ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Although it is commendable that writer Roger Noel Cook, much like his TV counterparts on Season 7, tries to avoid the good old fashioned invasion of Earth storyline, this one is frankly a bit of a duffer in Doctor Who terms and would have worked better for another TV Comic strip such as The Avengers, though there is some nice interplay between the Doctor and the Brigadier in the first part, with the former keen to repair the TARDIS and the latter keen for the Doctor to become involved in UNIT affairs if he wants to keep getting the resources he needs.

I wonder how many children actually tried dropping sugar cubes in their dads’ petrol  tanks, just to see if the Doctor’s solution worked...

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - THE BRIGADIER

The Brigadier is such an integral part of the Third Doctor’s era on television, that it is something of a surprise just how little he features in the comic strip version. He is there at the start, though, and usually acts as a generic companion for the Doctor, asking questions and getting told important plot points - a far cry from the Brigadier of TV’s Season 7, though perhaps not so far removed from the character of Season 10 onwards - though he does have moments of authority, especially once the character of Liz Shaw has been introduced, even if he mainly acts to introduce the Doctor to the story. However, once Alan Fennell took over the writing duties, both UNIT and the Brigadier were quietly forgotten about, at least until the 1971 TV Comic annual where we learn that the Brigadier has a yacht in the Caribbean where he takes cruises in the summer! Neither he nor UNIT survived the transfer to  Countdown, though, and, annuals and specials aside, it has been largely left to the latter day strips such as Change of Mind to represent him as part of the Third Doctor’s comic strip era.

IMAGINARY FRIENDS - LIZ SHAW

Making her TV Comic debut just as her TV counterpart was about to sign off, Liz Shaw is actually handled fairly well by the comic strip in the brief time that she is allotted; she gets to make scientific observations and even looks a little like Caroline Johns if you squint a lot. Liz measures the effectiveness of the new depth charge being tested by UNIT in The Fishermen of Carpantha. In the same story it is revealed that she carries a lighter, so presumably she nips outside for a crafty fag when the Doctor’s not looking. After analysing the Rocks from Venus, Liz quietly disappeared from the TV Comic strip after only three stories. Mind you, UNIT and the Brigadier were also forgotten about soon after. She did return for Change of Mind in 1995, which was set after she had already left UNIT and, with typical fannish concern, details why she left the organisation.

The only alien race Liz encountered in the comic strips was the fishermen of Carpantha.
 

SCRIPT: Roger Noel Cook
ART: Patrick Williams

COVER DATES: May 1970
ON TV: Inferno (Season 7)
REPRINTS: None

Aliens decide to kill Doctor Who before they begin their invasion of Earth, but their attempt to carry out their plan in a foggy London park comes to nothing thanks to the Doctor’s trusty cane, which contains a sword and a laser.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Williams’ likeness of Pertwee isn’t the most flattering and does tend to make him look like a dirty old man, although there is a certain simplistic vigour in the artwork in general. Sadly, the script is a bit rubbish, and the Doctor’s gadget of the week harks back to various strips of the Second Doctor.

SCRIPT: Roger Noel Cook
ART: Patrick Williams

COVER DATES: May 1970
ON TV: Inferno (Season 7)
REPRINTS: None

When a ‘small device’ is stolen from UNIT by foreign agents, the Doctor dresses as an old woman and uses his obedience spray to get it back.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
I could do with some obedience spray when I go out at the weekend, though hopefully you don’t have to dress as a woman for it to work.... The strip? Well, it’s simple-minded space-filler really.

SCRIPT: Alan Fennell
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 977 - 984
COVER DATES: 5 September 1970 - 24 October 1970
REPRINTS: None

Professor Carl Readon has developed an advanced robot with emotions, but asks his friend Doctor Who to check over its circuits to make sure it is free from malfunctions. The Doctor does this but finds no errors. However, the next day, shortly after Professor Readon has told off his lab assistant Jane Francis for always bringing her dog to work, the robot goes berserk and smashes its way out of the laboratory. The police are unable to stop it, as is a marksman under Doctor Who’s guidance, and eventually the military call in a tank to finish the robot for good. However, Doctor Who realises that the robot misses the dog and hurries to reunite the two, solving the problem.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A robot that develops an emotional attachment and goes on a rampage, coming up against a tank... why, it’s Robot five years too soon! Perhaps a little overlong, which makes the resolution feel weak, but a fairly exciting story that builds well until the last instalment.

SCRIPT: Alan Fennell
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 985 - 991
COVER DATES: 31 October 1970 - 12 December 1970
REPRINTS: None

When an inn owned by ex-detective Tom Streeter is burned to the ground, and samples of lava are found in the ruins, Doctor Who is called in to investigate. He soon meets Professor Vinter, an expert in volcanology, who arouses his suspicions - and rightly too, for Vinter is communicating with a race of Fire People who live in the centre of the Earth.

With Tom, he manages to get a sample of lava for analysis, despite the Fire People trying to destroy him with a wave of living lava. The lava matches samples found in the great lava lake in Africa, so Doctor Who and Tom travel there by plane.

Venturing underground, they soon meet the Fire People, but this is a peaceful group led by Pheonard, who reveals that a faction of his people have fallen in league with Vinter. Tom, it turns out, was once on the trail of an arsonist named Vinter. Vinter’s faction attacks but Doctor Who and Tom escape back to the recently refuelled plane and manage to take off.

They head to the Antarctic. Using passages within the Earth, together with a tracking system, Vinter and his faction follow them, but they are unable to withstand the cold - the Fire Creatures burn out and Vinter collapses. Pheonard’s people lead the Doctor and Tom back to safety.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Taking in Wiltshire, Africa and the Antarctic, and with a strong and logical plot, Trial of Fire is a good story, with much exciting incident, that justifies its length.

It is clear that John Canning is much happier drawing planes and real-world things rather than aliens, and the Fire People never look anything more than just plain silly, but this doesn’t undermine a story that is told with great comic strip panache.

With the Silurians, their (not yet revealed) undersea cousins the Sea Devils, the Carpanthans and now the Fire People, it’s getting very crowded beneath the surface of the Earth...

