ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is so insubstantial it is hard not to be put in mind of annual strips from a bygone age, though it is redeemed slightly by attractive artwork and some very nice colour work. Still, it isn’t the most auspicious start to the strip.
 

SCRIPT: Jacqueline Rayner
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 2
COVER DATE: 19 April 2006 - 2 May 2006
ON TV: Tooth and Claw - School Reunion (Season Two)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Lodger
REPRINTS: BBC Children’s Books’ Doctor Who The Official Annual 2007

Landing near a creepy alien castle, the Doctor and Rose split up to explore, but when Rose enters a room filled with mirrors, she is snatched by her evil reflection. She finds herself in a dimension inhabited by Mirrorlings, creatures waiting to escape through the mirrors to replace the originals, who in turn become trapped in the Mirrorling dimension. As the Mirrorling-Rose prepares to leave with the Doctor in the TARDIS, local inhabitants arrive to warn them not to enter the house. For years people had come out of the house as different people. When they realised it had something to do with mirrors, they collected them all and locked them in the house. Breaking the mirrors simply breaks the link and kills the trapped people. When Rose shows no interest in solving the mystery the Doctor knows something is wrong and returns to the house to find the real Rose. Using himself as bait, he lures the Mirrorlings out of the mirrors but uses his sonic screwdriver to stop them from fully stepping through. Calling Rose and all the others to escape through the mirrors, the Doctor waits until they have all returned before using the sonic screwdriver to smash the mirrors, which returns the Mirrorlings to their own dimension.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is significantly better than the debut strip, managing to tell a fairly gripping story with a little history and depth in a mere six pages. The artwork is good but it’s the appealing colour work that really makes it. It’s perhaps a shame though that this strip coincides with New Earth where the Doctor realises there’s something wrong with Rose by the way she reacts.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is a bit of a romp really, and the Chalderans’ utter stupidity not only undermines any real threat they might pose but also makes it difficult to believe they might have tried this before. Fire monsters and a historically documented volcanic eruption would, of course, both be key features of the television series’ The Fires of Pompeii two years later. Whilst it’s probably accidental (Deneb is an actual star system) the mention of Deneb-3 recalls the strip The Touchdown on Deneb-7 from Doctor Who Weekly.
 

SCRIPT: Si Spencer
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 3
COVER DATE: 3 May 2006 - 16 May 2006
ON TV: The Girl in the Fireplace - Rise of the Cybermen (Season Two)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: F.A.Q.
REPRINTS: None

Indonesia, 1883, and, with the aid of a smoke bomb, the Doctor and Rose escape from being tied to a post by the islanders, who talk about Men of Flames destroying their land. Racing off through the jungle, they head behind a waterfall where a tunnel leads underground. Here they discover the Chalderans, a silicon-based, flame-red, horned life form, with an incredibly high body temperature. The Chalderans are miners who drill down into planets to steal lava, leaving behind dead worlds. But the Chalderans are stupid, and the Doctor uses this to set them fighting amongst themselves while he and Rose escape. The pursuing Chalderans are killed when they run into the waterfall. In the TARDIS the Doctor and Rose watch from a safe distance as the island explodes killing the remaining Chalderans. The island's name, the Doctor tells Rose, is Krakatoa, and two-thirds of the island will be destroyed in the blast. For more stunning displays, the Doctor suggests the mating Fire Dragons of Ket-el or the twin supernova out near Deneb-3.

SCRIPT: Alan Barnes
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 4
COVER DATE: 17 May 2006 - 30 May 2006
ON TV: The Age of Steel - The Idiot’s Lantern (Season Two)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: F.A.Q.
REPRINTS: None

Aboard a space station orbiting Jupiter that should be bustling with life, the Doctor and Rose are attacked by Disinfectodroids programmed to clean up all junk, germs and bacteria following a space-plague that threatened the space station’s inhabitants. The Disinfectodroids are obsessively cleaning up everything, including people, and teleported it along with the rest of the Earth’s rubbish to a planet on the other side of the galaxy. The TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose are cleaned up by the Disinfectodroids and teleported to the alien planet where the four-armed, spear-throwing natives are naturally not best pleased. Returning to the station by TARDIS, the Doctor reveals that he has united the abducted humans and the aliens from the planet into a force capable of overthrowing the Disinfectodroids, They will then be reprogrammed and sent to the distant planet where they will teleport all the rubbish back to Acme Cleaning Industries, New Brentford on Earth, who built the robots in the first place.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Another romp, though one with a bit of an ecological message and some decidedly witty dialogue, much of which will surely go way over the heads of the target audience (jokes about The Generation Game game show are hardly topical in this day and age given that it was last broadcast in 1981). Of particular note is that the now familiar Vworp! Vworp! TARDIS sound effect makes its first appearance outside of the pages of Doctor Who Magazine and other Marvel/Panini publications.
 

SCRIPT: Alan Barnes
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 5
COVER DATE: 31 May 2006 - 13 June 2006
ON TV: The Impossible Planet - The Satan Pit (Season Two)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: F.A.Q.
REPRINTS: None

When the TARDIS vending machine runs out of chocolate, the Doctor takes Rose to Belgium, home of the finest chocolatiers in the galaxy, but it is 1914 and a German platoon, under the brutal command of Captain Rotmund, has been sent in pursuit of the British (making a retreat through the forest of Mormal). The platoon is lost in the forest, and since a sudden fog came down their compasses have become unreliable. The Doctor sees a hovering surveillance camera and identifies it as belonging to the Warfreekz, connoisseurs of carnage who specialise in "conflict management", who are watching the situation from half a universe away. When the Germans attack the camera, it defends itself and the noise attracts the attention of British soldiers. Using the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to illuminate herself, Rose appears to the soldiers as the Angel of Death and starts to quote ’Angels’ by Robbie Williams which scares them away. The Doctor addresses the Warfreekz, telling them that even watching wars is not painless - he sends a feedback pulse down the camera which hurts their ears and forces them to withdraw. As a token of their thanks, Rose is offered some of the soldiers' chocolate ration.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
There is something interesting going on in this strip, as the Doctor and Rose befriend German soldiers during the First World War and even save them from British troops. Now that’s pretty unusual. The British retreat from Mons in August 1914 is a genuine historical event. The legend of the Angels of Mons is also genuine, though it doesn’t really get the science-fictional exploitation that it might in this strip.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This comic strip is sort of like a very peculiar rewrite of The Invisible Enemy only without funny eyebrows and giant prawns. Unfortunately, like The Invisible Enemy, it isn’t particularly dramatic or satisfying. Art-wise, John Ross really captures Rose well, but his Tenth Doctor is generally rather generic and unrecognisable, which is something of a shame given he’s the hero of the strip.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Although the artwork and colour makes it look unnecessarily juvenile, this is actually a neatly plotted, rather poignant and surprisingly thoughtful strip that works extremely well within its brief page count. Definitely one of the highlights of the Doctor Who Adventures comic strip.
 

SCRIPT: Si Spence
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
EDITOR: Gareth Roberts

ISSUE: 7
COVER DATE: 28 June 2006 - 12 July 2006
ON TV: Army of Ghosts - Doomsday (Season Two)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: F.A.Q.
REPRINTS: None

As the Galathos relate to Rose and the Doctor their sad tale of the oncoming sickwind, a curse from the Gods that kills their people, they show the warning marks on their bodies. Once the marks appear they have only seven days to hunt the Dramos and dance in its healing blood. The Doctor and Rose along with a Palanth (a creature thought to be lucky), set out to find the Dramos. They find a cave containing a nest of creatures hanging from the walls. As they prepare to leave, the Dramos returns, but rather than attacking them it tries to communicate. The Dramos explains that the Galathos are wrong to hunt and kill the Dramos, leaving its young motherless. The creature’s sadness draws the Palanth (now carrying marks of the oncoming sickwind) to the Dramos' side and, soaked by its desperate tears the Palanth starts to recover from signs of the sickwind. The Doctor realises that the Dramos carries the antibodies to cure the airborne virus known as the sickwind not only in its blood but also in its tears. He takes the Dramos back to the villagers. They are initially alarmed that the Doctor has betrayed them by not killing the Dramos, but the Doctor wins their trust. The Galathos relate their sad tale and the Dramos cries for them. As the tears flow, the sickwind is cured.

