARDIS collides with a gigantic bounty hunter named Death’s Head in the corridors of time and both crash on a barren planet. Death’s Head decides to kill the Doctor as he has nothing worth bargaining with, but the Doctor manages to shrink him to human size using the Master’s tissue compression eliminator and then makes a deal: he’ll give Death’s Head his TARDIS if his life is spared. Death’s Head accepts, but the Doctor tricks him and projects him through space and time to Earth in the year 8162.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Brief, unusual and fairly well scripted, this story is sadly let down by horrible and inconsistent artwork and a likeness of Sylvester McCoy that veers between the just about acceptable (and clearly photo-referenced) and the entirely unrecognisable, though the TARDIS looks very nice... The IDW reprint’s sympathetic colouring job does cover some of the artwork’s worst aspects...
 

SCRIPT: John Freeman
ART: Lee Sullivan
LETTERS: Zed
EDITOR: Richard Starkings

ISSUES: 141 - 142
COVER DATES: October 1988 - November 1988
ON TV: Remembrance of the Daleks - The Happiness Patrol (Season 25)
REPRINTS: Reprinted as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ A Cold Day In Hell, published in May 2009, then in colour in Doctor Who Classics, Issue 4, published by IDW in May 2011.

The Doctor lands on the planet Adeki looking to indulge in a spot of fishing. However, he soon finds a secret entrance to a subterranean city and with it - Adric! Soon after meeting Adric, he runs into Peri, then Jamie, then Sara, Katarina and Frobisher, all eager to get away in the TARDIS. However, it is soon revealed that they are all monsters called Gwanzulum, disguised and eager to kill the Doctor.

The Doctor is saved by... himself - in his Fourth incarnation, who takes him to meet all his other incarnations. It seems the Gwanzulum are the universe’s original shape shifters, predating the Whifferdills and Kymbra Chimera (see here) by many aeons and drawing life energy from their victims in order to change shape. However, the Seventh Doctor realises that all his other incarnations are simply disguised Gwanzulum, tricks his way aboard the TARDIS and then leaves them stranded.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the series, this strip was extremely popular at the time, but now seems unnecessarily laden with continuity (though the joke where the fake Peri erroneously believes she died is quite a nice touch) whilst simultaneously light on plot. The visuals in Lee Sullivan’s debut Doctor Who Magazine strip are extremely good, with some excellent likenesses (though McCoy’s physiognomy is obviously proving elusive), but the Gwanzulum are perhaps too comical in appearance to ever pose a serious threat.

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: John Ridgway
LETTERS: Annie Halfacree
EDITOR: Richard Starkings

ISSUES: 143 - 144
COVER DATES: December 1988 - January 1989
ON TV: Silver Nemesis - The Greatest Show in the Galaxy (Season 25)
REPRINTS: Reprinted as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’ A Cold Day In Hell, published in May 2009, then in colour in Doctor Who Classics, Issue 5, published by IDW in June 2011.

Heading for Maruthea, the Doctor lands on the storm-battered planet of Mekrom on the edge of known space where he soon discovers the corpse of Dean Stanton, until recently the longest surviving member of a doomed colony awaiting rescue by a Foreign Hazard Duty team. Examining the man’s personal log, which is stored in an empathically absorbent crystal, the Doctor learns that the planet was inhabited by the Mogor about six thousand years before, but that they are believed to be extinct. The FHD team arrive, headed by Hurd, and take the Doctor to be the only survivor of the crew. However, as two of the team head down to the mining level, they are suddenly attacked by a monster...

The Doctor and the team head down but are too late to save the men. However, the Doctor discovers that both of them died of shock rather than physical attack. Believing the strange crystal may be a clue, he suggests venturing into the mines, and Commander Hurd agrees. They soon discover a huge seam-face of the same crystal and the Doctor realises that it has recorded an impression of the planet’s former inhabitants - the Mogor are now nothing but ghosts, and he convinces the FHD team of this as a Mogor appears to attack. It vanishes when the Doctor confronts it with its own unreality, and the case is solved.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Unknown

ISSUES: 8
COVER DATES: January 1989

The Doctor is fleeing from assorted monsters, including Daleks, Cybermen and Ice Warriors when he realises he has dropped the TARDIS key. Going through his pockets, he finds a copy of Doctor Who Magazine, but it turns out to belong to the monsters who want it back. To make amends, he can buy his own copy in future.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Hardly a subtle advertisement, but one that - if this strip was at all representative - surely wouldn’t help the magazine to sell on the strength of its comic strip!
 

SCRIPT: John Carnell
ART: Andy Lanning, John (Higgins?), Kev (Hopgood?), Dougie Braithwaite, David Elliott
LETTERS: Bambos
EDITOR: Rich (Richard Starkings)

ISSUES: 147
COVER DATES: April 1989
REPRINTS: Reprinted in colour in Doctor Who Classics 5, Issue 1, published by IDW in March 2013.

The Meddling Monk accidentally materialises his TARDIS - disguised as a portaloo - in the path of a car owned by the Sleeze Brothers, El Ape and Deadbeat, totalling the car. The Doctor arrives to prevent the Monk from fiddling the next Presidential election, the Monk flees. Determined to exact payment for his totalled car, El Ape holds the Doctor at gunpoint and forces him to follow the Monk to Tunguska, 1908, where El Ape sets off a mini-nuke in the Siberian forest to flush the Monk out of hiding. The Doctor then takes his passengers to a liner in the Atlantic Ocean, in 1912, but doesn't realise exactly where he is until El Ape rams the Titanic into a nearby iceberg, believing it to be the Monk's TARDIS in disguise. The Monk's damaged TARDIS lands on an island near Bermuda in 1945, where the Monk is forced to abandon ship. The Doctor drags him to safety and they flee, just as the Monk's TARDIS implodes into the time continuum, causing the passing Flight 19 to vanish into thin air. The Doctor then takes El Ape and Deadbeat back to their own time, and kicks them out before they can cause any more damage to history.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Oh Lord. Just when you think things can’t get any worse... The Sleeze Brothers were a short lived phenomenon lasting in their own comic between June and November 1989 for just six issues. Their encounter with the Doctor is presumably a taster of what we can expect - and it’s horrible. It’s hard to believe that the two panels printed here are from the same comic strip, but they are - and only a page apart. The script is thoroughly unsubtle and unfunny. The characterisation of the Doctor is virtually non-existent. With this and Death’s Head, it’s like the Doctor’s suddenly become some cheap, painted comic strip strumpet, looking to ply his wares on anyone who’ll have him. It doesn’t work and it never will. Show some respect for a legend!
 

Unfortunately, he is then captured by the Gantac invaders. The Doctor is taken to an internment camp in Hyde Park, but realises when his interrogator asks him the location of the treasure of Zantar Wrouth that the aliens have invaded the wrong planet! He is given communication with the Great Yaga, leader of the Gantac forces back on Gantac, but the Yaga won’t believe him and orders him executed. However, he manages to hypnotise his guard and, with Alex’s help, escape.

