 | | | GROWING TERROR/HYPERSTAR RISING/DEATH RACE FIVE BILLION/THE MACROBE MENACE/THE
HUNT OF DOOM/REUNION OF FEAR |
| | |  | | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: John Ross (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUES: 1 -6
COVER DATES: 20 September 2006 - 29 November 2006
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Futurists, Interstellar Overdrive
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Triskaidekaphobia - A Date to Remember
REPRINTS: None The TARDIS is brought to a rough landing in the Forest of Cheem by Coffa and Lute, who greet the Doctor and Rose with a warning that the survivors of Platform One (see television story The End of the World) are disappearing one by one. While the biogrove's protective shields are down to let the TARDIS through, a cyborg called Montodon Slemm, along with his robotic gardener SNIP-7, arrive. They begin harvesting the intelligent trees for Slemm's customers at Cyborg Intergalactic Garden Centres. Taking Coffa and Lute to safety in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose lure Slemm and SNIP-7 into a field of super-evolved space dandelions, which quickly seed and grow in metal. SNIP-7’ is clogged up, and Slemm, also affected, hurriedly departs. Returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose find no sign of Coffa and Lute, and decide to leave, wondering over the mystery of Platform One’s survivors. The Doctor and Rose arrive on the Hyperfilm Studio set of great director, Zemm Foolini, on the planet Woldyhool, in the year Five Billion. Zemm is not happy, his leading manbot Cal ‘Spark Plug’ MacNannovich is missing and his monster shoot interrupted. The monster (a Bajunx from the Isop Galaxy) isn't as well-behaved as his agent promised, and goes on a rampage, eating all of the extras and the security forces. Recognising its species, the Doctor pacifies the creature with studio lights and a shadow puppet show. It as a baby, prone to shoving things in its mouth, the Doctor waits for the extras and security forces to be sicked-up unharmed. The adult Bajunx, the real monster actor, turns up, looking for his little boy. With events settled, the Doctor and Rose leave to find out what happened to another survivor from Platform One. The Doctor and Rose arrive on Astro-Race Day where Skip is readying his Hyposlip 500 lightspeed podule for its debut race. As the space race starts, a huge ship appears and abducts the ships with a tractor beam. The Doctor goes in pursuit, closely followed by Rose and Skip's mechanic Jumo. The Doctor's pod is damaged and taken aboard where the Doctor overhears Skip's plan to sell the Hyposlip-500's technology for ten trillion to the Rakkonoids, a race of galactic techno-thieves. Skip had hoped his treachery would go undetected, but when Rose and Jumo crash into the ship, chaos ensues. Once the Doctor has piloted the ship back to the cliff-top launch site, Skip, along with the Rakkonoids, are led away by the authorities. Jumo tells the Doctor and Rose that his bosses, the Brothers Hop Pyleen, will be grateful and will want to thank them but have disappeared. No closer to tracking the other Platform One survivors, the Doctor and Rose leave still looking for answers. The Doctor and Rose arrive at the Reading Dome of the University of Rago Rago 56 Rago, to catch up with the Chosen Scholars of Class 55. The books are downloaded directly to the brain via small mindlink devices attached to the forehead. Rose takes the virtual tour, but the software has been affected by Macrobes which have been waiting for a chance to spread their infection. Sensing that the Doctor is a Time Lord and wanting to use the TARDIS to spread the virus throughout time and space, the Macrobes emerge from the system and take over the wearers, including Rose. With Head Librarian Kriz, the Doctor hides in a room of books deemed too boring to be stored. The Doctor downloads the boring books, sending the Library Zombies to sleep and forcing the Macrobes to retreat back to the net, which the Doctor disconnects. With the Macrobes trapped in storage, a clean-up team is sent in to remove the infection. The Chosen Scholars have also disappeared and the Doctor prepares to read through all the information looking for answers to the mysterious disappearances of Platform One's surviving guests. Having found a useful book on power-boosted transmats in the Reading Dome, the Doctor and Rose arrive at Gameworld Gama, a hunting location owned by Mr and Mrs Pakoo, hoping to pick up a trail of lectra energy, which occurred around all their recent landings. When the Doctor discovers humans are being used in the Royal Hunt, the Doctor insists the games stop, but the Pakoo’s guards attack. Rescued by the surviving humans, the Doctor and Rose make their escape, dropping the psychic paper in the process. The Huntmasters catch them but, having found the Doctor's ID, which claims he is personal assistant to President Kaakaa herself, apologise and offer them assistance. The Doctor orders the humans to be sent home and returns with the Huntmasters to deliver a warning to Mr and Mrs Pakoo, only to find they too have disappeared – but this time leaving a trail he can follow. While the TARDIS is following the lectra energy leak of a power-boosted transmat beam, an intruder materialises inside the ship and kidnaps Rose. The Doctor, whose identity was not confirmed as a result of his regeneration, is not taken. Rose awakes to find herself imprisoned along with the other survivors of Platform One and a very vengeful Elth of Balhoon, who believes his brother, the Moxx of Balhoon, was left alone to die in agony when the Platform One shields failed. The Doctor arrives undetected by the Elth's bioslaves, defeats the Bioslaves and releases the prisoners with his sonic screwdriver. With his plans thwarted, the Elth breaks down in tears, mourning the loss of his brother. The Doctor asks the others to go easy him. To Rose's delight, the former prisoners rally round the Elth and offer support. With the mystery solved, the Doctor and Rose slip away in the TARDIS. |
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| | | THE GLUTONOID MENACE |
| | |  | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Lee Sullivan takes over the art and colouring duties for this simplistic self-contained romp. The colour work is excellent - vibrant, appealing and with real depth, but he hasn’t quite captured either of the two regulars (as with Ross, his Rose is better than his Doctor).