SCRIPT: Roger Noel Cook
ART: John Canning

Whilst taking a cruise on the Brigadier’s yacht in the Caribbean, the Doctor is attacked  by a giant octopus. Attempting to assist him, the Brigadier’s rifle is snatched by a leaping dolphin. The two men are imprisoned in a cave on a nearby island where they learn that Fredric Simba, survivor of a shipwreck who has been on the island many years, has learned to control the creatures using high pitched whistling sounds. The Doctor uses his flute to learn the language and takes control of the creatures and Fredric is soon arrested by the Brigadier.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Clearly intended for the Second Doctor, the most improbable thing about this strip is that the Brigadier owns a yacht in the Caribbean. The artwork is passable, despite neither the Doctor nor the Brigadier looking much like their TV counterparts (indeed, if it wasn’t for the text you would never guess that this is the Brigadier), but the colour is quite nice and helps to give the strip a suggestion of polish.

SCRIPT: Roger Noel Cook
ART: John Canning

The Doctor learns to levitate after reading a book. The Brigadier, meanwhile, is chasing a spy who has hidden a stolen file. When the thief tries to jump across a rooftop, he ends up hanging from the edge of the roof, and if he falls then the file will be lost forever. Luckily Doctor Who is visiting UNIT headquarters to tell the Brigadier about his miraculous new powers. He walks up the wall and pulls the man to safety.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Levitation would have been a handy skill for the Doctor to have remembered in Logopolis. Oh dear. This strip must be one of the worst Doctor Who strips ever committed to paper.

SCRIPT: Alan Fennell
ART: John Canning

ISSUES: 992 - 999
COVER DATES: 19 December 1970 - 8 February 1971
ON TV: Terror of the Autons - The Mind of Evil (Season 8)
REPRINTS: None

Doctor Who is asked to pilot a time-travelling bulldozer (no, really) by millionaire John Henderson, and arrives one thousand years in the future in 2971. Here he finds the world reduced to a primitive level following a great war, with two rival kingdoms vying for supremacy. One relies on slave labour and is led by one of Henderson’s descendants, the other is ruled by King Trent, who has rediscovered primitive weapons and seeks to take control.

Using the power of the bulldozers in Henderson’s 1971 bulldozer museum (no, really), Doctor Who and an ex-prisoner named Cooper make both Henderson and Trent see the error of their ways and a truce is organised that will help to rebuild the world. However, Cooper discovers a box of dynamite and realises its destructive power could make him king. He wires up the bulldozers with explosives and threatens to detonate unless he achieves his ambition. However, Doctor Who uses a bulldozer to extinguish the fuse and ram Cooper’s machine until he gives up his plan.

Travelling back to 1971, the Doctor teaches the original Henderson the value of friendship.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This strip should be called ‘How Bulldozers will save the world’. It has a ridiculous premise (because a time travelling bulldozer is obviously far more absurd than a time travelling police box...), ridiculous development, a fairly heavy-handed moral and is only partially redeemed by having Cooper, who initially helps the Doctor, turn out to have his own ambitions of power. It also has some huge flaws in its logic; the future world has only just rediscovered the bow and arrow but has plentiful supplies of fuel for the bulldozers; Cooper initially doesn’t know what a stick of dynamite is but can repair a bulldozer; only bulldozers from 1971 appear to have survived the great war; present-day Henderson has developed a time-travelling bulldozer but doesn’t want to use it himself despite his evident ambitions.

Mmh... not one of the better strips unless you’re infatuated with earth-moving equipment.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Harry Lindfield

ISSUES: 15 - 22
COVER DATES: 29 May 1971 - 17 July 1971
ON TV: The Daemons (Season 8), Spearhead from Space (repeat)
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 1, December 1992 (see above) - Classic Comics Issue 2, January 1993

Finally managing to pilot the TARDIS away from Earth, the Doctor materialises aboard what appears to be a colony ship filled with people in suspended animation. However, whilst investigating he is captured by a hovering robot that communicates in Vogan, and the Doctor knows the Vogans to be evil.

Believing him to be an escaped sleeper, the robot reprocesses Doctor Who, but he is able to resist the hypnotic processing and escapes back into the ship where he revives a girl named Trandi. She tells him that her people, the Crallicans, faced destruction as Crallica was dying. The Vogans arrived and offered to escort them to a safe world, but the Doctor knows the Vogans will not honour this promise as they enslave whole races to mine a special mineral called Voganite that gives them great longevity.

The Doctor traces the Vogans to a planet close to where the ship decelerated and he and Trandi enter a Voganite mine, but they are soon detected by the Vogans and shot down with a laser. The blast gives the Vogans time to capture the intruders, and it soon becomes clear that the ancient, evil Vogans know of the Doctor and his TARDIS and want to use the machine to transport slaves from their ship to the mines as the ship cannot pass through the planet’s atmosphere and the race is doomed without their precious Voganite.

The Doctor agrees, but tricks the weakening Vogans. As he dematerialises with Trandi and some Vogan robots aboard, he disables the robots and reprograms them to obey his orders. Landing aboard the ship, he again tricks and reprograms the robot there, then breaks the Vogan’s hypnotic spell over the Crallican people.

Landing back on the planet, he leads the Crallicans into the mine and accepts his payment, but he deduces that the Vogans have hidden an explosive device in the valuable minerals. The Doctor delivers this back to the Vogans inside one of his reprogrammed robots and, when they detonate the bomb intending to destroy him and his TARDIS, they blow themselves to pieces instead

The planet is now free for the Crallicans to make into their new home.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The Doctor’ relies on his ‘old reed pipe’, possibly a reference to the recorder he played during his Second incarnation. The storyline for this strip is perhaps overlong and not exactly inspired, especially after the last two strips, and the Doctor’s assertion that (previously unseen) Mekon-lookalikes the Vogans are evil before we have even seen them, doesn’t help matters. The Crallicans, Trandi included, are a bland bunch with nothing much to distinguish between their hypnotised and un-hypnotised state, though the Doctor is very in character, even if he does refer to his ship as TARDIS, like the early novelisations. The artwork is still very nice, and the likeness of Pertwee’s Doctor especially noteworthy, but the panels, and particularly the colour, are generally slightly less impressive than either of the previous two stories. A note of interest is that the Doctor finally pilots the TARDIS away from Earth for the first time in the comic strips since June 1969’s Operation Wurlitzer.