With Alex suddenly mysteriously unconscious, the Doctor makes it out into the compound then decides to go to the communications centre with a now conscious Alex where the Great Yaga is arriving by matter transmitter. The Doctor proves that the Gantac forces invaded the wrong planet. The Great Yaga attacks him for the embarrassment he has suffered, but is then attacked in turn by Alex’s fleas. Believing himself under attack from invisible forces, the Yaga orders his men to fire, and they do, killing him outright. The Yaga dead, his forces die too, leaving the Earth free once more.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The likeness of the Doctor is atrocious, and quite why the Doctor would be playing the fool in a play is anyone’s guess, but while this strip is low on logic, big on explosions and lacking any feel of Doctor Who, there is some fun to be had, particularly in Steve Parkhouse’s often witty dialogue. But I do wish they’d leave the Doctor out of these crossovers.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
After seven months of dross, Nemesis of the Daleks at first feels like a real breath of fresh air, but it quickly becomes clear, despite some confident artwork from Lee Sullivan (who, alas, is still struggling to capture a decent likeness of McCoy - just like almost every other artist to have so far worked on the strip), that this is just lots of tedious continuity references (the whole Abslom Daak thing, Ogrons, Emperor Dalek, Davros, a garbled speech from Genesis of the Daleks etc etc) strung together in a bland Star Wars-driven plot about building a Death Wheel/Death Star. It treats the beautifully defined Star Tigers team terribly, killing them all off in a few frames, just to team up the Doctor and Daak with some bland and vaguely annoying locals. There are a couple of strange jumps in the storytelling that really don’t help matters. Oh - and “By the blue vase of ghosts!” has got to be one of the strangest exclamations since the Third Doctor’s comic strip era.
 

SCRIPT: John Freeman
ART: Geoff Senior
LETTERING: Stuart Bartlett
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 1
COVER DATE: 7 October 1989
ON TV: Ghost Light (Season 26)
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics, Issue 21, June 1994, then again in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013 (See above for cover).

Relaxing in a park in Solar City on Galactica Minor, the Doctor is harrassed by a reporter who wants the story on the TARDIS. The Doctor first sends him to meet some dangerous men for whom the word ‘Doctor’ is not what they want to hear, then transports the man to safety twenty years into the future - ten years after the reporter’s newspaper went out of business.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The artwork on this strip is generally quite nice looking, with strong and confident use of black and some nice composition. However, it all goes horribly wrong every time there is a shot of the Doctor, who just looks nothing like McCoy and isn’t even stylised in the same way as the other characters in the strip.

The story... Mmh, well... I find it hard to believe that a reporter (or indeed anyone) could annoy the Doctor enough for the Doctor to send him into mortal danger with a cheery wave, then rob him of his livelihood and all his friends and family by transporting him twenty years into the future. I know it’s not meant to be taken that seriously, in fact I suspect it’s supposed to be really funny, but it all just feels so wrong that it doesn’t even raise a smile.
 

SCRIPT: John Freeman
ART: Art Wetherell (pencils), Dave Hardwood (inks)
LETTERING: Annie Halfacree
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 4
COVER DATE: 28 October 1989
ON TV: The Curse of Fenric (Season 26)
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics, Issue 21, June 1994, and then in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013 (See above for cover).

The TARDIS breaks down on the planet Bellus IV where the Doctor is immediately captured by Commander Deldran and his men who are fighting a centuries-long war against deadly robots. They take him to their base where they reveal that a scientist called Shellon was working on a neural scrambler to destroy the robots but died before its completion. As the robots attack, the Doctor completes the device and activates it, destroying the robots... but also destroying Deldran and his men who are androids created by the now extinct humans. Deldran thanks the Doctor before he deactivates for good. They could never have used the device themselves.

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: Art Wetherell (pencils), Cam Smith (inks)
LETTERING: Stuart Bartlett
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 5
COVER DATE: 4 November 1989
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics, Issue 24, September 1994
ON TV: The Curse of Fenric (Season 26)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013 (See below for cover).

The TARDIS lands in Earth-type surroundings where the Doctor is greeted by a man who is extremely pleased to see him, but whose reactions are almost childlike. The Doctor soon find s a hidden computer panel beneath the grass, and pressing a button transports him aboard the bridge of Deep Prove Va Gama, where he discovers the man - Admiral Vayle - in a ‘continual consensual hallucination’ to stave off the boredom of the long mission. However, the programming has failed and the companions he is supposed to be surrounded by have vanished, driving the man mad with boredom. The Doctor has a word with the computer and the programme is repaired.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Actually quite amusing, with much witty dialogue, and the artwork is an improvement on usual standards too.
 

SCRIPT: John Tomlinson
ART: Geoff Senior
LETTERING: Helen Stone
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 7
COVER DATE: 18 November 1989
ON TV: The Curse of Fenric (Season 26)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013 (See above for cover).

The TARDIS strikes a temporal rubicon - like hitting a space-time brick wall - and is forced down onto Earth during the Cenozoic period. Here he meets Seneschal, a superbeing who seeded the galaxy with life and watched it grow through countless millennia. However, he’s a bit miffed as the latest evolutionary development, the culmination of 4.5 billion years of waiting, is incredibly stupid. This development is called man. The Doctor refuses to help him complete his life mission and escapes. However, he soon realises that Seneschal has taken a tissue sample from him and now plans to create a new race called... the Time Lords!

SCRIPT: Simon Furman
ART: John Marshall (pencils), Stephen Baskerville (inks)
LETTERING: Stuart Bartlett
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUES: 8 - 9
COVER DATES: 25 November 1989 - 2 December 1989
ON TV: Survival (Season 26)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013.

The planet Okul is playing host to a peace conference to avert all out war, and the Frovian Prince Luj goes to greet his old friend the Doctor as the TARDIS arrives. However, the Doctor is a changed man - in fact, he’s a woman! Still, she soon gets down to hearing the grievances of the delegates who believe the Frovian opening of the Kollian dimension will endanger them all. Later, though, it becomes apparent that this new Doctor is in an alliance with delegate Ux, intent on starting a war and making a fortune, and that the real Doctor is chained up in the TARDIS.

The imposter is called Kasgi, a hired killer, who believes Luj to be a militaristic butcher. However, when she leaves the TARDIS, the Doctor escapes and heads for Luj’s quarters via a secret passage. But once there he overhears Luj talking of enslaving the Kollian dimension. As the treaty is about to be completed, he bursts into the room and declares that he is the real Doctor and that the Time Lords have withdrawn their support of Prince Luj. This leaves Kasgi without a job, but she wonders if maybe Luj would like to put a price on the Doctor’s head...

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
I don’t like this strip. The artwork is acceptable, there are some very amusing ideas at play, particularly when the Doctor accidentally robs Ly-Chee of his life’s work, but the resolution just doesn’t work to bring the story to a satisfactory conclusion.
 

SCRIPT: Simon Jowett
ART: Andy Wildman
LETTERING: Helen Stone
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 10
COVER DATE: 9 December 1989
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013 (See above for cover).