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| | | |  | | | SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: Lee Sullivan
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUE: 7
COVER DATE: 13 December 2006
ON TV:
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Interstellar Overdrive
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Snow Fakes
REPRINTS: None Finally admitting that the TARDIS food machine needs repairing when it produces unpalatable food pulls, the Doctor takes Rose to a steak joint he knows on Phijax IV. Armed with an umbrella, the Doctor and Rose step out, only to find themselves standing in an arena where they are expected to fight for their survival or be eaten by the flesh-eating Glutonoid. Chained together and forced to fight, Rose and the Doctor use the low gravity to overpower the competition, but the Glutonoid still wants to eat Rose, in spite of the Doctor’s warning. The Doctor activates the Glutonoid's hover pad using its small handheld device, and once in the air, feeds it the rejected pills from the TARDIS food machine. The combination of tastes proves lethal and the Glutinoid explodes as the Doctor and Rose drift to the ground using the Doctor's extended umbrella. With the Glutonoid gone there will be no more fights to the death. |
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| | | THE POWER OF THE CYBERMEN/DRONES OF DOOM/ENEMY MINE/TIME OF THE CYBERMEN |
| | | | | | | | | |  | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUES: 8 - 11
COVER DATE: 27 December 2006 - 7 February 2007
ON TV: The Runaway Bride
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Green-Eyed Monster, The Warkeeper’s Crown
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Snow Fakes - 13 O’Clock
REPRINTS: None The Doctor's break on Earth colony Centuria is interrupted by Cybermen rounding up tourists for conversion. Captured, the Doctor teams up with Jayne Kadett, an undercover investigator on the trail of an interplanetary info-thief. The thief stole Torchwood files and built his own Cyber army, intending to sell it to the highest bidder, but the Cybermen took over and partly converted the thief, using him as their driver. When they arrive at the conversion factory, the Doctor overloads the Cybermen in the immediate vicinity with his sonic screwdriver, and he and Jayne head for the main power line. The Doctor blows the restraint circuit and the power feeds out to the Cybermen; the overload creating a huge explosion and destroying them. However, before the Cybermen shut down, one sends out a message. The Doctor is determined to track them down and destroy them all. The Doctor and Jayne follow the Cyberman's signal, taking a robot-run airship across the now-deserted continent of Azlon. Before arriving at the airbus terminal (now a Cyber-conversion factory), the robot conductor falls under | |  | | | | | | |  | | | | Cyber influence, which is being used to subjugate the humans. The Doctor, Jayne and, thanks to the former, a reprogrammed conductor pretend to be hypnotised and follow the other arrivals. Seizing the right moment, the Doctor disrupts the hypnotic signal and the conductor attacks the Cybermen. A stray shot from the conductor ruptures the fuel banks causing an explosion that kills most of the newly converted Cyber-drones. As the Doctor and Jayne flee, they find a fragment a map in a Cyberman's hand - a map that might lead them to discovering what the Cybermen are up to on Centuria. Wandering the arctic lands of Centuria in search of the Cybermen's base, the Doctor and Kadett are attacked by a rogue-half cybernised drone called Homaj, who backs down when he realises they are human. Homaj can't face returning to the mines where the Cybermen are using drones to mine hargstones (precious jewels with many industrial uses. An attack by a native Ice Snake (a giant vicious purple snake) is brought to an end by the Cybermen and their cyber-converted dogs. Homaj runs off into the frozen wasteland but the Doctor and Kadett are captured and taken to a huge mine below the ice. Inside the mine, the Doctor creates a distraction while Kadett steals some explosives. The distraction causes a Cyberman to split one of the cave walls, disturbing a nest of Ice Snakes which attack them. Escaping the mine, the Doctor and Kadett see the Cybership has already departed with its cargo. Homaj is waiting for them and tells them he intercepted a message saying that the cargo was going to Centuria Central. He then takes the explosives from Kadett and heads back to the mine. In an act of self-sacrifice, he permanently seals the mine. The Doctor and Jayne leave in pursuit of the Cybership. The TARDIS lands in Centuria Central in a temporal stasis field. Jayne is frozen in time, but the Doctor can resist the field. Cybermen in a patrol aircar spot him and pursue. The Doctor uses his sonic to bring the aircar crashing down, drawing the attention of other Cybermen, who arrive to salvage parts and take them back to base. The Doctor smuggles himself into the base with the salvage. The base is the Triplanetary base which the Doctor suspects has been robbed of its Hargstone reserves to enable the Cybermen to maintain a stasis machine. The Doctor learns from the Cybermen that they built the stasis machine from Torchwood files and used it to subdue overwhelming opposition. The Doctor destroys the stasis machine and the Cybermen, who have a mental link with the machine enabling them to move around inside the field, are destroyed by temporal feedback. With the Cybermen defeated and the stasis field gone, the Doctor says good bye to Jayne, warning her to keep her eyes peeled. In the shadows, the eyes of Cyberman glow red. | | | | | |  | | | | |  | | |  | | | | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The strangely episodic nature of the BiT strip does it no favours, making it much shallower than it really needs to be, though the debut comic strip appearance of the new series Cybermen gives this strip a considerable lift, and Sullivan makes them look wonderfully impressive.
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| | | BENEATH THE SKIN/THE SKY BELOW/BEYOND THE SEA/LONELY PLANET |
| | | |  | | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUES: 12 - 15
COVER DATES: 21 February 2007 - 4 April 2007
ON TV: Smith and Jones - The Shakespeare Code (Series 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Warkeeper’s Crown, The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: 13 O’Clock - The Snag Finders
REPRINTS: None The TARDIS is drawn to a spaceship graveyard and, almost immediately, the Doctor is shot with a paralysis ray when Major Arn and Cothax, along with their sample gathering robot, plant the flag of the Mighty Tragellan Empire into the ground. As some form of oil spews forth, rock men attack, picking up and throwing the Doctor against one of the ships. The shock frees him from paralysis. Using the robot to analyse the ‘oil’ sample, he realises the planet is a living organism, the oil is blood and the rock men are part of its defence system. While the Doctor repairs the wound using the paralysis gun, the Tragellan make their escape. The Doctor is pleased with his patient’s recovery but alarmed to find the TARDIS has been taken down into the planet. The Doctor uses an anti-gravity pack taken from one of the many wrecked spacecraft to descend into a blowhole. Beneath the surface, he finds an ocean of plasma (the planet’s bloodstream), where he finds an island constructed from debris (including the TARDIS), and the surviving descendants of a race fleeing from stellar catastrophe in a Gamma Class VII Life Ark, scavenging for survival. The Doctor avoids attack from the planet’s snake-like defences by using spare fuel cells from his anti-gravity pack, and lodging the anti-gravity pack in one of the defence creature’s mouth makes it extend all the way to the planet’s surface. He then encourages the survivors to climb the creature’s body and adapt to a new life on the surface while he slides back down the tail-end to retrieve the TARDIS, but it has been taken even deeper into the planet… Using aquabikes from another spacecraft wreck, the Doctor, accompanied by Kul, dive beneath the plasma sea. Attacked by more antibody defences, this time resembling tentacled eyeballs, Kul and the Doctor hide in a hole in the rock, which turns out to be the craft that Kul and his people came from. Anti-aquatic gases outside create a pressure round the wrecked Life Ark which itself is protected by an army of cleaning robots acting like antibodies to keep the ship sterile. The planet’s antibodies break through and battle the cleaning robots. The Doctor boosts the anti-aquatic gases, creating a pressure bubble that expels the planet’s living antibodies from the ship. They then manage to locate the ship’s info-banks. The info-banks have been drained by root-like nerve endings extending up from the heart of the planet. The Doctor and Kul set out to find out why the planet is hungry for knowledge and to find out what it has done with the TARDIS. Following the nerves, the Doctor and Kul are attacked again by the planet’s antibody defences. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to temporarily confuse the antibodies and then makes telepathic contact through the root-like nerves with the planet itself. The planet explains that the antibodies protect it from all life forms, unable to distinguish between ‘visitors’ and real life infections. The planet is lonely and only able to communicate with passing alien technology which it has attracted over the years, most of it crashing on impact, the survivors being hunted down by the antibodies. The antibodies launch a further assault on the Doctor and Kul which results in Kul exposing the planet’s nerve-root ganglia. With a little ‘surgery’ the Doctor is able to make the planet’s antibodies less aggressive and allow the planet to finally make contact with the organics. The planet gives it word to look after Kul and his people and teach them of their past. With flowers sprouting on the surface, the Doctor leaves in the TARDIS. |
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| | | PLAGUE PANIC |
| | | | SCRIPT: Claire Lister
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUE: 16
COVER DATE: 18 April 2007
ON TV: Gridlock - Daleks in Manhattan (Series 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Snag Finders
REPRINTS: None The Doctor arrives in England 1348, around the time of the Black Death, where he bumps into a local doctor (dressed in a bird-like costume), who has been visiting sick villagers, but the doctor is fleeing from some unusual zombie-like plague victims. The two doctors hide in a forest where they learn from two children that the zombie victims have angered the ‘fairies’. The children take the Doctor to a giant ovoid ‘fairy nest’ which the Doctor identifies as a Zeerover space craft. The Zeerover are tiny creatures that exist to heal others, and they are far from home. The zombie villagers arrive and infect the doctor by physical contact. The Zeerover explain to the Doctor that they ran out of fuel and were forced to land on Earth, a planet whose air is poisonous to them. They tried to use the villagers as hosts, hoping they would filter out the toxins but instead the villagers became ill. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and prepares a fuel cell to launch their craft. In exchange for his help, the Zeerover heal the surviving victims. |
| | | |  | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Sullivan’s Doctor definitely looks like Tennant now, so that’s good. The period setting is pleasing, but the story is a slender whisp of a thing, even taking into account its four-page length.