SCRIPT: Dick O’Neill
ART: Frank Langford

ISSUES: 33 - 39
COVER DATES: 2 October 1971 - 13 November 1971
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 3, February 1993 - Issue 4, March 1993

When the Doctor has his pocket picked in London, 1863, by a boy named Charlie Fisher, he soon finds himself sentenced to seven years’ transportation for forgery when he accidentally tries to reward the cabbie who stopped the young thief by giving him a modern bank note. He and Charlie escape the court and run to the TARDIS. The Doctor plans to set Charlie down somewhere safe in his own time so he can start afresh - but the TARDIS lands at Gettysburg in the middle of the American Civil War, and he and Charlie are suspected of being Confederate spies by a Federal general.

They are imprisoned awaiting a dawn execution, but the Doctor and Charlie escape. The Doctor thinks the only way to survive is by convincing the General of their loyalty to the Union by sketching the enemy lines, so they steal a hot air balloon and head up into the sky. Unfortunately, they are shot down by Confederate forces. They manage to evade them and steal a steam train, but are eventually forced to jump from a bridge into a river - and straight into the path of a paddle steamer!

The steamer is a Federal gunship and the Doctor and Charlie are rescued. The Doctor gives his information to the commander - Abraham Lincoln! Gettysburg is won because of the Doctor’s sketch of the enemy lines, but the Union army makes off with the TARDIS. The Doctor and Charlie follow, but are cornered by George Bamford and his brother Asa, a pair of Confederate desperadoes, who insist on joining them in an attack on the Union camp. However, when the raid succeeds, the men expect their cut of the loot and are unimpressed by the TARDIS. The Doctor offers to take them and Charlie to a new life, but the men are too scared and the Doctor leaves them behind, taking Charlie to a new life in Ballarat, just twelve years after the start of the gold rush.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
The art is as good as we’ve come to expect, but the story this time round is frankly a bit of a mess. The Doctor’s decision to sketch the enemy lines from a hot air balloon is a bit odd, as is his decision not to wake the camp by simply stealing back the TARDIS and leaving. Interestingly, the Doctor claims that he always wanted to be an engine  driver, something he would repeat on television in Black Orchid eleven years later. Mind you, in this strip he also claims to have built the TARDIS... Charlie is a fairly likeable and well characterised temporary companion, even if his “Lord, luv a duck” speech is at times a little much.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Jim Baikie

The Doctor materialises the TARDIS somewhere in the West Country, right in the path of motorbike rider Dave Lester. The Doctor offers him a trip in the TARDIS and Dave chooses to visit the local Carradine Estate where tropical plants are grown, as he senses a mystery there. And indeed there is, for Carradine runs screaming from the house. When he collapses, the Doctor and Dave are discovered by Professor Rayner. They help him get Carradine back into the house, but immediately he turns on them, using a machine to bring the many exotic plants to life and hold them prisoner while he goes to feed the Master-Plant, a sort of plant brain capable of controlling all other plants. The Doctor breaks free of the plants by throwing a bottle of acid at the machine. He, Dave and Carradine race to stop Rayner feeding the Master-Plant the Potion of Power, but they are too late, as the plant turns on Rayner and kills him. It then traps the Doctor and his friends in the lab by animating all the plants on the estate. When it tries to break in, the Doctor uses a type of weed killer he has hastily prepared which causes the plant to outgrow its strength. The Master-Plant dead, all other plants return to normal.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
An intelligent plant, capable of controlling all other plant-life, that grows to tremendous size and overruns a large country house? Why it’s The Seeds of Doom five years too soon! Given the tight page count, this isn’t too bad as a jolly little romp and works quite well as an exciting adventure, though the art is a little below par with Jim Baikie never quite capturing Pertwee’s likeness. Rayner, however, bears a striking resemblance to the Master.

Temporarily paralysing the Doctor, Andron pilots the TARDIS to Earth in the year 3550 and leaves the Doctor in his cell to await execution. There the Doctor meets Theophilus Tolliver, a fellow from 1897 who invented the world’s first time machine, but who was also caught by the Time Police.

The two men are sentenced to trial by combat against a deadly robot. The Doctor is appalled, but even more so when he discovers that the Lord Mar-Kom is an android. However, he and Theo defeat the robot using their scientific knowledge, then destroy the android and escape into New London. Here they discover that all the people of Earth have been frozen in stasis since about 2200 AD. They head to St Paul’s cathedral where the Doctor suspects they will find the real power behind New Britian - a giant master computer. Though the computer sends robots to stop them, the Doctor and Theo race to shut it down by reprogramming its memory banks. They succeed, driving the machine insane, then escape back to their time machines.

SCRIPT: Malcolm Hulke
ART: Frank Bellamy

COVER DATE: 10 April 1972 - 16 April 1972
ON TV: Colony in Space (Season 8)
REPRINTS: Timeview (1985)

Two pages of full colour and one page of black and white illustrate the opening moments of a new Doctor Who story due to start on television that evening.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Gloriously illustrated, if occasionally a touch psychedelic in the colouring, this brief taster of the Third Doctor’s first TARDIS trip away from Earth marks the first comic strip appearance of Jo.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 47 - 54
COVER DATES: 10 January 1972 - 26 February 1972
ON TV: Day of the Daleks - The Sea Devils (Season 9)
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 5, March 1993

The nuclear submarine U.S.S. Jefferson, patrolling in Antarctic waters, is drawn through doors in an iceberg. Only one man - Lieutenant Clegg - escapes. He makes it to Antarctic Weather Research Station 12 where Doctor Who is looking over the new base. He mentions the doors in the ice before he dies, and the Doctor remembers mention of such things in a a 300-year-old book called Buryat’s ‘Voyages’.. He and Lieutenant Davis from the base take an aeroplane and go to investigate. However, while they are away, the base is attacked by Daleks and conditioned human slaves. The crew are all killed and the equipment destroyed.

Without radio communication, the Doctor and Lieutenant Davis are forced to crash land the plane back at the base. The Doctor finds tracks in the snow and they set off in pursuit of their adversary, as the Doctor’s suspicions grow. 

The Doctor and Davis reach the glacier just as the doors open to release the Daleks aboard an armada of vessels collected through the centuries. They gain entry to the base and the Doctor guesses that this is a small company of Daleks who landed centuries ago and who have been waiting for man’s technology to advance to a level where they could use it against them. All radios have been removed from the base and the only means of warning the world is in an ancient seaplane.