Ly-Chee the Wise has spent thirty winters alone among the mountains of Tora seeking enlightenment, but then saves the Doctor from bandits on the road. He takes the Doctor to his cave and tells him he has spent his life in search of the Holy Number of Nirvana. The Doctor looks at his notes and realises that the number is seven, thus robbing him of his quest. He asks the Doctor for a new puzzle to solve, and the Doctor asks him why the chicken crossed the road. After a week of contemplation beneath an icy waterfall, Ly-Chee demands the answer. It is not the answer he had hoped for and, frustrated, he decides to give up being a hermit and return to the town and real life. The Doctor offers him a lift in the TARDIS, but it takes something of a detour, showing Ly-Chee the wonders of the universe. Finally returned to the town, Ly-Chee goes for a much-needed drink. He has finally become a human being.

SCRIPT: Mike Collins and Tim Robins
ART: Geoff Senior
LETTERING: Stuart Bartlett
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 11
COVER DATE: 16 December 1989
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013.

Having heard strange reports, the Doctor goes to investigate Weight-A-Way, a health club at the edge of the galaxy. After a health examination, he goes to investigate, but is soon captured and taken before the Gromungus, galactic gastronome who is keen to eat the Doctor. However, the Doctor convinces the creature that he would be better left alive as he can use the TARDIS to materialise delicacies from across all time and space. The Gromungus eats so much, though, that it increases its mass to the point of gravitational collapse and implodes into a black hole. Now it will spend all eternity eating the universe...

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It’s light and slightly fluffy stuff, the artwork is merely adequate and the ending doesn’t really convince, especially as the Doctor has to explain it to us after the event, but this is an okay way to pass a few brainless  minutes.
 

SCRIPT: John Tomlinson
ART: Cam Smith
LETTERING: Peri Godbold
EDITOR: Andy Seddon

ISSUE: 12
COVER DATE: 23 December 1989
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013 (see cover above).

The TARDIS materialises in an inhospitable landscape of wrecked ships where the Doctor is confronted on the scanner by a figure who declares ‘I am your death!’. Outside he realises the world is located in Null Space, and the ships are all decaying TARDISes, which reminds him of a poem from the Muses of Rassilon. However, the figure soon returns to haunt him with the poem, claiming that he delivers Time Lords at the end of their lives to their deaths. The Doctor flees back to the TARDIS, but the creature follows him and enters the ship through the wall, but as he tries to absorb the Doctor, he realises that the Time Lord is only on his Seventh regeneration (sic) and strong enough to break free, which the Doctor does.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
‘By the left-handed blivet of Rama!’ exclaims the Doctor, in a throwback to the heady days of the Third Doctor’s comic strip era, but this tale - despite confusing the words regeneration and incarnation - has a dark and forboding atmosphere and is held together well by the poem of Rassilon. At the end, the Doctor’s escape feels only like a temporary reprieve, and that feels strangely fitting at a time when Survival had recently finished on television and Season 27 looked a very uncertain proposition...
 

SCRIPT: Ian Rimmer
ART: Mike Collins
LETTERS: Hel
EDITOR: Andy Seddon/John Freeman

ISSUE: 162
COVER DATE: July 1990
REPRINTS: Reprinted in colour as part of Virgin Publishing’s ‘graphic novel’ The Mark of Mandragora, June 1993, and then again in Panini’s ‘graphic novel’ Nemesis of the Daleks, April 2013.

Landing in fifth century Britain to pick up some conkers, the Doctor saves some local boys from marauding Vikings and inadvertently invents the game of conkers.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This strip was originally due to be published in The Incredible Hulk Presents Issue 13, but unfortunately it ceased publication with Issue 12. Even more unfortunately, it found a new home in Doctor Who Magazine, as it’s really not very good. In its new home, it even receives something of an apology from John Freeman for its distinctly different tone, with a line introduction supposedly from the Doctor’s diary saying that, ‘The Kalik menace is over but I feel distracted by recent events... I must find a way to concentrate.’
 

SCRIPT: Andrew Cartmel
ART: Arthur Ransom
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 164 - 166
COVER DATES: 8 September 1990 - 31 October 1990
REPRINTS: Reprinted in colour as part of Virgin Publishing’s ‘graphic novel’ The Mark of Mandragora, June 1993.

The Doctor and Ace arrive at a creepy country mansion, but go to the keeper’s cottage to warn housekeeper Ella Cooper, her young daughter Lizzie and elderly Mrs Lacy that something is coming that could kill them all. However, when the family cat transforms into a monster, it is Ace who almost dies by its claws. The group barricade the creature outside the room, but are eventually forced to flee to the main house.

With the others safely in the main house, the Doctor and Ace go out into the grounds to explore, and there find two police officers. Setting off the police car’s siren, they lure the creature into the car then blow it up, but the Doctor reveals that the creature is a Hitcher, a relentless and aggressive creature from the void, that latched onto the TARDIS. He also reveals that the creatures always travel in pairs. Back in the house, he realises that, if one of the creatures got inside Mrs Lacy’s cat, then the other one probably got inside her, and the proof is soon to follow.

The Doctor reveals that the Hitchers can only hitch rides in certain bodies, ones that are filled with potential aggression, anger or rage, and it soon becomes clear that Mrs Lacy is ideal: Ella married Mrs Lacy’s son, dragged him down, mixed her blood with his, which Mrs Lacy thinks is racially wrong. However, when she seizes Lizzie, Ella’s maternal instinct comes to the fore and the rage triggers the Hitcher to switch bodies again, but Ella’s strongest instinct is to protect her daughter - defense not attack, and there it will stay.

As they leave, Ace realises that the mansion actually belongs to the Doctor.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Ace finally makes her comic strip debut, and in a strip written by the television series’ most recent script editor - the first time a script editor has penned related comic strips since David Whitaker  in the 1960s.

This is a handsome strip with a great atmosphere and striking visuals, and this is harnessed to a story that is both mature and thoughtful, though why the Doctor is so confident that Ella will never encounter anyone more angry or aggressive than her maternal instinct, thus allowing the creature to change bodies once again, is anyone’s guess. Still, the Doctor and Ace are spot on, as you might expect, and you can hear Sylvester McCoy and Sophie Aldred speaking every word of this strip.

The idea of the Doctor’s house ties in very nicely with the Third Doctor’s comic strips.
 

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - ACE

Poor old Ace - she doesn’t get to appear in the strip until a year and two months after Sophie Aldred’s last appearance in the television series and seems to be forever wearing the same clothes - black leggings and her Ace jacket. To be fair, she fairs better than most of the other companions to have featured in the strip, always given excellent characterisation, and dialogue you could actually hear the character speaking, but it was unfortunate that Doctor Who Magazine eventually decided to fit its stories into the continuity of Virgin’s New Adventures, as this definitely had a detrimental affect on the character, especially for anyone who didn’t happen to read the novels - missing from Ravens for no apparent reason, then ousted in favour of Benny in Pureblood, then mysteriously back again with ponytail, tight trousers and an annoying and un-Ace-like persona for Final Genesis, then gone again for Uninvited Guests. It was a relief when the comic strip finally untied itself from Virgin’s continuity strings (and apparently the continuity of the television series), but what a way to do it - by killing off Ace in Ground Zero, though she did put in one final appearance, sadly in her Virgin meat-head guise, in The Last Word.
 