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|
| | | EXHAUSTING EVIL |
| | | SCRIPT: Claire Lister
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUE: 17
COVER DATE: 2 May 2007
ON TV: Evolution of the Daleks (Series 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Skrawn Inheritance
REPRINTS: None The Doctor and Martha arrive on earth colony Harankast, where the Doctor hears a distant buzzing while a local vagrant called Joseph Manver warns them of government conspiracies, young people disappearing and weird creatures. The Doctor and Martha’s arrival has been observed by the native Ranfo, giant amphibians who kidnap them and explain that an uprising against the city dwellers is being planned. The City Dwellers, who once lived in harmony with the Ranfo, are destroying the planet with pollution yet seem oblivious. The Doctor realises they are being influenced by a brainwashing beam that only he can hear. Artificial flies act like aerials and beam the signals to the colonists. Each of the flies carries the logo of Manver Autos, also the maker of the new environmentally unfriendly cars. The vagrant they met, Joseph Manver, is the boss of this company undercover. Manver instructs the flies to attack, but the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to disorientate the flies allowing the Ranfo to clear them up, which frees the colonists from Manver’s influence. Manver is arrested. |
| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Mmh, this is all a little bit too Scooby Doo for my liking, and how convenient that the frog-like Ranfo are the perfect natural enemy of the fly-like aerials... The cleverest thing here is the title.
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| | | WRATH OF THE WARRIOR/THE SCREAMING PRISON/FORCE AND FURY/WARRIOR’S REVENGE |
| | | | | |  | | | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson ISSUES: 18 - 21
COVER DATES: 16 May 2007 - 27 June 2007
ON TV: The Lazarus Experiment - The Sound of Drums (Series 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Skrawn Inheritance - Minus Seven Wonders
REPRINTS: None Landing in a supermarket on Earth, the Doctor and Martha encounter a rampaging warrior called Thaur. Thaur is one of three warrior kings separated, banished and exiled from Norsum by Angboda. During a scuffle, Martha manages to grab Thaur’s necklace, a crystal of seeing and his only link with his homeworld. Looking into the crystal, the Doctor sees a fleet of war-craft under construction which Thaur says will crush a hundred worlds. As the authorities arrive, the Doctor decides to take Thaur aboard the TARDIS. Thaur is determined to rescue his warrior brothers before attacking Norsum. |
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| | | The TARDIS crew locate Thaur’s fellow warrior king Vulsturg the Vast bound to a large rock on an unnamed planetoid. When they go to untie him, the slimy green rocks (actually flying creatures), emit a deafening scream. Reversing the sonic field of three hearing aids blocks the sound and the TARDIS crew are able to rescue Vulsturg. But the screaming creatures were only an alarm for a much larger beast. The Doctor manages to attach the three hearing aids to each of its three ears then sonic them back to a normal setting. The beast is overcome by the amplified screaming and falls unconscious. The Doctor, Martha, Thaur and Vulsturg leave in the TARDIS to find the third warrior before the beast awakes. The TARDIS arrives at a prison on Haklok, but the place is littered with bodies including those of robo-sassins. Thaur suggests that the evil Angboda sent them to finish off the warriors. The group find Jotastar planning his escape by breaking into the launch bay of a newly developed battle cruiser, but his attitude causes the Doctor to doubt and, looking into Thaur's crystal, he realises that Angboda’s fleet are in fact hospital ships travelling to help the worlds that the three warriors conquered. Their usefulness at an end, the Doctor and Martha are left behind as the three warriors steal the battle cruiser and head off to avenge themselves on Angboda. The Doctor must stop them and sort out his mistake. On her ship, Queen Angboda oversees her fleet of hospital ships. The Doctor and Martha arrive and apologise for freeing the three warriors. As the warriors teleport onboard, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to reverse the teleport feed and send them back to the battle cruiser. Angboda’s fleet carries medical supplies not weapons and is defenceless against the warriors’ craft which prepares to attack. The Doctor comes up with a plan. Racing to the cargo bays with Martha and Angboda, they unfold and jettison the ship’s supply of foil blankets intended to warm the refugees. Surrounding the ship, the blankets offer a reflective barrier against the warriors’ laser which bounces back and damages the battle cruiser causing it to crash on a barren asteroid where their new exile begins. |
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| | | HEAD START/JEWEL OF THE VILE/LOCK, STOCKS AND BARREL/END GAME |
| | | | | SCRIPT: Mike Tucker
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Ben Robinson/Claire Lister (Issue 23 onwards) ISSUES: 22 - 25
COVER DATES: 11 July 2007 - 22 August 2007
ON TV: The Last of the Time Lords (Series 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World, Bus Stop
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Last Soldier - Signs of Life
IN DOCTOR WHO US:
REPRINTS: None Responding to a distress call from Professor Dinsdale of the Interplanetary Archaeological Institute on Brendock Seven, the TARDIS lands at a dig beneath a circle of huge stone heads. The Professor explains that his team was killed trying to open a door to an ancient burial mound found at the base of one of the heads. The Doctor manages to bypass the door’s sonic disruptor and inside finds the Vortex Cannon, created by an ancient and long-dead civilisation, a weapon so powerful it could destroy the universe. Fortunately, the rare Treed Crystals that power the cannon have decayed. Unfortunately, the Professor is really a shape-changing Zaan Warrior and the Zaan are close to obtaining a new supply of Treed. The Zaan escapes with the Cannon back to his ship, but by taking the cannon, he inadvertently activates the guardians, huge stone creatures whose heads were visible when they landed. The guardians destroy the Zaan craft as it takes off, but the Zaan Commander makes his escape with the Vortex Cannon in an escape pod. Knowing that Treed Crystals are found only on the planet Garvrath, the Doctor and Martha realise they must get there before the Zaan power up the Vortex Cannon. | | |  | | | The Doctor and Martha attend a film premiere, knowing that the leading star, Miss Honey Vox, will be there. Miss Vox wears one of the best examples of a Treed Crystal, and is a likely target of the Zaan. The Doctor and Martha follow her to her cruise ship where they gain access to her by using the psychic paper. Miss Vox explains that the Treed Crystal is locked away in a safe, but opening the safe, they find Jebelex the Pulthasian stealing the crystal through a hole that he made using a matter transmuter that can turn solids into liquids in a matter of seconds. Jebelex drops into his boat to make his escape followed by Martha. As a patrol ship approaches, Jebelex throws something to Martha and shouts to the patrol that he doesn’t have the crystal anymore. As the officers shape-shift back to their Zaan form, Martha realises she is holding not the crystal but the matter transmuter. As Jebelex escapes with the crystal in his spaceship, the Zaan prepare to ram the cruiser. Using the matter transmuter to turn the water into a solid, the Doctor grounds the Zaan vessel. He and Martha set off in pursuit of the treed crystal following a trail of DNA. In the woods of a nearby village, Jebelex has gone into hiding. When the TARDIS arrives, the Doctor is captured by the natives and put into a set of stocks near a pond, but the pond, a living entity, rears up. Inside it, the Doctor sees the half-digested body of Jebelex still holding the Treed Crystal. On the Doctor’s instructions, Martha emerges from the TARDIS and uses Jebelex’s matter transmuter to turn the liquid into a solid. The Doctor breaks free from the stocks, smashes the now solid creature and retrieves the crystal. The Zaan arrive to claim their prize, but the Doctor uses the matter transmuter to return the pond creature to its hungry liquid state. However, the Zaan capture Martha and, unless the Doctor takes the crystal directly to the Zaan homeworld, she will die. The Doctor decides its time to end this. The Doctor arrives in a stadium on the Zaan homeworld and exchanges the crystal for Martha, but he begs the Zaan not to use the Vortex Cannon. The Zaan ignore his warning and activate the weapon, but as the Doctor suspected, it is a trap. As the Doctor and Martha fight to reach the TARDIS and escape, the Vortex Cannon creates a whirlpool in time, trapping the planet in a time loop. From a distance the Doctor and Martha regretfully watch the end of Zaan civilisation. |
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| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Similarities to The Daleks’ Master Plan aside, this is an exciting and engaging strip, that makes excellent use of the comic strip format, especially in its final pages. Story-wise, how the Doctor and Martha manage to hit on exactly the right Treed Crystal (I know they are rare but surely not that rare) is somewhat suspect, and the second instalment does feel slightly disjointed from the first, almost as if Mike Tucker had a bit of a rethink between writing the first and second parts, but it’s still good stuff. The Doctor’s remorse at the fate of the Zaan is a particularly fine moment.