SCRIPT: Alan Barnes
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Gareth Roberts

ISSUE: 8 (two covers)
COVER DATE: 13 July 2006 - 26 July 2006
ON TV: Doomsday (Season Two)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: F.A.Q.
REPRINTS: None

Following an alien energy source, the Doctor and Rose stop off at Terry's Café for chips. Here they witness a diner eat the chef’s ‘Fried Death’ special until he literally bursts. He reveals himself to be a Gastronaut, a race like Russian-dolls, with a new body growing inside another, existing only to feed the next version. The Gastronaut is so impressed that he’s told all his friends, and soon Terry is frantically cooking for a café full of Gastronauts. To make matters worse, loud, bad tempered TV chef and owner of ’thoundreds of restaurants’ across the galaxy Rammzi teleports in, determined to take control of this new cuisine. When Terry declines Rammzi’s offer of Glitter Bird Guano, Rammzi tries to extract ‘the secret’ of the cuisine with his army of chopbots. Just when it looks like Rammzi will triumph, Rose mentions that her mother cooks a better fry-up, and the Doctor recommends a better venue, Heston Bleston at the Fat Buck, Quadrant 92. The Doctor’s recommendation sends the Gastronauts off in hot pursuit, but before Rammzi gets the chance to teleport out, the Doctor traps him at the diner with Terry. With the waitress having walked out, Rammzi has no choice but to help clear up the mess left behind, until his own people come to rescue him in several hundred years time.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
I suppose if you’re going to attempt satire for children then you have to set the bar fairly low in order for them to ‘get’ the joke, and here the bar is definitely no higher than it needs to be. It’s a light and frothy affair that probably works well for the intended audience. Older readers may be left hungering for something more.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is a competent if largely unexciting sort of comic strip given a little extra frisson by featuring the Powell Estate and the Tyler flat (but not Jackie Tyler), a familiar setting of the time that had last been seen on screen on 1 July in Army of Ghosts. One nice touch is that the TARDIS lands in its familiar spot in the precinct. One big problem is that we never learn enough of the aliens’ history or intentions to get any sort of handle on what exactly they’re doing so it feels just like ‘Monster of the Week’.
 

SCRIPT: Stewart Sheargold
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Lang
EDITOR: Gareth Roberts

ISSUE: 9
COVER DATE: 27 July 2006 - 9 August 2006
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: F.A.Q.
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor and Rose return to the Powell Estate to visit Rose’s mum, Jackie, but find winter has arrived three months early with the flats covered in ice and snow - inside and out. They catch neighbour Jason Harris from upstairs running away from the flat. He warns them that four days ago aliens arrived and took everyone, trapping them in ice on top of the building. Before he can tell them more, an ice creature touches him and turns him to ice. Chased onto the roof, the Doctor and Rose find a huge ice building housing a weather machine which the entity, having always hidden in the Earth’s water, is now using to freeze itself into existence. Rose becomes trapped in ice but the Doctor rescues her and together they smash the ice machine, which raises the temperature, destroys the creatures and frees all the people trapped in ice. As it starts to rain the Doctor and Rose decide to call in on Jackie for a quick catch up.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is as brainless and juvenile as they come, all roaring dinosaur action guaranteed to please a young audience, but the last panel, with Adam and Steve wandering off into the sunset, is a subversive delight. Alan Barnes also manages to shoehorn in a sly reference to Monster Massive to stave off the boredom.
 

tranquillised and put in the Human enclosure, a reservation surrounded by a mile-high fence. In the enclosure the Doctor and Rose meet third wave Earth colonists from the Forty-First century, who were happily settled before the arrival of the aliens who set up the park. Among the surviving colonists are Team Leader Steve, Welfare Secretary Phoebe and Art and Recreation Officer Adam. The colonists are forced to live like cavemen and share the enclosure with genetically bred meat-eating dinosaurs, for the amusement of the visitors who drive past in tour buses. The Doctor takes over a tour bus and, using his sonic screwdriver to override the steering controls, smashes through the reservations gate releasing the dinosaurs into the park and sending the aliens fleeing. The Doctor leaves Steve a telepathic taxi card explaining that he only has to think ‘0707 Get me out of here’ should they decide to leave, but the colonists have decided that it is such a beautiful planet they will stay and make a new life.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Mixing the fiction and fact of Victorian London, this tale has more than a little of the feel of Kim Newman’s novel Anno Dracula. A mention of Fearless Vampire Killers and Oscar Wilde’s ‘unnatural urges’ also gives this an unusually adult touch - at least until the final pages when it becomes more juvenile than usual. Burping to save the world?! Oh please. The artwork, meanwhile, does nothing to evoke an atmosphere of Victorian London.
 

SCRIPT: Alan Barnes
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Lang
EDITOR: Gary Russell

ISSUES: 11-12
COVER DATES: 24 August 2006 - 6 September 2006, 7 September 2006 - 18 September 2006
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Futurists
REPRINTS: None

It is London 1897, and after helping Inspector Lestrade solve ‘the case of the unsuitable suitor’ , the Doctor and Rose leave to catch a cab intending to head for Le Moulin Rouge in Paris. However, their journey is soon disrupted by a cloud of vampire bats that congregate above the Royal Lyceum Theatre. The Doctor and Rose's enter and interrupt a rehearsal for Bram Stoker's new production - Dracula. Bram’s wife Florence  warns her husband that the descendant of the real Count Dracula has arrived from Transylvania and indeed he has, furious that his family's name is being wrongfully misrepresented and eager to kill Stoker. Florence saves her husband from Dracula by revealing herself to be a vampire - the bats carry her around, shielding her from the sun. She was bitten twenty years earlier by Oscar Wilde who is currently serving a sentence at Reading Gaol. The Doctor identifies all types of vampirism as an alien disease and offers to help. In order to save Florence (and the kittens she feeds on), the Doctor must find a cure for Wilde.

Using Florence's bats to fly him into the gaol, the Doctor liberates Oscar Wilde. Rose and Florence are distracting the prison staff, but it turns out that the prison staff are also vampires and they are both captured. Wilde explains that he was turned into a vampire during his days at Oxford when he attended a seance. A strange shining creature (an alien probe, travelling the thought waves and drawn by the seance, according to the Doctor ), arrived, killed his friends and converted him. The Doctor and Wilde find Rose in the prison doctor’s surgery about to be turned into a vampire. As he is the original and strongest vampire, Wilde commands the prison staff to stop. Taking the virus from Oscar, the staff have been manufacturing a vampire army. Without a nano-filtration system to synthesise an anti-virus, the Doctor drinks the vampire virus. He explains that Time Lords are immunised against vampirism and his body produces a serum that is spread to the infected when he burps. As Wilde and Florence revert to human, they all burp to spread the serum. Free of prison, Oscar takes the opportunity to start a new life in exile in Paris.

is ‘lucky’ tossing a coin, he and Rose are attacked by a lightning monster and transported up to a ship hidden in a rain cloud that has been following them. There they meet the two abducted members of the Triskaidekaphobes and Bob Kreesus, an alien living in luxury on all the good fortune generated by his luck machine. The Doctor, however, realises that a quantum-powered processor, is the reason Bob has been fortunate. The Doctor destroys the machine and returns the missing Triskaidekaphobes, along with Bob, to the moon, where the sun has started to shine once more. Whilst threatening Rose, Bob fails to heed the Doctor's warning about a discarded banana skin and falls off the edge of a cliff... unlucky!