SCRIPT: John Freeman
ART: Gerry Dolan
LETTERS: Gary Gilbert
ADVICE: Mike Collins and Lee Sullivan

SCRIPT: John Freeman
ART: Steve Parkhouse

John Freeman and Lee Sullivan first thought of the idea of creating a Doctor Who newspaper strip in the summer of 1989, at a convention in Cardiff, where they asked members of the audience for ideas. These ideas - which involved Daleks, UNIT, Movellans and the Channel Tunnel, were then crafted into a thirteen week story, the usual length of a daily newspaper strip, and intended for publication in The Daily Express. Permissions from the BBC and Terry Nation’s agent were provisionally granted and the first few examples of the strip were created, though Lee Sullivan was by this point too busy working on the art for a Robocop comic, and so was replaced by Gerry Dolan.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the absence of a new television series and the generally low regard that Doctor Who was held in at the time, there were no takers from the daily newspapers, and the only time the strips were ever published was in Doctor Who Magazine Issues 167 - 168.

Following the success of the 2005 revival, John Freeman again tried to launch a daily strip in the Daily Mail. This idea was initially approved by the BBC, the first story written and the first three strips illustrated before the BBC changed their mind, believing that a daily strip on top of strips in Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Adventures would lead to confusion.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Designed to remind readers of The Masque of Mandragora, and tease them - like Issue 167’s Doctorless strip - for next issue’s Mark of Mandragora. The way they’re pushing it, it better be the epic of all time...
 

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: Lee Sullivan (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks)
LETTERS: Steve Potter
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 169 - 172
COVER DATES: January 1991 - April 1991
REPRINTS: Reprinted in colour as part of Virgin Publishing’s ‘graphic novel’ The Mark of Mandragora, June 1993.

It’s the end of the 20th Century in the Falling Star Nightclub in London - in plain clothes Sergeant Jasper Bean and Captain Muriel Frost of UNIT head behind the scenes to investigate. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Ace are investigating the TARDIS, looking for signs of Mandragora energy. Bean and Frost discover a lab for creating the drug known as M or Mandrake, but are found by Stranks, owner of the complex. Bean and Frost escape, but run right into the Doctor and Ace. Bean is seized and killed by a Mandragora creature and the Doctor orders the others to run.

Stranks and taken back to the basement where he explains that the Helix will rejuvenate itself through the Mandrake-taking youth. And as the youths start to change, the Doctor leaps down towards the Helix energy.

Frost mobilises UNIT forces, but there is nothing they can do as the Helix prepares to rejuvenate and consume the Earth. The Doctor too is resigned, blaming himself for bringing Mandragora to Earth in the first place. However, just at the moment of the Mandragora’s triumph, it burns itself out, but the Doctor is far from happy - it is clear which part of the Helix failed: the TARDIS. A few days later in UNIT HQ, Captain Frost tells the Doctor that the Helix affair has pushed UNIT into the public eye and there may be a new secret team, perhaps called the Foreign Hazard Duty, and the Doctor agrees to join - at least until the TARDIS materialises: it didn’t disintegrate, only hiccup and jump through time. The Doctor and Ace leave as Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart arrives.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The Mark of Mandragora is a solid story well told, with a good, modern feel to it and a strong central idea. It uses aspects of The Masque of Mandragora but never relies on it too much for its major plot points and is still easy to follow even if you never saw the original story. Magog from the very first Doctor Who Weekly strip The Iron Legion puts in a fleeting cameo, as does the Brigadier, and oddly only the second of these feels gratuitous.

After a mere eighteen stories, the Seventh Doctor’s comic strip exploits in Doctor Who Magazine finally feel like they’ve completely found their feet.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
And just as it gets good, it gets awful. This strip has nothing to commend it, and even half-decent artwork can’t save it. Why couldn’t the Doctor have quietly forgotten about Bonjaxx and Maruthea?
 

SCRIPT: Gary Russell
ART: Mike Collins (pencils), Steve Pini (inks)
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUE: 173
COVER DATE: May 1991
REPRINTS: Reprinted in The Incomplete Death’s Head, Volume 1, Issue 12, December 1993.

The Doctor finally reaches Maruthea, just as the Sixth Doctor is leaving. There, he finally gives his Daemon friend Bonjaxx a birthday present, and he and Ace meet a future incarnation of himself and his companion Ria. As the two Doctors chat, a drunken Meep starts a bar brawl, and although Ace and Ria enthusiastically participate, the Doctors decide they must be going. But even as these Doctors depart, the Fourth Doctor is arriving...

SCRIPT: Paul Cornell
ART: Lee Sullivan (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks)
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUE: 174
COVER DATE: June 1991

The interior of the TARDIS suddenly transforms into a forest, and as the Doctor and Ace climb the tree in the centre of the former console room the Doctor tries to remember what caused this, vaguely recalling that he lost something important during his second incarnation. Visions of past threats appear to him; the Virus from Titan, the Mandragora Helix -- all things which have penetrated the interior of the TARDIS. A raven gives Ace a ring and then transforms into a vision of Sutekh. Ace, surprised, falls out of the tree, as the Doctor, finally understanding, apologises to the TARDIS for his lack of thought. The console room returns to normal, and the Doctor identifies the ring as the one he wore in his first incarnation. It must have fallen inside the console and interfaced with the chameleon circuit, causing untold damage to the TARDIS in the process. He decides to start wearing it again.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Perhaps a little heavy on the continuity, and therefore confusing for anyone but the most dedicated Doctor Who fan, but as this issue is a TARDIS special, it can just about be forgiven, I guess. The story is ingenious and well worked out, the artwork handsome and the characterisation as crisp and authentic as we’ve come to expect. A surprisingly readable little strip.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The story is throwaway, a spot of Summer fun, but the artwork is pleasing. Interestingly, this is the first time the comic strip Doctor has been to Blackpool since the TV Comic story The Metal Eaters of either October 1974, or its Fourth Doctor reprint in 1977/1978. Amusingly, the TARDIS in Seaside Rendezvous appears to have landed exactly where the Doctor Who Exhibition had been up until October 1985.
 

SCRIPT: Paul Cornell
ART: Gary Frank (pencils), Stephen Baskerville (inks)
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUE: Summer Special 1991
COVER DATE: June 1991

The Irish Sea, 1826. The crew of the Camara cast a large stone overboard, a stone that has apparently already killed three of the crew. Blackpool, present day. The Doctor and Ace are at the seaside, and while Ace wants the Doctor to see a fire that has started on the Golden Mile, the Doctor is busy waiting for something. Something soon arrives, as a creature made of sand rises from the sea attracted by the heat of the blaze. The Doctor persuades the firemen to aim their hoses at it, breaking it down into a heap of sand, then he throws the sand into the fire which it helps to extinguish.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A nice sense of period, cloth-faced Cybermen and strong characterisation are linked to the most graphic body horror ever seen in a Doctor Who comic strip. The artwork is fabulous, though the story does feel a little thin once Ace has hooked into the Cyber-network, possibly because she and the Doctor are the only characters left, or possibly because the Cybermen are now reacting to rather than instigating the plans, and thus feel weakened.
 