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| | | THE MILLENNIUM BLAG/SECOND WAVE/OPERATION LOCK-UP/CRIME AFTER CRIME |
| | | | | | | | |  | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 26 - 29
COVER DATES: 5 September 2007 - 17 October 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Bus Stop, The First
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Signs of Life - Cold War
REPRINTS: None In the year 2000, the Doctor and Martha are caught up in an alien burglary of a high street bank. The green humanoid creatures escape in a waiting van. Stealing a nearby convertible, the Doctor and Martha give chase. On Martha’s orders, they take a shortcut, only to find a similar robbery taking place. Sandwiched between the two alien getaway vans, Martha throws a half-eaten burger at the getawat van's window, causing the alien driver to lose control and the two vans to collide. With their vehicles destroyed, the aliens panic. They state that the contest cannot continue and activate a teleport beam to leave the scene of the aborted robberies. Following the beam, the Doctor and Martha set out to find out more about the ‘contest’. | | |  | |  | | | | | | | | The TARDIS arrives aboard a Nineteenth Century American merchant ship, and the Doctor and Martha are apprehended by the crew. Accused of being French agents, they are sentenced to be thrown overboard, but before the sentence can be carried out the ship is attacked by the alien robbers whose hi-tech ships pull up on either side. As the merchant ship tries to make its escape, the Doctor uses the ship’s rations to disables the aliens’ proton cannons. As one ship begins to sink, the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to sink the other craft. Before the aliens transport away they warn the Doctor not to interfere in the contest. The Doctor and Martha head off in pursuit. A robbery on the Mega Bank of Tokyo in the year 3000, and the Doctor and Martha find the two alien gangs using a remote controlled robot and a mind-controlled zombie to break through the bank’s defences. This time, however, it is not a robbery but a trap to stop the Doctor and Martha interfering in a Yedari dispute. Escaping the giants, they seal themselves into a vault of jewels that has been rigged by the aliens to release a poisonous gas. Trapped and overcome by gas, the Doctor scatters the jewels on the floor and uses his sonic screwdriver to make them resonate at a frequency that weakens the floor, creating a hole for them to escape through. As the aliens teleport away, the Doctor and Martha follow in the beam. The alien teleport deposits the Doctor and Martha on a space capsule where Big Yedari, one of the most wanted crime lords in future history, is attempting to choose between two alien race - the Verx and Alsh. The chosen race will rob Earth of its treasures throughout time. Unfortunately, the Doctor’s interference has ruined the contest. The Doctor creates a disturbance by convincing Big Yedari that he was double-crossed by the Alsh leader, and while the aliens fight amongst themselves, he and Martha steal one of the teleport devices and lock themselves in the control centre. There the Doctor seals the capsule, disables all the remaining teleport devices, and sets the docked craft loose, before teleporting across to the Yedari ship and sending a message to the nearest space cops. He and Martha then teleport back to Earth to collect the TARDIS. | | |  | |  | | |
| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
We’re really back to the episodic feel of early strips, and it’s to the story’s detriment, though there’s definitely some fun to be had in the Doctor and Martha foiling the ‘burglary of the fortnight’. Sullivan’s Doctor frequently looks oddly distorted and a few of the panels seem poorly composed, though his Martha is extremely good. The colour work is very good, particularly on the first two instalments, which have an unusual ‘bright sunlight’ feel to them.
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| | | HOUSE PESTS |
| | | |  | | | | SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUE: 30
COVER DATE: 31 October 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The First
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Cold War
REPRINTS: None On the jungle world of Lumana, the Doctor and Martha are attacked by bat-like creatures. The creatures fly away when the Loomish arrive and sound their horn. The Loomish are friendly child-like creatures who ask for the Doctor’s help in protecting them from the Slaken. The Doctor and Martha find the Slaken, but rather than wanting to eat the Loomish, it looks out for them and their bat friends. The mischievous Loomish are well known for conning visitors and when the Doctor and Martha return, they find the Loomish have moved into the TARDIS along with all their possessions. Martha reads up on the Loomish and learns of their incredibly strong family bonds then blows a Loomish horn which the Loomish hear as a distress call and hurriedly leave the TARDIS to assist. The Doctor secures the TARDIS door and sees the Slaken arrive with food for the Loomish. Feeling hungry the Doctor and Martha return to the TARDIS where the cooking pots are still warm! |
| | | |  | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Like some monstrosity from a TV Comic Holiday Special only without the good grace to also have rushed and horrible-looking illustration. Loborik does seem to be pitching his stories (he also wrote The Glutonoid Menace) almost at a pre-school age, which is definitely younger than the usual target audience.