As it runs out of fuel, the men crash land on a ship. They radio a warning about the Daleks, but it is too late - the Daleks release nuclear missiles and destroy Sydney. They then move in to convert any survivors into Dalek slaves. They then plan to build more Dalek machines and surgically convert humans into Daleks, changing first their bodies, then their minds.

The Doctor and Davis get to Australia by plane and then drive into the ruins of Sydney, but it isn’t long before they are cornered by Dalek slaves. They drive through them and locate the centre of Dalek activity, but once inside, the Doctor is recognised by the Dalek Supreme who orders his capture for conversion into a Dalek. The Doctor evades them and, as the submarine containing all of Daleks passes under the ruins of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Davis throws a live power cable down onto it, which burns out all the Daleks.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Let’s get this straight - although this strip builds nicely and the Daleks have seldom looked so good in comic strip form, their plan is frankly rubbish, and how the Doctor knows they’re off to attack Australia is never explained, and the end is rather abrupt. The Dalek plan to convert humans into Daleks is thirteen years ahead of Revelation of the Daleks and unusually grim for a comic strip of this period, especially as the Daleks specify that bodies will be converted before minds. One of the characters (not the Doctor) utters the line ‘Jumping Jehosophat’ (but then he also says ‘Great suffering snakes’ so the guy has clearly watched far too many episodes of Batman).

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Despite turbulent times behind the scenes on the comic, this is probably the best of the 70s Dalek strips, with a strong and fairly logical plot and some nice artwork, especially of the Dalek city, which faithfully depicts what was seen back in 1963. It’s just a shame the Doctor warns the Daleks he’s going to land them in the sun mere seconds before he does it. Interesting fact: Finney is probably not the real name of this strip’s stand-in companion (who has done stretches as an inmate in Pentonville, Parkhurst and Wormwood Scrubs), as he mentions the ‘real’ Professor Finney.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 63 - 70
COVER DATES: 29 April 1972 - 17 June 1972
ON TV: The Mutants - The Time Monster (Season 9)
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 7, June 1992

After being caught in the blast of a galaxy going nova, the TARDIS arrives on a strange desert planet. He sees a couple of the inhabitants, but they - fearful because he is neither a norm nor a mute - run away. However, he is soon cornered by a  guard on a six-legged camel. The guard is a mute and has superhuman strength. The Doctor looks set to lose his fight when the two inhabitants, Gleet and Brod, step in. They take the Doctor to their secret base, but here the Doctor is in for a shock, for the building hidden beneath the sands is the British Museum.

The last human survivors of the year 5000 reveal that the Mutes are mutations, but they are prospering while the humans are dying out. However, Brod believes that the Doctor is the only person capable of changing things - in TARDIS. The Doctor agrees and, as the base comes under attack from the warlike Mutes, he and Brod escape back to TARDIS. However, the ship has been captured by the Mutes and is being lifted in a net beneath one of the their airships. The Doctor grabs hold of the net and is taken back to the Mute base, which is in a medieval castle, but is soon captured and taken before the Mute leader who wants to know how TARDIS works.

The Doctor attempts escape but is stopped and recovers consciousness aboard an airship, TARDIS dangling beneath it on a rope. The leader demands he draw how TARDIS works or his ship will be destroyed. However, the airship comes into the path of a tornado and the leader believes the Doctor has conjured it. The two men fight, but the leader plunges to his death. Doctor Who makes a daring escape down the rope to TARDIS and cuts it free. He and the ship plunge into the sand mere seconds before the airship crashes and burns. But when the Doctor recovers consciousness, TARDIS has been completely buried in the sand.

It turns out that the last humans dragged TARDIS back to their base, and now they take Doctor Who back there. They tell him that the war that devastated Earth originated in the biological experiments of American scientist Theodore Cassells in 1873. The Doctor and Brod travel back in time to ancient New York to try to dissuade the scientist from publishing his discoveries, but Professor Cassells refuses to accept their word. Brod suggests showing him TARDIS, but when they return to the dock where the Doctor materialised, TARDIS is being lifted aboard a ship. The Doctor gets Brod and Cassells aboard then pays the Captain to take them as passengers. However, Cassells is unable to accept the wonders of TARDIS and, driven almost insane, he panics the crew who all evacuate the ship in a lifeboat as a storm begins to build. Cassells goes with them, talking of devils.

Suddenly, Brod fades away and the Doctor realises his mission to change the future has succeeded. He surmises that Cassells and the crew must have drowned leaving the ghost ship to sail on alone. What he doesn’t know is that the ship is called the Marie Celeste...

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
There is some inconsistency in the writing of this strip. For example, the last humans at first have no idea who the Doctor is but then reveal that they know all about him from the books in the British Museum’s reading room. The Doctor returns the favour later, calling one of the human survivors Brod even though he’s never been told the man’s name. However, the story is a fairly good one, and the inclusion of the Marie Celeste is a clever idea, even if it does contradict events seen in The Chase. Brod is not as well defined as previous temporary companions, but probably counts as the ugliest assistant the Doctor ever had either in the comic strip or on TV, looking rather like Guffy, the finger-wiggling presenter of 1970s children’s TV show Fingerbobs.

The TARDIS is dragged halfway across the universe by the power of the Ugrakks. At the last moment, the Doctor manages to break free and materialise in the planet’s inhospitable jungle of lichen and fungus, but he is soon captured by Fabus the Ugrakk who tries a ruse of friendliness to get the Doctor to accompany him back to the city then, when this fails and the Doctor attempts escape, shows his mastery over the living fungus in the jungle to recapture the Doctor.

In the city, which is a giant, living fungus, the Doctor meets Demur, leader of the Ugrakks. Demur proclaims mastery over the Doctor, and when the Doctor refuses to submit, he is thrown into the punishment chamber where fungus spores begin to grow on him. He is forced to cooperate before the spores start to feed. The Ugrakks have mastery over the fungus but their powers are weakening because the fungus is weakening. They want the Doctor, who they know to be a Time Lord, to give them the secret of transmaterialisation so they can move to a new world. Also a captive is Professor Lammers from 20th century Earth, who crashed on the Ugrakk world in his spaceship. It was he who told them about the Doctor.

Further discussion is interrupted by an attack of gigantic Zama flies, natural enemies of the Ugrakks. The Doctor and Professor Lammers use the attack to escape the Ugrakk city by clinging to the legs of a Zama fly. However, the Ugrakks use deadly spores to attack the Zama fly and the Doctor and Lammers are forced to jump into the jungle below. Escaping the Ugrakk spores, the Doctor and Lammers enter a cave and tumble down into a Zama fly nest. There they discover that the nest is filled with a substance like nitrate - the whole nest is a potential bomb.