SCRIPT: Andrew Cartmel
ART: Mike Collins (pencils), Steve Pini (inks)
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 175 - 178
COVER DATES: July 1991 - October 1991
ON TV: Pilot Episode: An Unearthly Child (repeat)

With the TARDIS disguised as a period automobile, the Doctor and Ace are in Nevada 1954. They arrive at the Nevada Star diner to find Colonel Rhodes and his men waiting for visitors. However, it soon becomes apparent that whatever they are waiting for is not coming to them, as a disc of earth containing the diner is transported into space which then docks with an enormous shuttle which then, in turn, docks with a vast warship. And just when it seems things can’t get any worse, Cybermen emerge from the desert sand.

Working with the Cybermats, the Cybermen set up a cannon and dig an access shaft. However, while the military plan their next move, the Cybermen and the walking Cybercannon attack. The military retaliates while the Doctor and Ace slip away into the cyber-warship.

Colonel Rhodes and his troop, meanwhile, have been captured by the Cybermen, and Rhodes is manipulated through Cybercontrol into killing all his men. This makes him ideal for the Cybermen’s purposes and he is installed as part of the warship. The Doctor and Ace fight back, linking Ace into the same network through the TARDIS, and manage to launch the shuttle craft from the warship.

The Cybermen attack and then pursue the shuttle, but as Ace grows more accustomed to controlling the ship, she orders the shuttle’s reserve reactor aboard the escape craft and then launches it. The Cybermen believe they are trying to escape and pursue the escape craft which then detonates, destroying the warship and their new weapon - Rhodes.

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: Vincent Danks (pencils), Cam Smith (inks), Louise Cassell (colour)
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

COVER DATE: September 1991

The Doctor tells Ace a story from his past. His fourth incarnation materialised on a British submarine under attack by Sea Devils, and the submarine was then contacted by the Third Doctor, who was co-ordinating the mission from the surface. The Fourth remembered that it was his intention to contact the Sea Devils peacefully, to try to negotiate peace between them and the humans; however, he succeeded only in awakening a species which still desired the eradication of the upstart human race. Now the Fourth Doctor must solve the crisis without alerting his past self to his presence, and thus changing history. Without identifying himself, the Fourth Doctor worked with the Third to translate the Sea Devil transmissions and transmit their own, false message, claiming that the Earth was still under threat. The Sea Devils retreated to their hibernation chambers, and the Fourth Doctor departed before the Third could find out who he was.

SCRIPT: John Freeman
ART: Richard Whitaker
LETTERS: Caroline Steeden
EDITOR: Paul Neary

ISSUE: 179
COVER DATE: October 1991

The TARDIS is dragged to a nexus point in prehistory, where the Doctor and Ace meet a group of hunters who believe that nothing they do here can alter the future of the planet. Ace tries to delay them while the Doctor investigates the nexus point, but when the hunters attempt to kill one of the first mammals to evolve on Earth, the Doctor arrives and stops Ace from interfering. A group of time-travelling intelligent dinosaurs then materialises, on a big game hunt from their future -- a future in which the human race never evolved, because these human hunters killed off their own ancestors. But when the lizards tear apart the horrified humans, they all disappear into the nexus. The Doctor explains to Ace that this paradox was self-correcting; history has been restored to what it should be, because the humans were killed by the result of the change before they had the opportunity to cause it.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Clever script hampered by horrible and cluttered artwork.
 

SCRIPT: Andrew Cartmel
ART: Richard Piers Rayner
LETTERS: Glib
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUE: 180
COVER DATE: November 1991

Evening’s Empire almost became the Shada of the Doctor Who comic strip world, with Part One of the strip printed, then... no Part Two. Issue 181 claimed the delay was due to the postal service and reprinted the Doctorless strip Fires Down Below from Issue 64. Issue 182 put it down to ‘the dreaded Deadline Doom’ (whatever that might be) and reprinted the Fourth Doctor strip Spider God from Issue 52. Issue 183 doesn’t mention it at all and prints a one-off Doctorless tale about an FHD team called Conflict of Interests. Issue 184 claims it was due to start a new comic strip called The Grief which had unfortunately been impounded by HM Customs as a suspect device and reprinted the Doctorless Business As Usual from Issues 40 - 43 .We’ll save a plot summary and comment for when Evening’s Empire finally saw the light of day...

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: Vincent Danks (pencils), Adolfo Buylla (inks, 1), Robin Riggs (inks, 2-3)
LETTERS: Caroline Steeden
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 185 - 187
COVER DATES: April 1992 - June 1992
ON TV: The Sea Devils (repeat)

The barren ash world of Sorsha is the TARDIS’s next landing spot. The Doctor tells Ace that three thousand years ago, the Sorshans killed themselves and their planet. The Doctor has come to pay his respects to the dead, for the Sorshans were invaded by the Lom and destroyed themselves and the Lom to save the galaxy. The Doctor soon encounters Lieutenant Frethil, of the starship Rosetta, and her Earth marines, who arrests him on suspicion of being an alien spy. Ace sets out to free him but instead meets translator Skrane who is learning to translate Lom script. The Doctor meanwhile has discovered that the humans have uncovered a Lom weapon bearing the inscription The Grief, their ultimate weapon. With Skrane’s translation, Frethil activates the device - and even as she dies, reanimates a Lom warrior.

The Doctor escapes, but all others are killed by the Lom. Ace and Skrane are joined by Strauss who says a Condition Red has been called. Meanwhile, the Rosetta calls in - they are being overrun by the Lom. The Doctor appears and tells them that the translation allowed Frethil to activate the Grief, which is a genetic fabrication unit, so every dead human can now produce a new Lom. The Sorshans realised the Lom would be unstoppable, so they activated their planetary shield once the Lom had landed, sealing them in, then released a biological toxin, wiping out everything. They must do the same again before the Lom move in and finish them off.

Ace and Strauss hold the Lom at bay for a while as the Doctor and Skrane make their way to the control chamber. Skrane says he will sacrifice himself to destroy the Lom as it was his translation that started it all in the first place, and Strauss stays to protect him. The Doctor and Ace must go and warn the universe about this planet. They make it back to the TARDIS just in time, but Ace is upset by the loss of life and worried that the Doctor knew what would happen all along. She is worried that he no longer cares about individual lives... and worried that he no longer cares about her.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It’s perhaps all a bit familiar now from strips like Echoes of the Mogor and Hunger from the Ends of Time, and all a bit like an Alien pastiche, but there are some good original ideas at work here too and the story unfolds well amid much  carnage. The artwork is fairly good too, though better with Riggs on inking duties.
 