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| | | MINOR TROUBLE/INHUMAN SACRIFICE/CRIMES AND PUNISHMENT |
| | | | SCRIPT: Claire Lister
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 31 - 33
COVER DATES: 14 November 2007 - 12 December 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The First
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Waste Not - A Klytode Christmas
REPRINTS: None The Doctor investigates rumours that something is wrong at the Ancient Worlds theme park on Dewyn, a planet obsessed with Earth history. Their presence however raises the park watcher’s concerns and he instructs Medusa, Cyclops and Cerebus to apprehend the new arrivals. They escape by falling down a hole into a labyrinth of tunnels. Here they meet a couple hiding from the aggressive guards and the Minotaur that has killed their friends. The Doctor dismisses the Minotaur but then comes face to face with a half-man half-bull Tauride. The Tauride attacks. Martha notices a syringe in the creature’s neck which the Doctor suspects is a stimulator. The Doctor attempts to remove the dart but is pinned to a wall by the Tauride’s horns. With the Tauride stuck in the wall, Martha tells bull jokes to appeal to the beast’s strong sense of humour. The laughing vibrations free the Tauride and leaves a hole in the wall through which they all escape. The Cyclops, Medusa and Cerebus are waiting for them, and while the Tauride creates a distraction, Martha and the Doctor, armed only with a souvenir Olympic torch, head to an Aztec temple made entirely from chocolate. Inside, the Doctor discovers a chamber where the ‘watcher’ is an eye-patched, green giant towering over a cage full of children. As Martha releases the children, the giant turns his attention on the Doctor. The Doctor uses the Olympic torch and his sonic screwdriver to melt a tunnel through the chocolate wall by magnifying the resonant frequency wavelength of the torch to generate heat. On their way to shut down the central command computer, the Doctor explains that the green giant is a Chiffala, a race of mercenaries thriving on conflict who travel the galaxy joining in with with any skirmish they find. Crash landing near the theme park, the Chiffala decided to make his own conflict, re-enacting the most horrific parts of human history with the theme park’s visitors. The Chiffala traps the Doctor and Martha in a chamber by using two mummies but fails to notice that costumes are swapped when the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to disable the robot mummies. In their mummy wraps, the Doctor and Martha burst into the Chiffala’s lair, knocking him unconscious with the door. Whilst unconscious, the Doctor and Martha take the Chiffala on a trip in the TARDIS, leaving him in a medieval torture chamber strapped to a table. They promise to return for him in three to six months time. |
| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A jolly but largely nonsensical romp with plenty of colour but precious little logical thought behind it. It might just be worth the price of admission though to see the Doctor and Martha dressed as mummies and Aztecs. I wonder how many people would’ve liked to have seen the TV Martha dressed as a jaguar...
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| | | THE DIAMONDS OF SARTOR/QUARSIAN MISSION/ANDROID OF DEATH |
| | | | SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 34 - 36
COVER DATES: 26 December 2007 - 24 January 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Death to the Doctor!
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Monster Upstairs - Hot Metal
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None The Doctor is caught in an attack on human colonists. He takes shelter and Lieutenant Kamini explains that their enemy is a Quarsian pirate ship, eager to steal the planet's diamonds which the colonists mine and use for trade. The Doctor and Kamini race to the central control tower. Once inside, Kamini disappears. Scientist Nadia, despite her suspicions that the Doctor is a Quarsian android duplicate lets the Doctor repair the force field. As android storm troopers rush the base, Kamini reappears. Recognising it as a duplicate of her dead sister, Nadia destroys the android with a portable sonic disruptor. Examining one of the diamonds, the Doctor forms a plan and wants to meet the Quarsians but the storm troopers break into the control centre intent on destroying the humans. |
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| | | Nadia and the Doctor use their sonic devices to hold off the storm troopers. The Doctor is so impressed by Nadia’s device that he pockets it. The Doctor then takes her for a short trip in the TARDIS to the Quarsian craft. Avoiding detection from the Quarsians, they head to the engine room which stores a huge amount of Zortron Energy, which could be used to power an entire fleet of ships. The diamonds are needed by the Quarsians to harness this energy. The Doctor uses a diamond big enough to block the energy inlet to create a dam and cause an energy feedback to overload to the systems, but he and Nadia are apprehended as they attempt escape and the Qursians introduce the Doctor to his robot double, which they will use to infiltrate the colony and kill the humans. The overloaded systems explode and the Doctor and Nadia make their escape back to the TARDIS. Back at colony control, they find the android Doctor has transmatted down, warning the colonists that the Quarsians may send a duplicate Doctor. The two Doctors identities become confused, but the real Doctor is able to prove who he is by producing all manner of things from his pockets – one thing the Quarsians couldn’t duplicate, the contents of a man’s pockets. The android Doctor, now unmasked, is determined to destroy the base. The Doctor suggests the duplicate start by destroying one of Sartor's diamonds. As the android blasts away at the diamond, the Doctor evacuates the control centre before the crystal explodes, destroying the control centre and the android. The Doctor waves goodbye as he leaves the colonists to build a new improved force field harnessing the qualities of their precious stones. |
| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A solid and exciting adventure tale, even if it does rely on the old standby of android duplicates. In fact because of this it has a very noticeable Terry Nation vibe running through it (The Android Invasion springs most immediately to mind) that works extremely well. Nadia, although fleshed out only a little in this strip, would have made a good companion.
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| | | BLOOMS OF DOOM! |
| | | | SCRIPT: Kieran Grant
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUE: 37
COVER DATE: 7 February 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Universal Monsters
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Halls of Sacrifice
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None Investigating distortions in the time field, the Doctor lands in Croydon Garden Centre in time to see a humanoid plant creature run amok. Filling a pond with weed killer, the Doctor boosts the pond pump, squirts |
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| the creature with the mixture and kills it. Another appears and captures a sales assistant named Horace, threatening to kill him unless told why it looks so manlike. The Doctor explains that time spillage has accelerated its evolution millions of years in just a few seconds. More time spillage evolves the creature into air particles. The Doctor finds the source of the time spillage - a fraxis pod, from 51st century Earth, one of the dodgiest time capsules ever invented. The pilot of this one is a decaying corpse, his pod leaking temporal energy. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to loop the energy back into the zygma-drive and reverse the effect of the time spillage. The fraxis pod is aged to dust, while the plant creatures are returned to their previous existence as plant life. |
| | | |  | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Talk about Zygma energy and the 51st century shows that Kieran Grant knows his Doctor Who (or his Talons of Weng-Chiang at the very least). For a one-parter this is reasonably exciting with some strong visuals.
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| | | DUSTY DEATH/COLD ASSASSIN/DESIGNS OF THE DUST/A SUITABLE SHOWDOWN |
| | | |  | | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 38 - 41
COVER DATES: 21 February 2008 - 3 April 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Universal Monsters
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Old Kings of the Scarab - The Poison Planet
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None The Doctor’s arrival at a computer-controlled prison on an abandoned planet triggers the automatic defence system. Dodging spears, flooding chambers, laser beams, fire and gaseous guards, the Doctor finds and overloads the cell security. As the auto-repairs kick in, the Doctor ponders who could have been in the empty cell and how he escaped. Returning to the TARDIS, he leaves, but a warning flashes on a screen in the prison that the prisoner and an unknown accomplice have escaped. The instruction to pursue and destroy is issued. While trying to choose a destination, the Doctor becomes aware of how dusty the TARDIS interior is when the ship is invaded by Koto, a crystalline bounty hunter intent on absorbing every particle of light, heat and air in the TARDIS as punishment for the Doctor ‘s part in helping a war criminal escape imprisonment. As the cold begins to bite, the Doctor changes into a survival suit from the TARDIS wardrobe then shorts out the bounty hunter’s thermal balance with a fire extinguisher, a bucket of ice and a sudden snowstorm, which removes Koto from the craft and restores the systems. As the Doctor puzzles over the war criminal reference a face made of dust forms behind him. | |
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| | | Arriving at the Asteroid Bazaar, the Doctor finds the dusty suit he is wearing taking on a life of its own. The suit has become a surrogate body for Skalesh, a dictator of the planet Delossa who was deposed and imprisoned by his own people after being disassembled to exist only as raw matter. Fed by the Doctor’s kinetic energy, Skalesh grows stronger, imbuing the suit with his own life force. The Doctor reminds Skalesh that he is still dust and therefore doesn’t mix with liquids and throws himself in front of a fire engine’s hose. The water weakens and disorientates Skalesh long enough for the Doctor to undress, but Skalesh has now absorbed enough energy to head off to take his revenge on Delossa. The Doctor is determined to stop him. Having armed himself with a battleship, a fleet and an army of robo-assassins, Skalesh prepares for revenge on Delossa, The Doctor lands the TARDIS aboard Skalesh’s ship and uses his sonic screwdriver to shatter the robo-assassins. He mocks Skalesh, telling him that he cannot take revenge on his people. Defiant, Skalesh takes the Doctor down to the planet, but finds his army has been disabled and the planet is now home to the Madrojar. The Doctor explains that without Skalesh’s control his people accelerated their evolution, became gas-creatures and floated away, leaving the planet behind some four hundred years ago. The Madrojar, forewarned by the Doctor, trap Skalesh and punish him with eternal imprisonment. Skalesh is sucked from the Doctor’s suit to resume his imprisonment while the Doctor heads for his tailor on Kolpasha. |
| | | THE CREATIVE SPARK |
| | |  | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It’s a great shame that the opening narration completely spoils the story’s ‘surprise’ ending, although the imagery on offer is hardly what you might call subtle. Although it manages to be surprisingly light on atmosphere, this strip is a pleasant enough diversion.