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Basing a comic strip around the number thirteen in your thirteenth issue is perhaps a neat idea, but this is like some bizarre homage to TV Comic, with a plot that strains against all believability and a tone that runs entirely against the TV show that spawned it. If it was good, adventurous fun it could be forgiven, but it isn’t.
 

teleportal to the Planet of Toys, but the Doctor is suspicious. The representative is an arms dealer hired to bomb the planet on the far side of the portal to oblivion. The Doctor sends the representative through the portal to be stranded on the very planet he wanted to destroy. Angry at not being allowed to escape, the Smart Bombs turn on the Doctor and activate their Big Brother, a long-range nuclear missile which explodes seconds after the Doctor and Rose escape. The blast blocks the sun allowing the Smart Bombs to play outside for the first time in thousands of years.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Again, I’m getting that TV Comic vibe. This is about as silly and juvenile as it is possible to be and the artwork also looks far less polished than it once was. Compare a strip like this to something like Star Beast from Doctor Who Weekly (which was aimed at a similar age range) and you can see just how lacking in quality and integrity the Doctor Who Adventures strip really is.
 

SCRIPT: Davey Moore
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Lang
EDITOR: Gary Russell

ISSUE: 15
COVER DATE: 17 October 2006 - 31 October 2006
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Futurists, Interstellar Overdrive
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Deathrace Five Billion
REPRINTS: None

After dodging the Erewon Armada on a recent trip, the Doctor realises that the TARDIS's Xion crystals have been jolted out of alignment causing the positioning system to overheat. What the TARDIS needs is a big jolt. Luckily the TARDIS lands inside a giant pinball machine with a strong 1960s American theme. This game is used to punish Gameslavers, people who spend too much time playing computer games, by forcing them to take part in a giant real-life game trapped inside the game’s metal balls, and with spectators deciding whether the 'player'’ lives or dies based on their performance. Rose is mistaken for a Gameslaver and forced to play the game. The Doctor, meanwhile takes control of the game and manipulates the ball to strike the TARDIS. The ball drops down a hole and the Doctor frees Rose. They make a hasty escape in the TARDIS which now works properly.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
There’s something very wrong with this strip. The Doctor finds people being horribly  mistreated, uses the means of their torture and sometimes execution to repair the TARDIS, and then buggers off and leaves them to it! Unless, of course, we’re supposed to believe he finds the punishment just, in which case everything is hunky-dory. This is so seriously out of step with the television series, it’s a wonder BBC Wales ever gave it the seal of approval.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Now this is more like it, playfully mixing up The Maltese Falcon and the whole film noir detective genre with The Godfather and a good dash of fun science fiction. It even finds time in its witty dialogue to reference the strip’s own continuity, with mention of Acme Industries of New Brentford from The Germ War. Characterisation is good and the art, whilst always tending towards the simple and  colourful, still manages to evoke something approaching the appropriate atmosphere.
 

Using his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor scrambles the signal between Doll’s head and her body which runs off. In the confusion, a shot destroys the strongarms remote control and the Horsegoons go crazy. The shot was fired by the Detective Robot who leads the Doctor, Rose and Doll’s head to safety. Here Doll explains that her family were created by a scientist who grew talking heads as company for the sad and old. The heads, however, escaped to start a new life. But the Doctor is still curious about the Bird that Corpulone so desperately wants back. He asks the detective robot to open its chest hatch and inside he finds a Glitterbird egg from a rare robot species whose droppings are studded with diamonds, a nest egg for Doll! Doll turns on the Doctor and Rose and orders the robot to kill them. The Doctor persuades the detective robot that his first loyalty is to other robots and to protect the Glitterbird. The Detective Robot struggles with his programming but the Doctor recognising it as an Acme Industries android and calls out the programming override code. As Doll’s reassembled family catch up with them, the Detective hands the egg to the Doctor and launches himself at the Corpulone brothers, sending them over the edge of a roof. Doll has proven herself a true Corpulone and, reunited with her father, they race after the Doctor and Rose. Using his sonic screwdriver the Doctor hot-wires a nearby space-car and, placing the egg a few feet away from the backburner, fires it up. The intense heat is enough to hatch the egg and the Glitterbird flies off, out of Corpulone’s reach. The Detective Robot returns with reinforcement and a renewed enthusiasm for law enforcement. The Corpulone family are taken away.

SCRIPT: Davey Moore
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Lang
EDITOR: Gary Russell

ISSUES: 18 - 19
COVER DATES: 29 Nobember 2006 - 12 December 2006, 13 December 2006 - 2 January 2007
ON TV: The Runaway Bride
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Interstellar Overdrive, The Green-Eyed Monster
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Reunion of Fear, The Glutonoid Menace, The Power of the Cybermen
REPRINTS: None

Rose is delighted to find they have arrived in Paris in the spring. Everything is perfect; window shopping, people watching, a visit to the Louvre, and mime artists bearing flowers. But all is not as it seems. The people are uncommunicative and keep disappearing and 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A curious strip in as much as the Doctor plays absolutely no part in the resolution of the story. Indeed, Paris would have been freed by the resistance were he and Rose there or not. It’s fairly thin adventure with nothing much to commend it, seemingly trying in its early pages to evoke some of the atmosphere of  City of Death.
 

but the Doctor knows the Untra will soon pick up their scent again. As he runs through the jungle he is caught by a giant man-eating plant.

As the Doctor struggles in the mouth of the Marorda plant, Kara explains that the meat-eating plant is intelligent and loves to talk. The Marorda plant spits the Doctor out when he starts to chat, stating that he is too skinny. The Untra arrive and shoot the Marorda. While the Untra are busy with the Doctor, Kara escapes and comes across another of the planet's plants, the Halitosis Mushrooms, so called because of their foul smell. Collecting some, Kara returns to the Doctor where she overpowers the Untra’s sense of smell. The Doctor and Kara make their escape down a cliff edge using vines. The vines however are another carnivorous plant and, as the Untra climb down after them, the vines come alive with snake-like heads filled with razor sharp teeth. The Doctor ties the vines in knots after they have eaten all the Untras bar the Untra Leader, who is chewed up a bit by a Marorda plant, before being allowed to leave the planet.

SCRIPT: Mike Tucker
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 24 - 25
COVER DATES: 28 February 2007 - 14 March 2007, 14 March 2007 - 28 March 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Warkeeper’s Crown
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: The Sky Below, Beyond the Sea
REPRINTS: None

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Aggressive plant-life puts in another apperance, but the Doctor’s glasses make their Doctor Who Adventures debut. This is thin and frothy stuff, passingly exciting but with very little to commend it.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 26 - 27
COVER DATES: 29 March 2007 - 11 April 2007, 12 April 2007 - 25 April 2007
ON TV: Smith and Jones - Daleks in Manhattan (Season 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Lonely Planet, Plague Panic
REPRINTS: None

The year is 3769, and Space Station Alpha, the largest ever satellite in Earth orbit, is under construction. Jimmy (who has a damaged bionic rivert canon fitted to his cybernetic right arm) and Welding Bot X-5 (aka Bert) are snag finders on the station’s lower levels where they encounter the Doctor. When Bert goes haywire, the Doctor realises there is a rogue communication signal scrambling his systems. Tracing the source of the signal, the Doctor, Bert and Jimmy discover heavily armed androids who attempt to kill them. Escaping down a waste pipe into a septic tank, they discover the alien Klytode who plans to destroy the Earth.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Basing yourself on the station that you plan to destroy is perhaps not the smartest piece of tactical thinking, especially when you have an army of disposable androids at your service. This strip has some quite nice characterisation but is essentially a lightweight runaround with no real sense of threat or excitement. The Klytode would be back for a rematch at Christmas. Read about it here.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Adrian Salmon (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 28 - 29
COVER DATES: 26 April 2007 - 9 May 2007, 10 May - 23 May 2007
ON TV: Evolution of the Daleks - 42 (Season 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Exhausting Evil, Wrath of the Warrior
REPRINTS: None

The luxury astroliner Tritanic is cruising the outer reaches of the Galactic Rim. The Doctor and Martha are aboard, having lost the TARDIS in space in time winds. The  ship is attacked and boarded by the Skrawn whose home planet Kolox was destroyed in the Time War leaving only a cloud of randomly charged chronon particles - the Skrawn Inheritance. Their attempt to take the bridge is disrupted by the Doctor, but they knock him aside and begin  to dismantle the Tritanic’s experimental time-nav system. With it they will control the entire Kolox nebula.