Following an underground river, they discover the roots of the Ugrakk city, which are being slowly eaten by Zama grubs. The Doctor tries to get closer as Ugrakks appear to repair the damage, but he is heard. However, throwing a stone to burst the Ugrakks’ protective bubbles exposes them to the nitrate and they die.

While the Ugrakks prepare an expedition into the underworld to destroy Lammers and the Doctor, the pair make it back to the heart of the Zama nest where the Doctor causes an explosion which dislodges hundreds of Zama eggs. These float down to the roots of the Ugrakk city, hatch and begin to destroy it far quicker than before. The Ugrakk city begins to tremble, but the Ugrakks are attacked from the air by the Zama flies who wipe them out.

Professor Lammers reveals that the Ugrakks were a type of fungus themselves, hence their mastery over the planet’s flora and why the Zama flies attacked them. The planet rid of its evil, he and the Doctor prepare to leave in the TARDIS.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This story is the one where, famously, the monster was created by a TV Action reader, that being the Ugrakks by Ian Fairningon. This might be where the problems start, but it’s certainly not where they end. At one point the Doctor cries ‘Take that, you hideous nightmare’ as he lobs a rock at an approaching Ugrakk, which not only feels out of character and probably there more to assure Ian Fairnington that his monsters are indeed hideous, but given that they look rather like elephants they’re patently not in the slightest bit hideous and also not even particularly fungus-like, which makes it hard to accept Lammers statement that the Ugrakks are a type of fungus.

We are also supposed to accept that the Ugrakks can create a machine to draw the TARDIS halfway across the universe, but can’t construct a device either to get them off the planet or deal with the Zama flies. Also, how did they construct this device if - as they claim - there are no mineral deposits on the planet?

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Betsy finally becomes Bessie, and that is by far the best thing about this strip, apart from the artwork which is of the usual high quality. Unfortunately, Babbs’ plan is ridiculous and his constant helping of the Doctor makes absolutely no sense. However, despite his help it is painfully obvious that he will turn out to be the mysterious General Steelfist because there simply isn’t anyone else it could be. Easily the worst strip in a long, long time.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 89 - 93
COVER DATES: 28 October 1972 - 25 November 1972
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 15, January 1994

Attempting to visit his friend Doctor Trent, the Doctor is just in time to see the man and his son kidnapped. He gives chase in Bessie, but ends up being kidnapped too. He recovers consciousness in the enemy base just in time to see the mysterious General Steelfist and Trent and his son transmatted away. However, before he can act he is bundled into a car which is pushed over a cliff. He makes it out and ashore and is there befriended by a strange old beachcomber called Arnie Babbs. Doctor Trent meanwhile finds himself orbiting the Earth in a satellite. Steelfist tells him he will obey or his son will die.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Frank Langford

REPRINTS: None

After having his Rolls Royce serviced at a new garage, Sir Henry Felton, electronics expert who is working on a form of matter transmitter, is driven under police escort for an important meeting with Doctor Who. However, when the car arrives, Felton has vanished.

The Doctor also takes a journey in the Rolls, and finds himself transported out if it via matter transmitter to the same place as Felton. They soon meet their host - a peaceful alien from Proxima Centauri in the Crab Nebula who wants to stop the humans from developing matter transmission technology and spreading warfare throughout the galaxy. However, the Doctor left a note in the car alerting the authorities that the source of the matter transmission was the garage, and soon the army move in. Against violence, the aliens depart, but Felton is now aware of the dangers his new invention could pose

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Another strip warning of the perils of thoughtless progress, it’s a wonder a generation of kids didn’t grow up wanting a return to a pre-industrial era. This story is actually rather good and fits its length perfectly.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Nick Willard is the first black Doctor Who companion - official! Long before Sharon, Mickey Smith or Martha Jones, Nick Willard was fighting aliens and asking ‘What is it, Doctor?’

This story is fairly good, though why the Zerons (no relation to the Zerons from The Enemy from Nowhere) don’t attempt another plan that doesn’t involve their neutraliser is anyone’s guess, particularly as they are clearly highly advanced. It also isn’t clear why the Doctor and Nick remain unaffected when the Zerons reactivate the neutraliser, nor why, when the Zeron ray bounces back on their ship, it also miniaturises them, but these are minor points in an enjoyable story that has plenty of excitement and some very nice visuals.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUE: 104
COVER DATE: 10 February 1973
ON TV: Carnival of Monsters (Season 10)
REPRINTS: Firstly reprinted in Mighty TV Comic’s Doctor Who Winter Special 1977, with Jon Pertwee’s likeness replaced with Tom Baker’s (see here), then in Classic Comics Issue 19, April 1994

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

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
In some ways this strip - TV Action’s Big Picture Story of the   week - feels like the weakling cousin of Timebenders from two years previous, if only because of its setting, but it is far inferior. The story feels hurried and crammed in, and again it just doesn’t feel like a Doctor Who story. The sudden absence of monsters from the strip might have fitted better with TV Action’s new  direction, but it sits quite badly with Doctor Who the series.

SCRIPT: Dick O’Neill
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 107 - 111
COVER DATES: 17 February 1973 - 31 March 1973
ON TV: Carnival of Monsters - Frontier in Space (Season 10)
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 20, May 1994

Whilst fishing in the Highlands of Scotland, the Doctor meets archaeologists Professor Barnes and Doctor Sanders who are investigating the Glen of Sleeping, the legendary resting place of Red Angus and his men who, it is said, wait in sleep for the next Stuart prince.

One of them discovers a set of bagpipes in a cave. Despite the Doctor’s protests, Doctor Sanders blows the pipes and summons Red Angus’ army from its slumbers before revealing himself to be the Master.

The Doctor escapes the Master and his army by causing a cattle stampede, then returns after nightfall to rescue Professor Barnes and his men, but Barnes has been abandoned: the Master and his army have gone to Loch Morag, location of a US Navy submarine base where they seize the USN Gettysburg, a nuclear submarine.

The Doctor meanwhile investigates the cave where Red Angus and his army slept and realises that it has been converted into a time trap using advanced machines called chronons, either by the Master or some other time traveller. The Doctor takes the two chronons, hoping to use them to thwart the Master’s plans.