SCRIPT: Andrew Cartmel
ART: Brian Williamson (pencils), Cam Smith (inks)
LETTERS: Caroline Steeden
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 188 - 190
COVER DATES: July 1992 - September 1992

Christine Jenkins and her seven-year-old daughter Demi run out of gas on a stretch of British motorway, and

SCRIPT: Paul Cornell
ART: Lee Sullivan (art), Louise Cassell (colour)
LETTERS: Annie Halfacree
EDITOR: John Freeman

COVER DATES: September 1992

The Doctor and Ace materialise on a cargo ship carrying genetically blank human embryos to Earth, where they will be imprinted with the genetic codes of their foster parents, but some embryos have disappeared, and the captain has arrested the ship's medic, Harding, believing he intended to sell them on the black market. However, Harding has lost his mind, having been traumatised by a recent experience, and the Doctor points out that the glass from the embryos' containers was broken from the inside. He senses something happening to him and realises that his own body tissues are changing in response to a signal being beamed at the ship. He has the captain activate the distress beacon, which blocks the signal and forces a party of Daleks to attack the ship in response. Ace manages to shoot and kill one, but the others seize the ship. The Doctor and Ace surrender, and the Daleks recognise him and have him confined to the medical bay while they deactivate the beacon. As the Doctor suspected, the Daleks are transmitting a signal that is mutating the blank embryos into Dalek hybrids, and his own regenerative abilities have rendered him susceptible to the signal as well. The Daleks depart, leaving the Doctor to turn into a Dalek, but the Doctor turns this against them by forging a telepathic link with a hybrid embryo. The embryo enters the Dalek casing which Ace damaged earlier, pilots it back to the Dalek ship and collides with it, destroying the Dalek threat.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Some pretty good artwork is hindered by flat and unsympathetic colour and a storyline that always feels slightly shallower and less developed than it needs to be to make this work. The Daleks’ plan is a fairly simple and moderately ingenious one, and there is much to enjoy in this strip, but the resolution never feels quite satisfactory
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
If Ravens was repugnant, then this is lovely, and beautifully illustrated by John Ridgway too, as the Doctor saves a race and brings peace to an old man all in a quiet evening in the country.
 

last work of art constructed by the Telphin psycho-sculptors survived, and the Doctor brought it here to rest and grow in strength; but as it required a living host, he implanted it in the mind of the young Simon Galway. The seed has now matured, and it separates from Simon and manifests itself as a spirit of peace. Simon thanks the Doctor for his gift as the Telphin life force departs.

SCRIPT: Marc Platt
ART: John Ridgway
LETTERS: Caroline Steeden
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUE: 192
COVER DATE: October 1992

While Ace cleans up the TARDIS, the Doctor studies the ship's plans and ponders how best to conduct repairs. Fed up with the Doctor ignoring her, Ace heads for the console room, where she notices a map of the TARDIS on the scanner. She considers getting rid of some of the redundant rooms and is shocked when the rooms delete themselves, apparently at her whim. The reconfiguration runs out of control and Ace scrambles through the TARDIS as it restructures itself around her. As the changes settle down, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bedroom, where the Doctor finds her and informs her that she wasn't responsible for the changes; he had set the TARDIS on a random reconfiguration mode to shake things up a little. And for some reason, it has deleted Ace's bedroom and put a new one in its place, almost as if it is planning for the future...

SCRIPT: Warwick Gray
ART: John Ridgway
LETTERS: Alan O’Keefe
EDITOR: Gary Russell

COVER DATE: November 1992

The Doctor shows Benny a recording of an event from Gallifrey's past. A Time Lord named Magnus had found a sphere composed of artron energy, and brought it into real space with the intention of draining it and providing Gallifrey with an inexhaustible power source. His old friend Thete, now a bitter rival, arrived to observe, realised the sphere was alive and that the energy drain was killing it. Magnus refused to stop, Thete destroyed the station's equipment, and released the sphere. The Doctor tells Benny that after much deliberation the Time Lords commended Thete on his actions, but any hope of reconciliation between Thete and Magnus died, and they have been enemies ever since.

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - BERNICE SUMMERFIELD

Bernice is a thirty-year-old archaeologist born in the year 2540 who sometimes falsely claims to have a degree from Heidelberg University. She is the daughter of Admiral Isaac Douglas Summerfield, a high-ranking Spacefleet officer, and Claire Summerfield, who died when Daleks attacked their homeworld of Beta Caprisis. She has not seen her father for many years and has spent much of her life searching for him. But, unfortunately, you won’t learn any of this from the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip. Bernice is treated rather like the Doctor’s TV companions, who simply appear in the strip then disappear just as suddenly, but the problem is - unless you read Virgin’s New Adventures from Paul Cornrell’s Love and War onwards - you’d have no idea who she was, and the comic strip really doesn’t give us much to go on. We learn that she likes a drink, has a keen sense of humour, acts as a buffer between the Doctor and the newly stupid, gun-toting version of Ace, is brave, courageous and occasionally headstrong, but frankly not much else.

During her comic strip adventures, she helps the Doctor unite the Sontarans and their pureblood cousins by tricking a Rutan spy, has her mind controlled by Davros and the Daleks, convinces Abslom Daak to forget about Taiyin (though he ends up falling for her instead), discovers the identity of the Silurian scientist Mortakk by being

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: Colin Andrew
LETTERS: Annie Halfacre
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 193 - 196
COVER DATES: November 1992 - February 1993
ON TV: The Daemons (repeat), Genesis of the Daleks (repeat), The Caves of Androzani (repeat)

SCRIPT: Paul Cornell
ART: Lee Sullivan, Marina Graham (colour, Issue 200)
LETTERS: Annie Halfacre
EDITOR: John Freeman

ISSUES: 197 - 202
COVER DATES: March 1993 - August 1993
ON TV: The Caves of Androzani (repeat), Revelation of the Daleks (repeat), Battlefield (repeat)

Following events in Revelation of the Daleks, Davros is tried and sentenced to death by the Dalek Emperor on Skaro. Meanwhile, the Sixth Doctor and Peri land on Skaro under cover of an asteroid strike and, attacking the Daleks’ systems with a computer virus, rescue Davros and take him away from Skaro. The Daleks swear revenge, and their tool for exacting it will be Abslom Daak, who did not die blowing up  the Dalek deathwheel.

About to plunge into the reactor aboard the Dalek deathwheel, Daak is transmatted to safety. He finds himself in what appears to be a courtroom on Earth where he is given a mission to find the Doctor. Taiyin is used to pressure him into accepting. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Benny have landed on Hell where they find the Star Tigers Salander, Harma and Vol Mercurius very much alive. However, Daak arrives and seizes the Doctor, and seconds later the whole Star Tigers camp is transported back to the courtroom. But the Doctor is suspicious, especially when the officials ask for the location of Davros, and soon discovers that the officials are robots and the courtroom is really on Skaro.