Having secured the time-nav system, the Skrawn withdraw to their hiveship and blast off. The Doctor and Martha use the Tritanic’s teleport system to board the hiveship where they discover the TARDIS, the Skrawn having used the time-nav system to locate the time ship. They are captured by the Skrawn who reveal their plan to recreate their planet from the Skrawn Inheritance. Martha, using the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, disrupts the ship’s systems allowing the Doctor to grab the time-nav and both of them to board the TARDIS and escape. The Skrawn are lost in the nebula, possibly forever

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The Time War gets its first comic strip mention here, and, returning the favour, the idea of a spaceship with a name much like the Titanic would make it to screen seven months later in Voyage of the Damned. Although the Skrawn’s plans are a little confusing, and they never really come close to achieving them, this is a pretty good strip, though again not helped by overbright colouring and frequently over-simplistic artwork.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 32 - 33
COVER DATES: 21 June 2007 - 4 July 2007, 5 July 2007 - 18 July 2007
ON TV: The Sound of Drums (Season 3)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Woman Who Sold the World
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Warrior’s Revenge, Head Start
REPRINTS: None

Egypt 2375 BC, and the Doctor and Martha approach the Great Pyramid of Cheops by camel when suddenly the pyramid vanishes. Racing back to the TARDIS, the Doctor gets a fix on the time track and materialises by the Temple of Diana at Ephesus, just as it disappears. Travelling on to Greece, 280 BC, they see the Colossus of Rhodes vanish. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor realises that the statue of Zeus at Olympia and the Pharos lighthouse at Alexandria have already been taken, which leaves only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - the Hanging Hardens of Babylon. Having anticipated its disappearance, they have half an hour to save it. They are approached by a shady character offering them all seven wonders for a good price, a Talithan swindler called Pholonius Ginn, who plans to sell the wonders on g-Bay. Their discussion is disrupted by the arrival of Sylven, a giant robot who represents the FatKat Corporation. He has come to buy the planet Earth including its population.

The Doctor, Martha and Pholonius Ginn are teleported to the deep space station headquarters of the FatKat Corporation where they join the auction for planet Earth and all inhabitants born in the Humanian period. It sells for thirteen zillion galactons. Discovering that the managing director of FatKat is Trongus Squum, the Doctor and Martha, pursued by Sylven, head for his office. Trongus turns out to be none other than Pholonius Ginn, trying to make a fast profit out of the planet Earth. Reading the contract for the sale of Earth, the Doctor realises it is null and void. It specifies that the planet had to be sold including every man, woman and child born in the Humanian Era, but there was one missing at the time of the sale - Martha Jones. Ruined, Pholonius is confronted by the real FatKats who have been trying to bankrupt the Talithan imposter for months. By way of thanks they destroy the sale contract and return the Seven Wonders to their original positions.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The first half of this strip is a great way for children (or adults) to learn about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World - the Doctor manages to give Martha a lot of information; a rare example of Doctor Who with an educational remit. Sadly, the second half falls back on the DWA clichés of brightly coloured aliens and big robots, though the loophole in the contract is a smart twist that gives Martha prominence in the strip for the first time. The managing director of FatKat gets his name spelled Trongus and Trongos.
 

Exploring a remote and unnamed planet, the Doctor and Martha stumble on the inactive body of a being made of living metal, but are soon held at gunpoint by other similar creatures who are very much alive. Soldiers Elphon and Halber demand to know which side the strangers are on in the decades-long war that still rages. Guns used in the war can only stun, not kill, placing the soldiers into a form of suspended animation, and both sides are heavily depleted. They come under attack from the enemy and Halber is shot. As they run, the Doctor is also hit.

Elphon blasts the enemy and the Doctor quickly recovers. Elphon runs off leaving the Doctor and Martha to discover the last enemy soldier. Elphon appears, also the last of her kind, but she has had enough of fighting and is set to end the war for good by setting her gun to kill. The Doctor urges her to reconsider and forges a peace between the two sides. When they shake hands, they merge into a new lifeform. On this planet only the last surviving male and female are able to pass on their genetic material to the next generation. The other soldiers awaken from suspended animation.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The opening part of this strip is fairly exciting, the conclusion less so because it relies on much talking and explanation and very little meaningful action. The way everyone ends up friends is faintly reminiscent of certain annual strips from long gone days. It’s a bit of an oddity, this one, but certainly not as bad as some.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Ben Ireland
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 36 - 37
COVER DATES: 16 August 2007 - 29 August 2007, 30 August - 12 September 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Bus Stop
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: End Game, The Millennium Blag
REPRINTS: None

After watching the Beatles live on stage in 1960s Liverpool, Martha is abducted by teleport. Using the TARDIS, the Doctor tracks the disruptions in space-time and intercepts the teleport, returning Martha to the TARDIS. The signal originated on the planet Gelezen, which adopted an extreme isolationist policy thousands of years ago and which is surrounded by an impenetrable time field. Rumour says the Gelezen are a cloned race who forcibly extracted human DNA and transfused it into their own. Then the Gelezen catch Martha in their teleporter a second time.

On Gelezen, Martha is introduced to Doctor Skelpa who explains that, in order to survive, the Gelezen require fresh human DNA. Martha escapes. The Doctor, meanwhile, is unable to penetrate the time field, at least until Martha wrecks the time field apparatus. He then uses his own genes to save the Gelezen, a much better solution than human DNA.

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 38 - 39
COVER DATES: 13 September 2007 - 26 September 2007, 27 September 2007 - 10 October 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The First
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Second Wave, Operation Lock-Up
REPRINTS: None

The TARDIS has landed aboard the fishing trawler Seamancer on present day Earth, and Captain Ketley has been good enough to allow Martha and the Doctor time to recalibrate the TARDIS’s dematerialisation field. However, the trawler is in the middle of the worst storm in thirty years and runs aground on rocks that shouldn’t be there. Everyone survives, but the Doctor soon realises they have been transported to the oceanworld of Surobos because of the TARDIS’s malfunctioning dematerialisation field, and the natives - the Suroban shoal - are far from friendly.

According to ancient law, the Suroban plan to execute the intruders. However, the Doctor, and Martha persuade Alalal, leader of the Suroban to delay execution. They have until all three moons are gone from the sky to leave Surobos. They need to recover the TARDIS from the wreck of the Seamancer beneath the cove. Aided by a friendly Suroban named Jalkis who protects him from the deadly skilus eels, the Doctor swims down to the TARDIS. But Jalkis is acting against the express wishes of Alalal, and, when the angry ship’s cook informs him of the treachery, he rounds up the strangers ready for immediate execution. They are all saved by the arrival of the TARDIS containing the Doctor and a seriously wounded Jalkis. While Martha treats Jalkis’ wounds, the Doctor tells Alalal that Jalkis is a real hero. Alalal agrees but only if the strangers leave, so the Doctor uses the TARDIS to transport the trawler back to Earth.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
It’s another strip with a good first half and a slightly disappointing conclusion not helped at all by the ridiculous appearance of the Suroban, who remind me of the aliens from The Simpsons. The message of tolerance and cooperation is hardly subtle either. There’s a rather sweet mention of Metulla Orionsis, a star system mentioned in Logopolis.
 