The Master broadcasts his demends: either the Doctor’s TARDIS is handed over to him or he will use the Polaris missiles aboard the submarine to destroy every major city in Britain.

The Doctor goes to a nearby NATO base to try to dissuade the ministers there from attacking the submarine with a B-52. They give him just two hours. He and Barnes set the chronons up beneath a bridge on the river then lures the submarine beneath  it. Both the Doctor’s boat and the submarine are transported back to 1745 where they immediately come under Redcoat fire.

The Doctor and the Master join forces to escape back to the 20th Century. First they scuttle the submarine then head off to the Glen of Sleeping. However, en route they are cornered by Redcoats who have taken Red Angus and his men prisoner and forced them to reveal where the Doctor and the Master might be heading. The Master attempts to trick the Redcoats by claiming to be an agent of King George, but his plan backfires when Red Angus’ men apologise to their master for giving him away. In the confusion, the Doctor slips to the cave and uses the chronons already installed there as a bridge to cross to the 20th Century, leaving the Master to the mercy of the Redcoats.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is something of a return to form for the comic strip, with - surprisingly - the Master’s first comic strip outing. As the Master’s plans go, this one isn’t too outrageous, though the exact nature of the chronons seems to change from something creating stasis to something acting as a time bridge. Of course, the fact that the Doctor gets back to the present and Angus and his men never enter the cave means that the Doctor never had to travel back in time in the first place, thus creating a temporal paradox.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This is a better story than the previous Big Story outing for the Doctor, and the political situation that underpins the story feels depressingly real, but the Daleks’ invasion plan is vague at best and the story really needs a few more pages to give it room to develop.

SCRIPT: Denis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 116 - 119
COVER DATES: 5 May 1973 - 26 May 1973
ON TV: Planet of the Daleks - The Green Death (Season 10)
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 24, September 1994

On a desolate Cambrian mountainside sits Station 40, a revolutionary solar energy source for the whole country, though the locals have protested about it and there are ructions between project director Sir Nigel Lomax and his deputy Roger Perritt over safety issues. The ministry send in the Doctor and ministry man Peter Tait when Perritt makes a formal complaint.

After a demonstration of the solar equipment, the Doctor is in agreement with Perritt - the equipment could be highly dangerous, but what neither man knows is that Lomax is in league with aliens who consider the Doctor a threat - he must be killed.

While Peter Tait returns to London to continue his investigation, the Doctor stays on in Wales and goes with Perritt to investigate the rocks above the station. Here he discovers that the rocks are volcanic in origin. However, Lomax attempts to kill them both by pushing Perritt’s car over the cliff  where the men are working. Neither are harmed. Later that day, the Doctor receives a call from Tait - until ten years ago, Lomax was a noted geologist specialising in volcanoes. However, on an expedition in South America, Lomax entered an active volcano but was caught in an eruption. Miraculously, he escaped several days later, but he has never spoken of the incident since, though it appears he believes that volcanoes house a hostile alien life form.

The next day, Lomax tests the solar equipment, but he has also paid some of the locals to stage a riot outside. This is just what he needs to have the place evacuated of staff, however the Doctor remains behind undetected as Lomax lowers the defence shields and plans to use his equipment to create a new volcano in Wales. This will start a chain reaction, transforming the world into a planet of fire ideally suited to the alien life form that Lomax is working with.

But Lomax’s paid mob are too thorough and start demolishing the solar dishes which ends Lomax’s plan. The aliens retaliate by killing Lomax. The affair is at an end.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This story actually works better if you think of it as a sequel to Trial of Fire (TV Comic 985 - 991, see here), though I’m sure it was never intended as such. The obsessive Lomax who will stop at nothing to see his plan succeed recalls Professor Stahlman from Inferno, whilst a new source of energy in the Welsh valleys recalls The Green Death, which was on television as this strip was printed (surely a coincidence). There’s nothing much wrong with this strip, but it does feel a little lightweight and underdeveloped and could have done with a couple more instalments to ramp up the danger and make it feel considerably more substantial.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Frank Langford

COVER DATE: May 1973
ON TV: Planet of the Daleks - The Green Death (Season 10)

Using alien mist flowers from the planet Sarkan, the Master lures the Doctor to the seaside town of Tadcaster by shrouding the resort in a dense mist. The Doctor is effectively blinded by the fog, something the Master takes great delight in, but the Doctor has brought along his blind friend Joe. They pursue the Master to his hideaway at the end of the pier and, desperate to stop the mist flowers from blooming, the Doctor and Joe use the pier train to topple the flowers into the sea where they can do no more harm.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
A simple little story with some nice and extremely accurate visuals (clearly taken from series photographs) that makes good use of its seaside location. This is the second and last appearance of the Master in the regular contemporary comic strip, and he is characterised fairly well, although only seen clearly in two of the strip’s panels.

and track him to his lair beneath the Tower of London. The Brigadier goes on to warn the Tower whilst the Doctor slips inside, but Hingrad is waiting for him and traps him in a pair of medieval stocks with a canon pointed at his head. He plans to steal the Crown Jewels which he believes will put him in charge of the world. However, the Doctor escapes and thwarts Hingrad leaving him hiding in the Thames.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This story actually fits the seven page length quite well without feeling particularly hurried or shallow, and Soton’s plan to trick the Time Lords is a neat one, even if it doesn’t fool either them or the Doctor for one moment. The Doctor’s solution to the problem is also rather neat. This strip features Time Lords for the first time in the Third Doctor strip, and they are quite unlike those seen in the TV series during this period!

SCRIPT: Dick O’Neill
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUE: 123
COVER DATE: 23 June 1973
ON TV: The Green Death (Season 10)
REPRINTS: Firstly reprinted in Mighty TV Comic’s Doctor Who Winter Special 1977, with Jon Pertwee’s likeness replaced with Tom Baker’s (see here), then in Classic Comics Issue 27, December 1994

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

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

Entering the missile bay, the Doctor tampers with one of the missiles and triggers its launch before he is captured by Soton’s men. Soton demands the Doctor take a small party to Raffar to destroy the force field that surrounds the planet or he will be tortured into submission. The Doctor agrees.

However, aboard the missile that he launched he also concealed a small transmitter that forewarns the Rafs of attack, and when the TARDIS materialises it is surrounded and Soton and his men arrested. The space invasion then fails to penetrate the force field and the Far race is doomed.