With Taiyin taken away, Daak goes on the rampage, giving the Doctor enough time to get them all to safety in the service ducts below the city. They head for Taiyin and the Doctor explains that he is here to connect events from his own past. However, when they find Taiyin, the Daleks have rigged a gas trap inside her corpse and they are all captured.

SCRIPT: Warwick Gray
ART: Colin Andrew
LETTERS: Janey Rutter
EDITOR: Gary Russell

ISSUES: 203 - 206
COVER DATES: September 1993 - December 1993
ON TV: Planet of the Daleks (repeat)

As Colonel Muriel Frost heads for the United Races Intelligence Command headquarters, the TARDIS lands with an unexpected sound in a wood. Frost arrives in the URIC compound and is taken to meet Professor Thactus, a Silurian scientist who has been working on a device. However, reports are coming through of an attack on a Sea Devil base in Japan. The Doctor’s party observe the compound, but are soon caught up in an attack by strange creatures called Chimeras. Ace dives in to help, but it is Thactus’ device that renders the creatures immobile. However, Muriel Frost then turns on the Doctor, Benny and Ace. She doesn’t know them at all.

The Doctor explains to Ace that they are on a parallel Earth, one where mankind and the Silurians live in peace. Frost doesn’t believe him: the Doctor and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart were killed in a bomb attack two months ago. However, both she and Thactus are convinced when the TARDIS is found in the woods, as they already have the Doctor’s TARDIS in storage within the compound, and Thactus explains to the Doctor that the Chimeras have been attacked remote human, Silurian and Sea Devil bases for two months. He also reveals that the creatures are an amalgamation of human and reptile genetics. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS with Thactus for equipment to help in analysing the creatures, but the URIC soldier accompanying them reveals that she is controlled by another. She aims her gun at the two scientists.

The Doctor attempts to hypnotise the soldier out of her conditioning, but it is Benny who saves the day. Meanwhile, the Doctor’s opponent realises that the Doctor has the upper hand and accelerates something called the Genesis. The Doctor mind-links Benny to the soldier and she discovers that the one behind the operation is a Silurian named Mortakk, who Thactus reveals to have been a brilliant but amoral scientist believed to have been executed by the Silurian triad. But Benny also got a location: Darkmoor, and Thactus knows there is an abandoned nuclear research centre there. The TARDIS travels to Darkmoor, but the Doctor, Thactus and Benny are immediately captured by Chimeras and taken before Mortakk.

Mortakk believes that all three primary races on Earth - human, Silurian and Sea Devil - have reached an evolutionary standstill. Through the use of a mutagenic gas, he will transform all three into Chimeras, creatures capable of living in any conditions. But the gas will only transform 20% of the population, the rest will die. At the Doctor’s signal, the second TARDIS arrives with Ace and Frost aboard armed with Thactus’ device, but Mortakk escapes in the confusion pursued by the Doctor. Mortakk attempts to kill the Doctor using the power of his third eye, but the Doctor uses his umbrella to puncture a canister of mutagenic gas. It does not affect the Time Lord, but Mortakk is reduced to a pile of bones.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The likeness of the Doctor becomes a trifle iffy again, which is a shame as this strip’s artwork is generally quite attractive, though occasionally veering towards the messy. The story is also pretty good, though Ace is irritating in her new Virgin-styled persona, and the mutagenic gas unfortunately recalls Timelash. It’s a shame this story came out around the same time as Jim Mortimore’s novel Bloodheat, which arguably extrapolates the same ideas in a more satisfying way. The ending, where the Doctor visits his own grave, is a nice touch though.
 

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: Simon Coleby (pencils)

ISSUE: 12
COVER DATE: December 1993

Forcibly transported to Maruthea, and having relived in Cyberspace various adventures (ie. reprints) including in no particular order Party Animals, Keepsake, The Crossroads of Time and Time Bomb!, Death’s Head II meets up with his former self and discovers that the Doctor was responsible for bringing him here to close off a nagging portion of his past that would otherwise have destroyed him.

The Black Guardian changes history so that the Doctor never left Gallifrey, and, as a result, Earth is now a battleground overrun by alien species. To put matters right, the White Guardian gives travel rings to the Doctor, Ace and Benny, and sends them in search of the six segments of the Key to Time, which scattered along the Doctor's personal timeline when he  disassembled the key. Benny takes the Second Doctor's hat from the Land of Fiction, and a jelly baby from the Fourth Doctor as he flees the Mandrels on Eden. Ace fences with the Third Doctor in Sir Reginald Styles' home, and departs with his sword; then catches a cricket ball hit out of bounds by the Fifth Doctor at Lord Cranleigh's match. The Doctor himself takes the cat badge from the Sixth Doctor, then saves his first incarnation from a Dalek while taking the TARDIS manual. Once the six segments are reassembled, the White Guardian puts history right.

SCRIPT: Dan Abnett
ART: John Ridgway
LETTERS: Janey Rutter
EDITOR: Gary Russell

ISSUES: 208 - 210
COVER DATES: January 1994 - March 1994

It is October 13th 1855 and Doctor Thomas Gideon, fellow of the Royal Society, is travelling by stage coach to the coastal village of Lifton to meet palaeontologist Mary Wesley. His travelling companion, Mr Mackley, regales him with tall stories about hauntings caused by the ungodly woman. When the coach abruptly halts, the driver blames a spectre and Gideon, incensed by the continuous slurs against the woman, gets out to scotch the story. However, he sees something and screams, and the coach drives on without him. Mackley takes up residence in the local inn, where the Doctor, Ace and Bernice soon appear asking for directions to the Rectory where the Wesleys reside. However, the locals are unwilling to help. On the beach, the Doctor reveals that they are there to attend a dinner party held by Mary Wesley‘s father, the Reverend Wesley, and that in attendance will be Doctor Thomas Gideon and Sir William Gadling as Mary unveils the most important paleontological discovery of any era. But they are there to stop her...

Despite Ace and Benny’s cries of chauvinism, the Doctor explains that Mary has found the fossilised remains of an alien life form, which he shows them. It could put science back centuries as the scientists attempt to fit this ‘missing link’ into what they know. Ace refuses to help, but Benny agrees, and she and the Doctor go to the Rectory where they are welcomed in as fellow scientists and introduced to Mary, Sir William Gadling... and Doctor Thomas Gideon. Whilst Ace discovers the badly mutilated body of Doctor Gideon on the beach, the Doctor confronts the man, who quickly reveals his true alien nature.

The Doctor is saved by Ace’s timely arrival, as she smacks the alien across the head with a fossilised hippo femur. Benny, meanwhile, calms the upset Mary and takes her out for a walk. When the alien recovers consciousness, it reveals itself to be a shape-shifting Surcoth who has come to claim the bones of his ancestor, but his arrogance and indifference to the death and suffering he has caused means the Doctor will not help him. When he breaks free, the Doctor threatens to destroy the bones, but Scuroth begs him not to. The Doctor teaches him a lesson in compassion and understanding ‘lesser’ species, then allows him to take the bones. Mary returns in a state of excitement - she’s found a huge fossil on the beach... one that Benny led her straight to.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is a neat little story with plenty of atmosphere, excellent dialogue and a Doctor who calmly and quietly avenges the destruction of a whole planet. Perfectly fitting its length and evoking the darker moments of the Seventh Doctor’s reign, this is a fitting end to this Doctor’s regular comic strip adventures.
 