SCRIPT: Mark Michalowski
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 40 - 41
COVER DATES: 11 October 2007 - 24 October 2007, 25 October 2007 - 7 November 2007
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The First
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Crime After Crime, House Pests
REPRINTS: None

Landing on an ice planet, Martha is saved from a nasty slip off a glacier by an alien named Paltoq, who reveals that the city of Isqaron is slowly melting because the sky god Asharoth has condemned the Isqarites as sinners. The Doctor demands to be taken to Empress Thamli, but she believes them escaped slaves who will be returned to Asharoth to appease his anger. They fly towards a dimensional gateway and the Doctor is thrown in. He emerges on the otherside of the gateway on Earth where scientists are trying to save the planet.

The Doctor realises the humans led by Professor Mallingane are using Isqar as air conditioning for Earth, pumping hot polluted air to Isqar and sucking cold pure air back. Martha, meanwhile, is spared the same fate as the Doctor when Paltoq rescues her. Aided by a sympathetic scientist named Kate Curran, the Doctor wrecks the air conditioning machine then, with Kate, flies through the gateway in a helicopter to rescue Martha and Paltoq. Kate deposits them back at the TARDIS then flies back through the gateway to find a real solution to Earth’s problems before the gateway closes for good.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is quite a neat little tale with a clever premise, though it is perhaps a shame that Mallingane is shown to be so despicably ruthless rather than just ignorant of the plight of the Isqarites. I do like how the strip doesn’t present an easy answer for Earth’s problems but does call for moral responsibility in tackling those problems. That’s surprisingly sophisticated stuff for Doctor Who Adventures.
 

functioning. The Ratlings are evolved human beings. A spaceship arrives, having responded to the distress beacon. Aboard are the Optimi led by Vlar. They have searched for the paradise world of Zetheda and now claim it for colonisation. But first the Ratlings must be destroyed.

When a Worgoth attacks, the Doctor, Martha, Vlar and Elizar stumble upon an underground chamber, an annex to the distress beacon, which Vlar identified as a Optimi terraforming device. The Doctor realises that the Optimi are evolved humans, just like the Ratlings. They discover a door that will only open on the DNA recognition code of an original unevolved human. Martha opens it to discover a paradise - the terraforming device has terraformed the interior of the planet rather than the exterior, complete with its own sun, the power source the Doctor detected. The Ratlings can live on the surface and the Optimi in the paradise they were promised. Peace comes to Zetheda.

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 44 - 45 (two covers)
COVER DATES: 6 December 2007 - 12 December 2107 (sic), 13 December - 2 January 2008
ON TV: Voyage of the Damned
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The First
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Crimes and Punishment
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor and Martha are Christmas shopping on Oxford Street, London, in the year 3781 when they run into the Doctor’s old friends Bert X-5 and Jimmy (see here). Bert confides in the Doctor that he thinks Jimmy is cracking up with blackouts and dizzy spells. It all started when the won the sanitation contract for the Ecopower Station franchise. The Doctor scans Jimmy and discovers he’s under some form of telekinetic mind control. The next day, the Doctor, Martha and Bert follow Jimmy to the Ecopower building - where they discover another Klytode, part of a gestalt being intent on turning the Earth into a wasteland. But the Klytode has brought with him through hyperspace the city-sized Prime Klytode, and through the Ecopower bio-reactors he can spread the creature’s poisonous breath all around the world.

While the Doctor and Bert try - and fail - to reason with the Klytode, Martha gets Jimmy to safety. The Doctor realises that the hyperspatial link that brought the Prime Klytode to Earth can be reversed, but he needs a computer interface. Bert offers his own omnitronic brain, but the Doctor says it will fry every circuit in him. Jimmy and Martha are attacked by the Klytode’s androids. Martha inadvertently presses the reactor screen switch, which cuts the androids in two, but separates Jimmy and Martha from the Doctor who is busy wiring Bert into the reactor. Jimmy begs him not to do it, but it looks like there’s no other way - until Martha points out the deactivates android. The Doctor wires the android in with only seconds to lose and the hyperspatial link is sent into reverse, removing the Prime Klytode from Earth. The remaining Klytode tries to order Jimmy to send the Ecopower reactors into meltdown, but Jimmy is free of Klytode control. The Klytode teleports away leaving the Doctor, Martha, Jimmy and Bert to enjoy Christmas.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
There’s a nice, subtle reference to the Autons (shop window dummies make the Doctor nervous) and also mention of the Cybermen, but of course the real blast from the past here is Jimmy, Bert, the Klytode and his androids from the strip some eight months previous. Believe it or not, the strip actually manages some genuine drama, as Jimmy first comes to terms with being mind controlled and then fears that he’ll have to live without Bert. We get tears and everything - just like proper Noughties Doctor Who. It works too, because we have a deeper connection with these characters than your usual DWA characters. Okay, so the story itself is slender at best, but it works pretty well, even if the moral about the value of friendship is trowelled on a little thick for some tastes. The Klytode would return yet again. Read about it here.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 46 - 47
COVER DATES: 3 January 2008 - 16 January 2008, 17 January - 23 January 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Death to the Doctor!
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: The Diamonds of Sartor
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

33, Venture Drive is the home of the John and Melissa Hopley and their nine-year-old daughter Violet, but Violet is afraid to go upstairs because of the monster. Her parents don’t believe her, but the Doctor - who arrives suddenly on the trail of a rogue Extron parasite, does. The Extron, an escaped criminal from the galactic penal institute on Inkarsera, is indeed upstairs, trying to lock on to Violet’s energy pattern to achieve full gene transmutation. It seizes Violet and teleports away - but the Doctor doesn’t know where to.

The Extron takes Violet to the desolate planet Onla-toch in the 957-Dogron system, once a great civilisation that the Extron destroyed before being caught by the Judoon and imprisoned. In search of the Extron, the Doctor travels to Inkarsera where he checks the internment records and learns about Onla-toch before being attacked by a robot guard. Seizing the guard’s biometric handcuffs, the Doctor escapes in the TARDIS. The Extron is about to merge with Violet when the Doctor arrives. Following the Doctor’s instructions, Violet slams the handcuffs on the Extron which immediately transports it back to Inkarsera. The Doctor takes Violet home to her parents.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is actually a very good and dramatic story with a basic premise that wouldn’t seem at all out of place in the new series itself. Violet is characterised well and we immediately feel sympathy for her because of her age and because of the terrible fate that awaits her.
 

is not chosen. However, his rejected group are not returned to the village but instead led down into the caverns and thrown from a cliff, the Doctor included.

The Doctor and Kaze are in an anti-gravity chute that takes them to the real heart of their society, the worldbuilder class spaceship that crashed here decades before that they are trying to repair. However, shielding the ship from the Shrikes is using too much fuel - they can’t maintain the forcefield and blast off. Using the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver, Kaze and Genji distract the Shrikes long enough for the Doctor to land the TARDIS inside the spaceship and connect up a power cable from his own engines. The ship launches. The Doctor returns in the TARDIS to collect Kaze, Genji and the inhabitants of the village. He has even thought of a way for the Shrikes to survive as he will jettison a couple of rooms from the TARDIS filled with technological clutter that he doesn’t need.