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| | | | SCRIPT: Stimon Furman
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUE: 42
COVER DATE: 17 April 2008
ON TV: The Fires of Pompeii (Season 4)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Hotel Historia
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Poison Planet - Sea-Rah
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None The TARDIS is brought down near a lodge beside Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816 during a night storm. In the woods the Doctor finds a towering alien apparatus that is agitating the storm. Beside it a giant creature is caught in the apparatus’ field of energy. A female writer from the lodge comes to see what is going on, sees the giant trapped in sparks of electricity, and faints. While the creature is distracted, the Doctor modifies the apparatus with his sonic screwdriver, calming the machine down. The creature, Zzazik, is apologetic about his behaviour. Tired from his cross-dimensional journey, he was recharging using an elemental intensifier, but in his urgency set it too high. The Doctor sees to the familiar young lady. Later returning to her writing, she titles her work ‘Frankenstein’ or ‘The Modern Prometheus’ signing it Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. |
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| | | ANY OLD IRON/MERCHANT OF MENACE |
| | | With a broken chrono-loop spectrometer, the TARDIS’s auto-repair circuits scan for replacements and lands the ship on a deserted planet. A spacecraft arrives and the Doctor and Donna are teleported aboard where Silas Wrench introduces himself as a collector of rare metal marvels. When Donna suggests he is simply a junk dealer, he starts shooting at them. Running deeper into the ship, the Doctor and Donna find a Horobot (a robot time traveller). The Horobot pleads with the Doctor to save him from being scrapped. Wrench arrives with his latest acquisition, the TARDIS and, aiming his gun, demands the key. The Doctor hands over the key to Wrench, but the TARDIS’s meson recognition defence system results in Wrench being sent a shock that stuns him and causes the TARDIS moving itself to nearby safety. The Doctor and Donna find the TARDIS just as Wrench lifts off intending to take both the Doctor and Donna to sell to the Slave Masters of Zooveron. The Horobot saves them by wrestling with Wrench who loses control of the craft which crashess onto the planet. The Doctor and Donna, having sheltered in the TARDIS just in time, check the crash site for survivors. There is no trace of Wrench but they find the Horobot in pieces. The Doctor is able to utilise the Horobot’s head and replaces the TARDIS’s broken chrono-loop spectrometer. As the TARDIS disappears Wrench appears calling out for ‘any old iron?’ |
| | | THE BLACK SEA/STING OF THE SERPENT/ATTACK OF THE RATS/THE ZANTRAAN INVASION |
| | | | |  | | | SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 45 - 48
COVER DATES: 28 May 2008 - 9 July 2008
ON TV: The Unicorn and the Wasp - Journey’s End (Season 4)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Windswept - The Black Hole Gang
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None In Whitby, the Doctor and Donna see a damaged short-range shuttle pod crash into the sea. The TARDIS follows the heat trail and lands aboard a North Sea oil rig. Three hundred metres down, one of the oil tanks has ruptured, but, rather than spreading out, the oil escapes in a single stream upwards. The Doctor and Donna race to the rig’s barriers in time to see a 'blob monster' emerge. The 'blob' absorbs some of the rig workers but not before the Doctor gets a sample. The alien molecules are fusing with the oil which is acting as a new host body. Inspired by Donna’s unwitting words, the Doctor creates a soap solution. Sprayed over the blob, the blob dissolves and the rig crew are returned. But news comes in that another craft has crash-landed in Arizona. Locating a second alien pod in the Arizona desert, the TARDIS lands five minutes before the actual crash. The Doctor and Donna see something leave the pod which mutates into a giant rattlesnake. The Doctor wires up the craft's auxiliary power to electrify the ship’s hull which the snake has wrapped itself around. The creature is only angered and the Doctor activates the pod’s auto-destruct system before escaping with Donna. Creature and pod are destroyed. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor detects an alien mothership about to enter Earth's atmosphere. In Paris the area around a third crashed pod has been evacuated and placed under UNIT control. This larger craft had more crew and more alien mutations, this time giant rats. Taking refuge in the alien craft, the Doctor uses the communication system to contact the mothership. Aboard the mothership, the Queen of the Zantraan, is expecting her three scout ships to have found safe landing sites for the royal ship. The Queen is not happy that her scouts have all died and uses a tractor beam to bring back the pod along with the Doctor and Donna, who are encased in an isolation sphere to protect the Zantraans from germs. Following their exodus from a plague-ridden homeworld, the Zantraans are looking for a new home. The Doctor and Donna fail to convince the Zantraans that the Earth isn't suitable because of its disease. Instead The Zantraan Queen orders preparations to cleanse the planet with fire. The Zantraan Queen decides to test what the Doctor told her about the scout mutations. A guard leaves its body and takes over the Doctor and, for a moment, the Doctor undergoes a mutation, but the Zantraan guard is overcome by a smell inside coming from a blue cheese baguette in Donna's pocket, and has to leave. The Doctor makes a hole in the sphere using his sonic screwdriver and, as fear of contagion spreads amongst the queen and her people, the Doctor takes control and lands the mothership on a remote pig farm where, on opening the doors, they are greeted by pigs. The Zantraan are overwhelmed by the smell and and accept the Doctor’s help to fix the ship’s drives and send it back to Zantrah, where the plague should have died out. Half an hour later the Doctor and Donna realise they are some five hundred miles from the TARDIS in Paris. |
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| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Evoking Dracula and giving us UNIT should count in this strip’s favour, but the opportunities are squandered, it’s hugely frustrating that we’re back to the episodic structure that hampered earlier Battles in Time strips, and its ending is trite and presumably intended to be amusing.
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| | | PAWNS OF THE ZENITH/SWARM OF THE ZENITH/PREY OF THE ZENITH/LAIR OF THE ZENITH |
| | | | SCRIPT: Neil Corry
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 49 - 52
COVER DATES: 23 July 2008 - 3 September 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: CitiZen’s Arrest - Attack of the Mange Mites!