SCRIPT: Warwick Gray
ART: John Ridgway
LETTERS: Simon Weston
EDITOR: Gary Russell

ISSUES: 211
COVER DATES: April 1994

The Doctor arrives uninvited at a victory party held by an Eternal called Lord Prospero. First he tells the being of a race of Ephemerals destroyed by interference from their gods the Eternals. Upon hearing their indifference, he then gives Prospero a gift - a small crystal, but it is a trick, and when the crystal shatters the Eternals are embraced by the space-time vortex and made mortal. Knowing now that they will die, the Doctor advises them to make the most of their lives.

SCRIPT: Warwick Gray
ART: Colin Andrew
LETTERS: Amer Anwar
EDITOR: Gary Russell

COVER DATE: Summer 1994

The Doctor returns to meet the cybernetic nervous system known as Xenith who he last encountered in his first incarnation. Back then he allowed his companions’ fear to cloud his judgement, but now he realises it was simply Xenith trying to communicate. After speaking to Benny about whether or not he should repair the computer’s circuits, he does so and spends a lovely evening in the company of good friends.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
As a companion piece to the First Doctor strip Are You Listening?, this oddity still feels insubstantial. The idea of linking stories across two Doctors is a neat one, but sadly there isn’t enough plot here to sustain even half of the strip’s four pages. You can read about the other half of the story here.
 

SCRIPT: Gareth Roberts
ART: Martin Geraghty
LETTERS: Elitta Fell
EDITOR: Gary Russell

COVER DATE: Winter 1994

The Doctor and Mel celebrate the turn of the Millennium at a party organised by Alisha Hammerson of Hammerson Plastics for the country’s top businessmen. But Alisha is an Auton intent on taking over the world through duplicates of the top businessmen, but the Doctor has given Mel a phial of antiplastic which she uses to dissolve the Nestene’s energy sphere.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Apparently, the Doctor hates excessive use of semi-colons, though I’m guessing he isn’t too bothered about the strip misspelling the word Millennium. The artwork looks very nice, apart from the likenesses of the Doctor and Mel; Mel sometimes looks like a man in drag, which is not how you could ever describe Bonnie Langford. The story is frothy and unchallenging, but just about works to hold the interest.
 

SCRIPT: Scott Gray
ART: Martin Geraghty (pencils), Bambos Georgiou (inks)
LETTERS: Elitta Fell
EDITOR: Gary Gillatt

ISSUES: 238 - 242
COVER DATES: May 1996 - August 1996
ON TV: The TV Movie

Notting Hill Carnival, London, 29th August 2092, and Ace and the Doctor are in attendance. However, they are watched by members of the Threshold, shadowy beings from another dimension, who soon kidnap Ace then report to Isaac that the plan has been a success. Meanwhile, the Doctor glimpses his granddaughter Susan and runs after her, but it is a  trap, luring him into the clutches of Isaac. Ace finds herself in a deserted Notting Hill, but she is not alone. With her are Sarah Jane Smith and Peri Brown.

While the Doctor speaks to Isaac and learns that the Threshold is a business opening and closing dimensional gates for their clients, Ace, Sarah and Peri find themselves in a nightmare world of the collective unconscious. But the unconscious is inhabited by creatures that feed on fear itself.

The creatures are the Lobri, clients of the Threshold. Ace, Sarah and Peri were chosen to enter the unconscious to feed the Lobri with their fear because they are already used to inter-dimensional travel. With that fear to make them strong, the Lobri will have power to escape the unconscious. Susan, it seems, was snatched by accident, the Threshold at first believing her to be just a schoolgirl.. However, the Lobri plan to destroy the unconscious when they leave it, which will leave humanity without a common bond - every person alien to the next. Slaughter will ensue, and the Lobri will feed off of it. The Doctor snatches Isaac’s ring with which he opens the dimensional gates and escapes with Susan back to the TARDIS. By linking the ring into the TARDIS’ circuits, he can enter the unconscious, but as the unconscious begins to break down and violence erupts all over the world, it looks like the effort of entering the place will tear the TARDIS apart.

Ace frees herself and Sarah from the Lobri and they are about to free Peri when the TARDIS arrives. However, Isaac uses his ring to paralyse the Doctor. He tells Ace to leave him, but she won’t and, when the Lobri move in around her, she detonates a can of Nitro-9, destroying all but one of the Lobri but killing herself.

The Doctor pilots the damaged TARDIS back to Notting Hill where the final surviving Lobri has appeared. He confronts it and allows it to feed off his anger, but this is only a trick to hold its attention long enough for Susan to land the damaged TARDIS in the centre of the creature, killing it immediately. The Doctor then swears vengeance on Isaac and the Threshold before returning Peri, Sarah and Susan to their own time streams.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Some people didn’t like the comic strip flying in the face of Virgin continuity by killing Ace, others argued that her death contradicted the novelisation of The Curse of Fenric and ideas set up in deleted scenes from Silver Nemesis. I don’t care about any of that, this strip is just fantastic and packs a real emotional punch too. The underlying concept is  intelligent, especially in the way it pulls in the past Doctor comic strip stories Operation Proteus, Black Destiny and The Curse of the Scarab, and the way it naturally leads the Seventh Doctor into the TV Movie. This is a great way to see out the Seventh Doctor supported by striking artwork, but the Doctor’s dealings with the Threshold are far from   over...
 

SCRIPT: Gareth Roberts
ART: Lee Sullivan (art and colour)
LETTERS: Roger Langridge
EDITOR: Alan Barnes

ISSUE: 305
COVER DATE: June 2001

The Doctor sends Benny back to 1981 to join a New Romantic band, while Ace fights Chelonians in the 57th century. They're supposedly there looking for distortions in history, but really the Doctor sent them there to change history, thus drawing the Timewyrm out of hiding by giving it a food source. He has built a device to trap the Timewyrm forever, but it appears to fail because the Timewyrm has shed its physical existence and now exists only in Puterspace. Instead it casts the Doctor into Puterspace to drift forever, but when it then attempts to feed on the time distortion Benny and Ace have caused, it finds that doing so returns history to normal and tt is cast back into Puterspace, where the waiting Doctor reveals that his device has altered the structure of the Timewyrm's data stream so it can never emerge into the real Universe again. He then uses the device to transport himself back to the TARDIS, where the irritated Ace and Benny watch as he starts to write a novel based on their adventure.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
If you’ve read them, this strip probably parodies the New Adventures quite well. If you haven’t then it’s a mildly enjoyable and attractively illustrated tale with something of a hurried and weak ending. Of course, as this strip and this particular issue of Doctor Who Magazine celebrate ten years of Virgin’s New Adventures, perhaps it doesn’t matter if the uninitiated don’t get it.
 

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