SCRIPT: Martin Day
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 52 - 53
COVER DATES: 21 February 2008 - 27 February 2008, 28 February 2008 - 5 March 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Universal Monsters
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Dusty Death
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

Landing in an exotic jungle, the Doctor is soon under attack from a gorilla-like creature but is saved by  explorer, scoundrel and archaeologist Mason Burns. Burns is searching for the final resting place of the Old Kings of the Skarab, creatures of terrifying power who ruled over an entire planet, though all trace of their civilisation has now been lost. Locating the tomb and getting inside, they are attacked by beetles, monsters and a deluge of water, but soon find themselves trapped with a new creature. The Doctor realises this isn’t a tomb but a prison, and they’ve just released one of the prisoners.

The Kings rise, revealing that their subjects turned against them and imprisoned them. The Doctor and Burns run from the temple, but find gathered outside thousands of gorilla-creatures, the devolved ancestors of the Old Kings’ civilisation. The Old Kings demand to be accepted back, either willingly or by force, so they can build a new Skarab empire. The gorillas turn on the  Kings, but without the restraint of civility, they do not imprison them but instead destroy them. Burns and the Doctor decide to leave the planet in peace.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Again there are some nice twists in this surprisingly downbeat tale, though Mason Burns remains a sketchy character at best, which is surprising given that he’s the only prominent character apart from the Doctor.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A fairly simple story of nasty aliens is given extra depth and atmosphere by setting it in Ancient China and the rather wonderful framing device of Li recounting his adventure to his grandchildren. It’s not clear exactly what the aliens really want (unless ruling the people is an end in itself), and it would have been nicer if all three of them had resembled elements from Chinese mythology, but I’m willing to let that one go.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 56 - 57
COVER DATES: 20 March 2008 - 26 March 2008, 27 March 2008 - 2 April 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Universal Monsters
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Designs of the Dust
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

When Tom Blakeney’s dog Sammy finds an unusual stone, the Doctor is soon on hand. The stone is one half of a silicoid space-folder from Omikros, a device capable of folding space to allow instantaneous travel. However, when Sammy finds the other half of the device, he opens a portal for a being called Ramadra of the Omikron invasion force to take over and transform him into a tall wolf-like alien. Still in possession of one half of the space-folder, the Doctor and Tom run for their lives, but Ramadra catches them, takes back the space-folder and connects the two halves, allowing the Omikron invasion force to flood through onto Earth.

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to temporarily reverse the fold between Omikron and Earth, closing the rift before all of the invasion force can pass through. Pursued by the force already here, the Doctor and Tom run for their lives, but double back and seize the recovering space-folder from Ramadra. Ramadra overpowers the Doctor, Tom appeals to his little dog Sammy. The Doctor distracts him by throwing a stick that Ramadra just can’t help chasing after, allowing the Doctor time to separate the two halves of the space-folder, sending the force back to Omikron. Destroying the circuitry in the device causes Sammy to revert back to the little dog he always was.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Rather a lot of running away from aliens fills the middle sections of both parts of this slim story. It’s kind of okay but nothing particularly special.
 

The Doctor knocks the monster unconscious with a large piece of apparatus then calls for the human life-sign his sonic screwdriver detected to come out. Rachel Barlow (aka Red) identifies the creature as a Vox, which they use as guard dogs. She says the real peril in the base is a faceless spaceman. She takes the Doctor to meet the rest of the crew - Mick Hogan, Jennifer Arden, and Asif Khan, who are working on a cure for a space plague. He tells them of Loss’ unfortunate demise, but when he takes them to show them the body, it has disappeared. They launch a search, but when the Doctor and Red go to get Loss’ samples, the faceless spaceman ejects them from the airlock onto Mustron V’s airless surface.

The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to open the airlock and get them back to safety. They tackle the faceless spaceman and discover it is really Jennifer Arden who is keen to find a cure for the plague and thinks Hogan is slowing the work. She escapes to the lab where she starts creating a cure on her own, but when Hogan disrupts her she accidentally spills a sample of space plague and becomes infected. The Doctor saves her with Loss’ sample. The cure for the space plague is complete.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Although told in three instalments, each instalment is only five pages instead of the usual six, meaning it’s actually only three pages longer than an average two-parter. It also has an incredibly thin plot reminiscent of, as the Doctor specifically mentions, the plot of an average episode of Scooby Doo, except Arden’s motives are rather more scrappy (sorry). Why she believes she can work faster than the whole team is just ridiculous, especially as she doesn’t have the one element she needs to complete it anyway and presumably spends most of her time wandering the corridors as the faceless spaceman disrupting everyone’s work including her own. It is also never explained why everyone is so afraid of the faceless spaceman as nobody has been harmed by it.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Sea-Rah was the winning entry in a design-a-monster competition run by Doctor Who Adventures. Would it be rude to say that it is actually rather better designed than the average DWA monster? This strip manages to cram in quite a lot of plot and provide a neat resolution all in the space of two pages, and it’s a sweet touch that the boy in the strip is named after Sea-Rah’s creator.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 62
COVER DATES: 1 May 2008 - 7 May 2008
ON TV: The Poison Sky (Season 4)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Hotel Historia
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Any Old Iron
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor watches the great tenor Anton Mordillo perform Puccini’s Torandot at the Vienna State Opera, but after the performance he slips backstage and disrupts the spectrum shield around Mordillo revealing him to be an alien, a member of the Thieves Guild of Kardol and a wanted con-artist in seven star systems. However, the Doctor realises he has made an honest living as a great singer, re-establishes his spectrum shield and allows him to continue doing what he does best.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Inkarsera, which was established as a penal institute in The Monster Upstairs, gets a mention, as do the Judoon, and it’s quite nice to see the Doctor wearing his dinner jacket and being lenient, but there really isn’t much substance here even for a five page strip. The artwork and colour, though, are better than many of the other strips from this time.
 

recognises Amelia as a Cion, a creature capable of sucking all thoughts and ideas out of the brain. She assumes her natural form and attacks him.

Donna interrupts the plasma exchange, forcing the Cion to flee. Searching her home they discover an email that says she is meeting director Mr Alan Crawford tonight, the last great talent in the city. Donna and the Doctor travel to his home by TARDIS and stop the Cion, who is called Seer and the last of her kind, from feeding on Crawford. The Doctor says he can build a simple interface that will allow Seer to draw the creative plasma energy she needs direct from the Internet. She accepts and, a year later, the Doctor and Donna return to Hollywood to see a cinema advertising a film called Space Bugs directed by Crawford and written by Amelia Crawford-Hubble - the two have married.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
One of the great joys of this strip is the characterisation of Donna who is very true to her television version. There’s also a wonderful dig at Hollywood in this strip when the Doctor expresses surprise that it’s taken Seer so long to suck the place dry. It’s reasonably exciting if somewhat lightweight - standard DWA fair.
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Let us not forget that Christopher Cooper previously gave us the utter insanity that is Hot Metal. His is an imagination untempered by such minor considerations as logic, sense or believability. The whole plot is a string of clichés driven into the realms of madness by absurd aliens and an even sillier resolution. This is definitely one to avoid.
 

SCRIPT: Christopher Cooper
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 66 - 67
COVER DATES: 29 May 2008 - 4 June 2008, 5 June 2008 - 11 June 2008
ON TV: Silence in the Library - Forest of the Dead (Season 4)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Sting of the Serpent
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor lands his red telephone box on early 21st Century Earth and, together with his eight-foot tall armoured lobster companion Falanx, steps out to explore. But something isn’t quite right. Everything looks normal, including the pet dodos playing dominoes in the park, the third moon and the hover yachts, but a little concentration changes the Doctor’s football boots into plimsoles and Falanx into Donna - apart from her arms which remain as lobster claws. The source of the problem appears to be ReThinx, a company claiming to be able to correct mistakes using a device. However, they become caught up in a demonstration outside the building and are soon under attack for an illegal gathering.