SCRIPT: Dennis Hooper
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 125 - 129
COVER DATES: 7 July 1973 - 4 August 1973
REPRINTS: Classic Comics Issue 27, December 1994.

Whilst going bird watching in Betsy, the Doctor and young Tom Phipps, son of naturalist Brian/John Phipps, are caught in a strange tornado. When the tornado subsides, he is keen to get Tom home, but his whole house has vanished. Luckily his parents are safe. The Doctor surmises that the tornado was not natural and searching for something, probably himself, so that night he camps out in a tent. His suspicions are proven correct when the tornado returns, but Tom has come to see if the Doctor is safe, and both are swept up by the unnatural force and delivered to an alien world.

Tom and the Doctor are tested with visions of beautiful gardens and giant two-headed snakes, but eventually meet their real host, a giant eye on a stalk, which imprisons them in a strange alien zoo.

The Doctor and Tom fake food poisoning to escape. The Doctor realises they have been collected by a biological computer and finds the controlling glands. Using Tom’s pen  knife, he reverses the gland inlets, which returns them to Earth. The other specimens will be returned before the strange alien vessel returns home.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
This strip starts quite promisingly, but seems to fall apart once the Doctor and Tom have been abducted. It feels hastily written and with little sense of logic. The solution also feels hurried and unsatisfying. Bessie is back to being called Betsy - and for the first time in the strip, the Doctor says the name. In fact, names are something of a problem in this strip, as Tom’s father changes his name from Brian in the first part to John in the second. The Doctor also refers to light years as a measurement of time rather than space.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUE: 131
COVER DATE: 18 August 1973
REPRINTS: Firstly reprinted in TV Comic’ Holiday Special 1978, with Jon Pertwee’s likeness replaced with Tom Baker’s (see here), then in Classic Comics Issue 27, December 1994.

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

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

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

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

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
For once, the Brigadier and UNIT get a name check, though a fat lot of good it does the Doctor. For once with a Big Story, there is probably too little plot here to sustain its length, and Colonel Higgs’ suspicions about the Doctor merely delay the story’s inevitable end. It’s not a bad little tale, though, just rather lightweight, a sort of reworking of Hitchcock’s The Birds, with added explanation and greatly reduced suspense.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 1139 - 1147
COVER DATES: 13 October 1973 - 8 December 1973
REPRINTS: None

Having deposited Oswald on some distant planet, the Doctor and Arnold are making the return journey when they spot some sinister spaceships heading into a supernova. The Doctor attempts to warn them but is repaid with a rocket attack that damages the ship and threatens to plunge it into the same supernova. However, when the temperature aboard the TARDIS fails to rise, the Doctor begins to doubt that it is a supernova, and his suspicions are proven correct when they enter a hidden solar system.

They land on a primitive world and are forced to shelter in a cave from an attacking pterodactyl. Exploring the cave, they see one of the sinister ships enter and descend into an underground space port. Climbing down what appear to be ropes, they soon discover they are on a gigantic spider’s web, and soon captured by their bizarre spider-like hosts and presented to their leader. He reveals that they are Spidrons, and he is the only intelligent being, the others being mindless drones. His survival is vital to the survival of the species, so to keep his intelligence from ageing they abduct alien species from other worlds.

The Doctor and Arnold escape, but soon find themselves on the surface again hunted by Spridrons and threatened by a dinosaur. Luckily it finds the Spidrons tastier than the time travellers. However, soon they are attacked by another dinosaur and Arnold is knocked unconscious. They are saved by a tribe of primitives who imprison them in a cave where they see strange cave drawings predicting that they will defeat the Spridrons. They win the confidence of the tribe, build weapons and attack the Spidron city, destroying it completely.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
After a strong opening, the artwork for this strip becomes uncharacteristically sketchy, and unfortunately so does the narrative, perhaps suggesting that this story was written very close to the deadline. The opening is fairly strong, the middle section with the dinosaur attacks is nothing more than shameless filler, and the ending is rushed and unsatisfying in its brevity.

Perhaps the most notable element of this strip is the Spidrons themselves, who are a striking mix of spider and Treen, and the images of the Doctor and Arnold bound up in webs and their subsequent confrontation with the Spidron leader are remarkably similar to images the audience would later see on television in Planet of the Spiders.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Steve Livesey

REPRINTS: None

For the third time in as many months, a U.N. ship taking radioactive isotopes and electrical equipment to a nuclear power station in the Antarctic is attacked by war machines from other eras. The Doctor and Jo are called in by UNIT to investigate, and they dive down to the wreck of the U.N. ship where they see some strange men. They give chase but the men flee inside a force field, leaving the Doctor and Jo to be attacked by a giant Ekayprian sea monster. Escaping the monster and penetrating the force field, the Doctor and Jo find themselves transported to the planet Ekaypia where they are soon captured by the Ekayprians. The Master has hypnotised them into making him their leader, but the Doctor hypnotises their guard in the same way, switches the circuits in the matter transporter then escapes with Jo. When the Master switches on the transporter to send his army to Earth, the machine explodes, ending the Master’s plan.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
That the aliens look like the devil immediately evokes memories of Azal and the Daemons, but it is a neat twist that these aliens turn out to be peaceful. Jo’s watch stops, cars will not start and lights fail, but the tannoy continues to operate just fine. The reactions of people around the world are amusing in their aptness. This strip isn’t bad, but it isn’t amongst the best either.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Jim Baikie

REPRINTS: None

TARDIS is dragged down onto an inhospitable planet that does not appear on the Doctor’s star charts. There the Doctor meets Harry Trent, first mate of space freighter ‘Ganelon’ from Aldebaran. The Doctor soon realises that the planet is alive, and his theory is proven when they are chased by a giant tentacle and only saved by a huge pink amoeba, a parasite that lives on the planet’s surface.

They escape by allowing themselves to be swallowed by an amoeba, which is then eaten by the planet. Taken down inside the planet they are able to rescue the TARDIS and pilot it to the creature’s heart, which they destroy, ending its threat forever.

primitive time machine in trouble. He rescues it and returns it to its own time and place - Treawtha Hall in 19th Century Cornwall, but the Time Lords prevent him from leaving. The other craft is piloted by Tobias Philby, owner of Treawtha Hall, and as he returns there, the Doctor slips from the TARDIS to explore. He starts with Treawtha village, but there finds local poacher Billy Truscott almost driven from him mind and talking of strange objects materialising on the Treawtha estate. The local rector says it confirms that the folk at the hall are dabbling in the black arts. He plans to raze the place to the ground - and with it the TARDIS.