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None In 22nd Century London at New New Scotland Yard, police deal with fanatics breaking out of the HQ. One of the group, Laura Efston, is knocked out by the TARDIS’s arrival. The rest of the gang flee in a waiting car that explodes on lift off. The Doctor is convinced their deaths were deliberate. Interrogating Laura Efston reveals she works in the HQ in personnel, and is unaware of her recent activity. However, when the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to interfere with the mobile phone patch mounted on the back of her hand, all of the officers turn on the Doctor and Donna chanting ‘The Zenith will not be denied!’ The Doctor again uses his sonic to interfere with the possession signal and the officers collapse. The Doctor and Donna escape, but outside the station the population is also possessed. Unable to reach the TARDIS, they 'borrow' an air-car to escape. The Doctor says, whatever the Zenith is, it has taken over a London population of twenty-three million, possibly the whole world. However, they have a more immediate concern when the Zenith locates their space-car and cuts the power. The emergency override kicks in and lands the car safely, but even further from the TARDIS. As they try to head back undetected, the Doctor realises that the Zenith has hacked in to the network of satellites around Earth. Attacked by two Zenith-possessed people who have begun to change into something more alien, Donna is seized and a patch forced onto the back of her hand. Her DNA is immediately rewritten and a giant and savage alien-Donna attacks the Doctor forcing a patch on the back of his hand. The Doctor screams as he too is transformed. The Doctor reverses the Zenith's transformation signal, but he has been transported to the lair of the Zenith. He warns them against attempting to conquer Earth, before reversing the signal to take him back to Donna in London. Removing the patch from her hand, they head to Telecom Tower by air-car. Inside, while the Doctor sets up a firewall against the Zenith's signal, Donna is given a patch by a hiding Zenith, and again transforms. The Zenith commands the Doctor to stop his interference or Donna will die. The Doctor knows Donna would make the sacrifice and activates the firewall. The Zenith signal is cut and Donna returns to human form, alive, the Zenith gone, but she can’t forget that he was prepared to sacrifice her. |
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| | | THE TIME STEALER/SCHOOL OF THE DEAD/GHOSTS FROM THE PAST/THE BATTLE FOR TIME |
| | | | SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 53 - 56
COVER DATES: 17 September 2008 - 29 October 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Time of My Life, Thinktwice
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: By Order of the Bone Menders - Titanoleum Tourists
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None The TARDIS tracks ripples in the vortex to an old house in 1908 where time jumps around. Two ghostly children lead the Doctor and Donna to an old woman who grabs Donna. Donna rapidly ages while the old woman rejuvenates. The Doctor recognises her as Koltroxa, a creature who drifts endlessly back and forth in time until finally trapped at the time of her death. Koltroxa makes a deal with |
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| the Doctor: she will leave Earth and restore Donna if he gives her some of his life force. The Doctor accepts, but realises she must be stopped or she will feed on more humans to extend her life. He has to find her. The Doctor managed to 'borrow' Koltroxa's necklace which allows him to track her to the same house one hundred years later, now a school. The pupils have become zombies, drained of their life force by Koltroxa who is gaining in strength. With his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor holds her in a stasis beam for a moment, but she fires energy bolts at him. He traps a bolt in the necklace and uses it to reverse the effect on the children, but Koltroxa snatches the necklace, which protects her from the ravages of time, and escapes. Tracing a future energy source that is feeding Koltroxa, the Doctor takes the TARDIS to the same house in 2109 where a Professor Rubenstein has built a time-flux analyser at a weak point in time and space. The machine is unstable and feeding Koltroxa with time leakage. Planning to feed on the vortex, Koltroxa activates the machine. The Time Vortex is exposed and time begins to merge. People from different eras appear and, in panic, a Roman soldier shatters the crystal at the machine’s heart. The Doctor snatches the necklace back from Koltroxa, protecting himself, Donna and Rubenstein as the time fracture seals itself and the vortex consumes the house. Leaving Rubenstein to explain the house's disappearance, the Doctor and Donna leave only to find that Koltroxa has merged with the TARDIS With the power of the vortex and control of the TARDIS, Koltroxa demands the Doctor and Donna serve her as slaves. The Doctor and Donna run from the ship but find themselves back at the house in 1908. As before they are met by two ghostly children, but when the future Koltroxa comes for them they fail to recognise her because her presence twice over is fracturing time and turning her into a monster. The Doctor snatches the necklace from Koltroxa to save Donna and himself as the house, including both versions of herself, is destroyed thereby ending the paradox. The Doctor tells Donna not to think to much about how the same house could be destroyed in 1908 and 2108 or it could drive you mad. |
| | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It isn’t up there with the preceding strip, but in terms of ambition this is really going for broke and pulls some surprisingly sophisticated time travel tricks, though it isn’t at all clear why Koltroxa returns to 1908 to collect two children who aren’t real. For once, the strip is let down just a little by some slightly uneven artwork (especially in the first and last parts) which veers between the excellent and the slightly scrappy, with Sullivan’s likeness of Tennant slipping and even his usually excellent Donna becoming occasionally unrecognisable.
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| | | CARNAGE ZOO/FLIGHT AND FURY/THE LIVING GHOSTS/EXTERMINATION OF THE DALEKS |
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| | | | | | | |  | | | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 57 - 60
COVER DATES: 12 November 2008 - 24 December 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Thinktwice
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Man in the Moon - Frosty the Snowdemon
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None Travelling alone, the Doctor visits a zoo. One of the newest attractions is the endangered, intangible Krikoosh, which is kept in a specially constructed cage because it is made of unstable molecules and so can pass through solid objects. The Doctor’s suspicions are aroused by a cleaning robot, which he reveals to be a disguised Dalek. The Dalek transmits an ultrasonic sound that drives the zoo’s animals berserk, creating a distraction while it secures the cage and the Krikoosh. The Doctor cancels out the sound with his sonic screwdriver, but as the Dalek flies off with the cage, lions surround him. The Doctor escapes on the back of a flying alien creature called a Vulgle and follows the Dalek to its base. Here the Doctor finds a Dalek field research unit. Creating a distraction, he rescues the Krikoosh and escapes onto the roof, but a Dalek prepares to crush them both with a huge slab of masonry The Krikoosh extends its intangible influence to the Doctor allowing them both to escape. But the Doctor is puzzled that the Daleks seem disinterested in the Krikoosh. | | |  | | | | However, as they activate a proton canon, he realises it was not the Krikoosh they wanted but the shielding formula of the cage which allows them to protect themselves from their own intangibility weapon. The Daleks are victorious as the people of Earth become living ghosts. Unable to feed, humans will waste away leaving Earth for the Dalek. But the Doctor teams up with the Krikoosh to infiltrate the Dalek base and reach the proton cannon. Unhurt by Daleks' rays, the Doctor turns the weapon against the Daleks. While the humans become solid again the Daleks with their 'protective' shield are now the intangible ones. The Daleks judge this an unacceptable outcome and initiate self-destruct. The universe's deadliest creatures are defeated by its cuddliest. | | | | |  | | | | |
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| | | DA VINCI’S ROBOTS/METAL MANIA |
| | |  | | | SCRIPT: Simon Furman
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 61 - 62
COVER DATES: 7 January 2009 - 21 January 2009
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Stockbridge Child
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Chomosome Connection - Glum Culture