Using Donna’s lobster claws, they get inside the ReThinx compound. When the Doctor’s psychic paper fails to get them an appointment, Donna’s claws do the trick and they meet with founder and proprietor Sir Stephen Cropper. However, when shown the device, the Doctor identifies it as fake, apart from the head cap at the machine’s core which Sir Stephen bought in a bed and breakfast in Cardiff. It is alien technology from the Dark Times, created by the Hyffons to prevent a terrible war, but so much was changed that the continuity cap wiped them out. Now the same fate awaits Earth. But the Doctor has the solution. Sir Stephen uses the cap to revisit the moment when he first decided to wear it, instead placing it in an envelope addressed to the Doctor. The world reverts to normal.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Donna mentions the Racnoss and the Doctor a ridiculously long scarf, which are nice little touches in a surprisingly clever and well executed story (one of Christopher Cooper’s good days) with some good dialogue.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 68 - 69
COVER DATES: 12 June 2008 - 18 June 2008, 19 June 2008 - 25 June 2008
ON TV: Midnight - Turn Left (Season 4)
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Attack of the Rats
IN DOCTOR WHO US: Agent Provocateur
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor takes Donna to the Stellion Gate in the 99th Century. The Gate is a wormhole connecting one half of the galaxy to the other. Donna befriends an Angrodox ambassador called Volfus in her own inimitable style. Volfus is aboard the station to raise his people’s concern about the wormhole with the FatKat corporation, but mysterious disappearances inside the wormhole soon stoke tensions between the two sides. The Doctor identifies the problem as lying not in the Stellion Gate but in the wormhole itself - the spaceships are stuck inside. With the FatKat execs demanding their arrest, the Doctor, Donna and Volfus force entry to Volfus’ spaceship and plunge into the wormhole.

Once inside the wormhole, the ship loses power and drifts along with several other ships, but the real threat comes from the worm-like Quantum Nematode who claims they have invaded the Great Womb of the Star Worms. The Nematoid Horde is the larval stage of an ancient race of energy beings, and the wormhole is their incubator, an incubation that may take millions of years. The Doctor makes a deal with the Horde who use their own energy to return the ships through the Stellion Gate. The Doctor then talks to the FatKat Corporation telling them that the wormhole is off limits. They will have to find a new way to cross the galaxy, and in alliance with the Angrodox, they may just be able to do that.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The FatKat Corporation from Minus Seven Wonders makes a return appearance. I do like the way Trevor Baxendale gently weaves these little strands together to generate a larger canvas in which to tell the tales. There’s some fairly advanced ideas at work in this strip, including quantum theory (and the neat idea of putting worms inside a wormhole), but unfortunately it’s terribly wordy and just isn’t particularly exciting, coming down to a lot of talking and no real sense of jeopardy.
 

Black Hole Gang’s ship. Donna meanwhile has overpowered Sundance and learns that he and Butch Cathode are law enforcers trying to secure the Febree Orb before the Black Hole Gang get it to power a super-weapon. However, Donna has the fully functioning Orb, and the Doctor surrenders the broken one to Krawz Kra, the leader of the gang. But when Donna and Sundance attempt to come to the Doctor’s rescue they are captured and the Orb taken from them. Krawz reveals his ultimate weapon, capable of harvesting the molten core of any planet, and he plans to test it on Earth. The Doctor begs him not to, and the reason becomes apparent when they power up the weapon. The Orb goes flat almost immediately and begins to recharge itself from the Gang’s nuclear reactor causing the ship to explode. Before it does, the Doctor gets the train back to America.

SCRIPT: Christopher Cooper
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 72 - 73
COVER DATES: 10 July 2008 - 16 July 2008, 17 July 2008 - 23 July 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Pawns of the Zenith
REPRINTS: None

Planet Theta Magnon 7 in the year 3269, and Target Alpha is under surveillance for possession of illegal contraband, when suddenly the TARDIS materialises causing Target Alpha to drop a luncheon voucher in the name of Obadiah Jones and escape

SCRIPT: Christopher Cooper
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 74 - 76
COVER DATES: 24 July 2008 - 30 July 2008, 31 July 2008 - 6 August 2008, 7 August 2008 - 13 August 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Swarm of the Zenith
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

Landing in Battersea, 1951, the Doctor and Donna are soon on the trail of the Lavender Hill Blob, a huge watery blob that is terrorising the area. They locate it in Battersea Park and chase it back to Lavender Hill where they save an old woman called Edna Wilberforce. Going out in search of the blob, the Doctor realises the blob is a shape-shifter - something Donna is realising first hand as Edna transforms into a shapeless monster.

The Doctor arrives in the nick of time with a bucket of soapy water, something that will weaken the creature’s surface tension and reduce it to a pool on the floor. The blob explains that its people colonise worlds rich in H20, sucking them dry, but ‘Edna’ (aka Eduai) couldn’t bear to be a part of another colonisation and deserted when they made planetfall. Now she seeks to stop the invasion. She takes the Doctor and Donna to her people’s hidden base beneath some railway arches, but all they find is the dying form of Amuul, Edna’s cell-partner who tried to stop the Nucleus from liquidating all rebel cells. Absorbing Amuul into herself, Eduai reveals that the invasion plans have been brought forward and the cells, now disguised as human beings, are converging on the Houses of Parliament.

Arming the Doctor with a bottle of detergent as a last resort, Eduai races to parliament on a motorcycle. There she attacks the Nucleus. The Nucleus calls on reinforcements, the great organism of cells joining to create an even bigger blob. Eduai knew she could not beat the Collective, but wanted to draw it all together so the Doctor could use the detergent. But the Doctor has a better idea and plunges into the entity, rescues Eduai and what remains of Amuul in a mug and then uses the detergent on the rest of the creature, reducing it to water. The Doctor takes Eduai and Amuul to an alien world to start anew.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
For a strip of only five pages, this is actually quite neat and with a good explanation behind it, though the pirate’s talk of synchronised swimming is anachronistic. It makes good use of Donna’s character too. It should not be confused with the First Doctor story that bears the same title, which you can read about here.
 

SCRIPT: Christopher Cooper
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 77
COVER DATE: 14 August 2008 - 20 August 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Prey of the Zenith
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

Aboard a pirate ship called The Intrepid Fox, the Doctor and Donna are bound together and about to be thrown to the sharks, accused by the captain of abducting half his crew. Suddenly the shark fins reveal themselves to be attached to tentacled flying mutations who seize the captain. The Doctor orders Donna to form the remaining pirates into a fighting force to hold off the mutations long enough for him to go down beneath the waves to investigate. There he finds a malfunctioning Jaeklo teleport unit capable of mixing up the DNA of any marine life in the area, but as he tries to correct the fault he starts to mutate into coral. In the nick of time he reverses the fault, restoring himself and transforming all the sea creatures back to their natural state. Hauling the wreckage into the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna depart, but Donna is now captain of The Intrepid Fox, the sister ship of the TARDIS.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The problem with a story where the threat turns out to be benign is that the ending can appear anticlimactic unless the resolution is particularly inventive. Here, unfortunately, it isn’t - and even if they eat garbage and produce oxygen, metal-eating bugs are a menace aboard any space vessel!
 

SCRIPT: Martin Day
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 78 - 79
COVER DATES: 21 August 2008 - 27 August 2008, 28 August - 3 September 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Widow’s Curse
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Lair of the Zenith
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor lands the TARDIS aboard the International Space Station, fifty years into Donna’s future. They meet Truman Truss, leader of the research establishment. When the hull is breached by something that the sensors failed to detect, the Doctor, Donna and Truman rush to the scene to discover space insects have eaten through the hull. They seal the hole with their bodies, but when some move, the Doctor is sucked out into space.