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None Having concluded an adventure in late 15th Century Italy, the Doctor visits his old friend Leonardo da Vinci, but is met at the house by Ludovico, Leonardo's understudy, who explains that his master has locked himself away communicating only with shopping lists of technical apparatus. The two men climb a back wall to reach Leonardo. In his workshop they find Leonardo in a trance building robots from suits of armour and various components. When the Doctor intervenes, a robotsgrabs him by the throat. Ludovico saves the Doctor’s life with a chair, giving the Doctor enough time to deactivate the robot with his sonic screwdriver. Examining Leonardo, the Doctor discovers a spider-like robot attached to his neck. When the Doctor tries to detach the creature with his sonic screwdriver, more robots activate. The Doctor defends himself with sulphuric acid, and the creature controlling Leonardo senses his intelligence and communicates. The creature requires a new body after its old one was damaged in a crash. The Doctor agrees to help, adapts one of the robots and lures the creature inside it. Once inside the robot, the robotic spider shuts down. The Doctor explains that the creature’s mobility depended on a gas-delivery system which he 'forgot' to switch on. With the creature trapped inactive in the robot's helmet, the Doctor leaves to take it to an unknown home, but not before leaving instructions for Ludovico to burn the notes on robots. |
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| | | ABOUT LAST NIGHT/DARK SIDE OF THE MOON |
| | | |  | | | SCRIPT: Alan Campbell
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 63 - 64
COVER DATES: 4 February 2009 - 18 February 2009
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Stockbridge Child
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Parrian Proposal - Store Wars
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Whispering Gallery
REPRINTS: None The TARDIS comes under attack from a warship, the occupants of which then apologise for the attack on his craft. To avoid further attacks, the Doctor lands the TARDIS inside the warship where he is greeted by Florian, a peace loving Palomian who explains that the defences are automated. He also explains that he and the other three hundred Palomians can't remember leaving their five-sunned planet Palomia. When night came for the first time, they awoke and found themselves aboard the warship. Florian's explanation is cut short by the arrival of Meathunter Drones activated by the ship to destroy the intruding Doctor. The Meathunter drones will not risk firing at the ship’s glass shell, and the Doctor deactivates them with his sonic screwdriver. He guesses that because the drones, who don't need air, didn't fire they must be protecting whoever built the ship. As he searches the ship, an automated voice announces a course change and the beginning of Operation Nightfall taking the ship into the shadow of a nearby moon. With nightfall, the Palomians become savage creatures with a hunger for fresh meat. The Doctor learns from the ship’s navigational equipment that Palomi's orbit took it deep into the Tyranean nebula. The last night was actually forty-two years, enough time for the Palomians to adapt and change and construct their warship, but exposure to sunlight turned them back into peaceful creatures. Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor changes the ship’s course taking it back to the sunlight. The peaceful Palomians re-emerge with no memory of 'last night.' |
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| | | THE DAY THE EARTH WAS SOLD/THE KING OF EARTH |
| | | | SCRIPT: Kieran Grant and Neil Corry
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 65 - 66
COVER DATES: 4 March 2009 - 18 March 2009
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Stockbridge Child
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Greed of the Gavulav - The Invisibles
REPRINTS: None Above London a Nin Confederacy spacecraft gives the humans half an hour to leave the planet. Using his sonic screwdriver to teleport himself aboard the Doctor learns that the peace-loving Nin believe they have bought the planet from the King of Earth as their new home. The Doctor is trying to explain how there is no king when two more alien fleets - the Ssraarl and the Hoolox - arrive, both believing they have paid for the planet below. The Doctor is unable to reason with them and the Hoolox launch a missile attack on Earth with enough firepower to incinerate it. The Doctor asks the Nin to freeze the Hoolox's missiles before they hit Earth then uses his sonic screwdriver to teleport to Earth. He arrives in a garden shed where he finds a young boy called Robbie. Robbie is playing with a mobile handheld device that he found. The Doctor returns to the Nin ship with Robbie, where the boy explains he thought it was a game. The Hoolox and the Ssraar are not appeased, join forces and teleport aboard, but their weapons are useless against the advanced technology of the Nin. The Doctor takes the device from Robbie and calls the mobile’s owner. The mobile belongs to Fliant Wormbleeder an intergalactic estate agent who appears as a hologram and, on the Doctor's request, looks through his catalogue to find suitable homes for all three alien races. War is averted and the Doctor returns Robbie home. | | | | ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The core idea of The Ribos Operation is strung out over two instalments of light-hearted and largely unengaging conversation. It feels a little like a joke that outstays its welcome.
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| | | THE GUARDIANS OF TERROR/THE REBIRTH OF CORAH |
| | | | SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 67 - 68
COVER DATES: 1 April 2009 - 15 April 2009
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Mortal Beloved
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: Good Old Days - Cyclops
REPRINTS: None On the purple planet of Corah the Doctor is captured by a military research team led by Professor Slade. Surrounding a nearby lake are crude human-shaped statues giving off a faint electrical signal. The team believes the Doctor responsible for killing a fellow crew member, but when the Doctor asks them to count the statues there is an extra one. The Doctor believes something in the pool is transforming people and his theory is proven when a large tentacles monster emerges and rapidly drains all the moisture from two crew members leaving behind statue-like husks. The Doctor offers an endless supply of water in his ship but the creature pursues them across the rocky terrain. The Doctor and Slade are aided in their escape by McEvoy who brings them skimmer craft. With the creature still in pursuit, the Doctor leads them to a faint energy pulse coming from what appears to be an underground city abandoned by Corah’s once mighty civilisation. The city is actually a weather control station, built to stop a great drought, but it didn't work. While the Corahnians died, the creature adapted to absorb any moisture. With the creature bearing down on them, the Doctor adjusts the controls and makes it rain for the first time in thousands of years. The creature returns to the pool and the Doctor tells Grant and McEvoy that, if they talk to the creature rather than shooting at it, their crew may be returned to life. Before he leaves, he offers them an umbrella. |
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| | | THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD/THE END |
| | | | | |  | | | | SCRIPT: Steve Cole
ART: Lee Sullivan (inks), Alan Craddock (colours)
EDITOR: Claire Lister ISSUES: 69 - 70
COVER DATES: 29 April 2009 - 13 May 2009
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Mortal Beloved - The Age of Ice
IN DOCTOR WHO ADVENTURES: The Crystal Palace - The Slakken Cat
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Time Machination
REPRINTS: None The Doctor returns to Earth, only to find Earth replaced by a white void containing only a small old house defended by a pensioner named Bob Manning from dragon-like creatures. Bob believes he is defending his home from developers who want him out and has armed himself with a broom to beat them off. The Doctor communicates with a shapeless entity outside that identifies itself as Absence. Absence wants to wipe this world clean so it can be free. When the Doctor guesses that there is something in the house protecting it, Bob suggests it could be the unexploded bomb someone said they found. As they head down to the cellar, Absence’s creatures break through in pursuit. Reaching the cellar, the Doctor and Bob cover their ears at the scream of ‘Intruders!’ In the cellar, the Doctor and Bob find Presence, a living world-ship and Absence’s tutor and guardian. Absence is an errant child without boundaries. A collision damaged the world-ship and separated Absence from Presence. As Absence grows in strength, Presence grows weaker. Soon Absence will consume everything. The Doctor suggests using the TARDIS to boost Presence’s power so that Absence can be contained but the way to the TARDIS is blocked by the dragons. When the Doctor is knocked unconscious by a dragon’s tail, Bob takes the TARDIS key from his hand and races to the ship'. As Bob opens the TARDIS door, Presence draws on the energy and is restored. Absence is returned to his guardian and everything is returned to normal, except Bob who is killed by a dragon during his valiant deed. The Doctor visits the derelict house as the developers move in. He ensures that every building on the site until the end of time carries a plaque stating ‘Bob Manning Lived Here. The man who saved the world.’ |
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