The station’s mechanical arm saves the Doctor. The Mange Mites seal the hole in the hull and head for the kitchens where they consume the station’s garbage. Truman advocates eradication, but the Doctor realises the mites eat rubbish and produce oxygen which will allow man to go deeper into space than he has ever gone before. Far from being a menace, the mites will be beneficial to mankind.

SCRIPT: Martin Day
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 80 - 82
COVER DATES: 4 September 2008 - 10 September 2008, 11 September 2008 - 17 September 2008, 18 September 2008 - 24 September 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Time of My Life
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: The Time Stealer, School of the Dead
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

SCRIPT: Martin Day
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 83
COVER DATE: 25 September 2008 - 1 October 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Time of My Life
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: School of the Dead
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

A power spike has caused an explosion in one of the TARDIS’s low importance circuits. The Doctor attempts an emergency landing but Donna notices she is growing taller. As the TARDIS lands, the Doctor realises that the Dimensional Interface Override, also known as the 'Alice in Wonderland Circuit', which should regulate the interplay between the dimensions within the TARDIS and the real world, is broken. With both of them growing the Doctor suggests Donna leaves whilst she still can. Outside she finds that both she and the TARDIS have grown and they have landed on a mountain near the shack of an angry bearded man. The Doctor correctly guesses this is Minos, the only man in creation who deals in spare parts. However, he has become a hermit turning his back on technology and is angered that their arrival caused him to break seven years of silence. Donna offers to repair his roof in exchange for a new 'Alice in Wonderland Circuit', which only takes her minutes due to her size. Later they are all returned to normal size, thanking Minos for his help.

SCRIPT: Michael Stevens
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 84 - 85
COVER DATES: 2 October 2008 - 8 October 2008, 9 October 2008 - 15 October 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Time of My Life
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Ghosts from the Past
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This isn’t so much a Doctor Who story as a slightly dull travelogue. It’s a little like a TV Comic strip only without much in the way of crazed imagination (talking bears aside). A very weak entry.
 

SCRIPT: Michael Stevens
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 86 - 87
COVER DATES: 16 October 2008 - 22 October 2008, 23 October 2008 - 29 October 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Thinktwice
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: The Battle for Time
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

Visiting the ancient Acropolis of Xentha in Galaxy 12, the Doctor and Donna view the Titanoleum Army - two hundred and twenty warriors cast in metal five thousand years ago. The Doctor meets a boy named Jeri who has lost his parents, while Donna is abducted by a suited man with glowing eyes. The Doctor and Jeri break into a private area to find the tourists hypnotised and being converted into Titanoluem Warriors.

The Doctor leaps in and rescues Donna. He explains to her that the aliens are Teglatrons. While she causes a distraction, the Doctor reverses the effects of the conversion machine and closes down the scheme for good.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The Doctor refers to a little shop and also mentions reversing the polarity, which are nice touches in a story that goes off the boil in the second half after a strong build-up. The Doctor doing clever things with his sonic is never a very satisfactory conclusion.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 90 - 92
COVER DATES: 13 November 2008 - 19 November 2008, 20 November 2008 - 26 November 2008, 27 November 2008 - 3 December 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Thinktwice
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Flight and Fury
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

To escape turbulence in the vortex, the Doctor makes an emergency materialisation at a science convention, destroying a Portaloo in the process. The Doctor accuses Professor Eustace Krosson of causing a temporal bulge in the vortex. However, the Doctor becomes fascinated when he sees the professor has invented a wave time-vector detector two hundred years too soon, although Eustace claims it is a hairdryer using localised temporal acceleration instead of hot air. Suddenly people begin to fade away. With the detector they see the cause of the disappearances - huge insects.

The Doctor identifies the insects as Imago, parasites from the fourth dimension, who grow by devouring personal timelines. Things get worse when the Imago Queen arrives and seizes Donna.

While the Doctor and Krosson are held by the Imago, the Queen feeds on Donna’s lifestream causing her to disappear. The Doctor threatens the Queen but she claims she will keep feasting until her eggs are born. However, she becomes sickly, as do all the Imago, and regurgitates Donna. The Doctor explains that this is because she’s a time traveller. The Imago continue to be sick, regurgitating all those they have consumed. The energy loss makes them retreat back to their own dimension. With everything back to normal, the Doctor dismantles the dangerous hairdryer before he and Donna continue on their journey.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The title is about the cleverest thing on offer here. The story itself feels slightly tired and all a ‘bit been there, done that’ - standard Doctor Who Adventures material. It might have been enlivened by a more interesting setting or a stronger twist in the plot. The Imago are painted as bad for doing what they do naturally to survive, which is quite unusual for strips in Doctor Who Adventures.
 

SCRIPT: Jason Loborik
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUES: 93 - 94
COVER DATES: 4 December 2008 - 10 December 2008, 11 December 2008 - 17 December 2008
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Thinktwice
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: The Living Ghosts
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

The TARDIS lands in the ruins of the long lost civilisation of Kolvax in the Zimenees system. They are found by a hooded figure called Lorkel, the last ‘Guardian of Kolvax’, who wants them to help him return to Earth where his master died. Despite Donna’s misgivings, the Doctor agrees. Suddenly humanoid creatures of pure energy emerge from the stones. Lorkel tells the creatures he will soon be free of them forever and sends out a pulse of psychic energy from his ring which repels the creatures. Using Lorkel’s coordinates, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to some standing stones in England. Lorkel attaches polarising stasis generators to the stones, and, from beneath the ground erupts Lord Takurthi, an armoured giant.

SCRIPT: Christopher Cooper
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 95
COVER DATE: 18 December 2008 - 1 January 2009
ON TV: The Next Doctor
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: Thinktwice
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Extermination of the Daleks
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor and Donna arrive at next Christmas in a garden centre. Whilst the Doctor goes to visit Santa’s grotto, Donna goes shopping but is begged for help by what appears to a real life Snowman. It reveals itself as an alien but it is wounded. Meanwhile, inside the grotto the Doctor detects the energy signature of a teleport vortex when, suddenly, little green humanoids capture him and teleport him back to their vessel believing him to be the Snowdemon. The Doctor, after convincing the Pixees he is not the Snowdemon, agrees to help them capture it. He meets with Donna and the Snowdemon and the Pixees ambush it. The snowdemon runs, dragging Donna with him, but they go into the hothouse where the Doctor turns up the heat causing it to melt. The Doctor tells the Snowdemon it will be taken back for trial. Later, Donna, the Doctor and the Pixees eat together at the garden centre’s buffet.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Oh Lord, all we need is a giant squirrel and an appearance by the real Santa Claus and this could be straight out of TV Comic circa 1965...
 

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Again, a promising premise is thrown away on a shallow story that saves the Earth in just five pages. Quite why Askelia thinks she’s having her revenge when the humans showed her people nothing but kindness is anyone’s guess. Heather, meanwhile, shows no discernible characteristics. One nice touch is that the Doctor plans to relocate the Spaeron to Kerun  Za, home of Sea-Rah, as established in the strip of the same name.
 

SCRIPT: Trevor Baxendale
ART: John Ross (artwork), Alan Craddock (colour)
LETTERING: Paul Vyse
EDITOR: Moray Laing

ISSUE: 97 (two covers)
COVER DATE: 8 January 2009 - 14 January 2009
IN DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE: The Stockbridge Child
IN DOCTOR WHO BATTLES IN TIME: Da Vinci’s Robots
IN DOCTOR WHO US: The Forgotten
REPRINTS: None