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

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 1155 - 1159
COVER DATES: 2 February 1974 - 2 March 1974
ON TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs - Death to the Daleks (Season 11)
REPRINTS: None

Back on Earth, the Doctor is called in to investigate a bank robbery where a two-and-a-half ton steel door of a bank safe has vanished and the area is highly radioactive. Meanwhile, at a secluded country house, Max Sylvester and Professor Pillbright meet to discuss the bank haul, and Sylvester is advised to dispose of the loot because it too is dangerously radioactive. Professor Pillbright later makes contact with the Daleks, but he is observed through his window by a schoolboy neighbour named Peter. However, his intrusion is detected by the Daleks and Pillbright determines to destroy the spy.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 1160 - 1169
COVER DATES: 9 March 1974 - 11 May 1974
ON TV: Death to the Daleks - Planet of the Spiders (Season 11)
REPRINTS: None

The Doctor goes to Australia with radio astronomer Sir Humphrey Picton. At the giant new station, Orion, they are shown the largest, most powerful transmitter man has ever built to probe the skies. When the Doctor sees the size of the wave accelerator, he fears the station may cause damage on other worlds or attract the wrong sort of attention, and he asks the station controller Louis French to cancel its use. French refuses so the Doctor resorts to sabotage, but is thwarted and imprisoned.

The test on the accelerator goes ahead as planned, beaming out a message of peace, but the Doctor’s fears are soon proven correct as freak storms threaten the helicopter flying him back to the airport for deportation. The helicopter survives thanks to the Doctor’s quick thinking, but Orion station is devastated and French killed as he deactivates the accelerator. However, the Doctor is more concerned about the effect the accelerator wave will have on the world it is aimed at.

finds the surviving Morraxans. He pleads for the survival of Earth, but Catiba is determined. He loads the Doctor aboard a neutronic missile which is then fired at Earth.

The Doctor sabotages the missile and rediorects it back to Morrax. Meanwhile, the Morraxans, aware that it will be many centuries before they can inhabit the surface of their world again, send a plea to the Time Lords. As the missile approaches Morrax, the Doctor ejects the warhead, which explodes in the atmosphere, surrounding the planet in radiation. The Doctor manages to land in one piece and is quickly found by Catiba, who is ready to load him aboard a second rocket. However, the Doctor reveals that he is a Time Lord and can use the radiation in the atmosphere to create a time reverser. This he does, putting Morrax back to how it was before the accelerated wave struck it and giving the Morraxan scientists enough time to think of a way to minimise the damage the wave will cause.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Reference to the Abbo fence may not be exactly politically correct, but this story is a strong one. Just like The Amateur, it focuses on how destructive science can be if not allied with an equal intelligence, and it is nice to see that not all of the Morraxans believe revenge the best course of action. The ending perhaps strains credibility a little and is a touch too convenient, but that aside this is one of the best Third Doctor strips.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
Planets going nova and then turning into a galactic cyclone? What scientific gibberish is this?! Actually, the story itself isn’t too bad, and Sarah Jane - in her first ever comic strip adventure - is very nicely characterised. The Zirconians fair less well, being rather generic evil aliens and also rather less well drawn than the human cast, though the Brigadier has reverted slightly to looking like a rather emaciated second hand car salesman. The idea of chosen survivors sitting out a catastrophe foreshadows The Ark in Space by a good seven months.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Unknown

COVER DATE: May 1974
ON TV: Planet of the Spiders (Season 11)
REPRINTS: None

Tired of the motorcar, the Doctor takes Sarah to Paris, 1880, but it’s Paris, New Mexico, not Paris, France, as he’d intended. They are immediately thrust into a conflict between settlers and War Eagle and his Apaches. They soon end up in a wagon train encampment surrounded by Apaches, but the Doctor convinces the settlers to stage a diversion while he and Sarah sneak back to the TARDIS. They are in for a shock, though, as Chief War Eagle is waiting inside. They manage to overpower him and the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to Paris, France, but War Eagle recovers consciousness and escapes into the city. The Doctor corners him, but before he can do anything Buffalo Bill arrives, who is an old friend of War Eagle’s and keen for him to join his travelling Wild West show. The Doctor and Sarah leave, planning a picnic in 1974 beside the M1.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Unknown

COVER DATE: May 1974
ON TV: Planet of the Spiders (Season 11)
REPRINTS: None

Sarah distracts the Doctor’s attention whilst he is servicing the TARDIS causing a brief surge of power. Suddenly half a million pounds appears in the Doctor’s kitchen cupboard and his car vanishes. Trying to hitch a lift to the local police station, a motorist is alarmed at the sight of the Doctor - and his car is of a make not invented on Earth for another century. The Doctor realises they have been shunted sideways in time, but the biggest shock comes when they find criminal doubles of themselves. The Doctor causes another power surge in the TARDIS console and all four of them are transported - but to a primitive Earth where the Doctor and Sarah leave their doubles.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 1170 - 1176
COVER DATES: 18 May 1974 - 29 June 1974
ON TV: Planet of the Spiders (Season 11), The Sea Devils (edited repeat)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in TV Comic Issues 1424-1430 with Jon Pertwee’s likeness replaced with Tom Baker’s (see here).

Keen to return to Earth, the Doctor detects a ship over fifty kilometres long and is compelled to go and investigate. Following a meteorite storm, the TARDIS is detected by the ship a brought aboard, but the alien Mantis who control the ship are huge and able to hold the TARDIS in their hands, and when they tip the box, the Doctor is knocked unconscious. Eager to learn what they have, the aliens dunk the TARDIS in acid.

The acid has no effect, so the Mantis subject the TARDIS to deep x-ray and learn of its occupant. They force him from the craft with intense sound and, eager to learn how the TARDIS is larger on the inside than the outside, increase him in size to their own dimensions. They threaten his life to know the TARDIS’ secret, but further interrogation is disturbed by the arrival of a Tyrraxian/Tyrryxian battle fleet. The Doctor is reduced in size and imprisoned in a jar, but he escapes using sound waves to shatter the glass. The Mantis ship is likewise reduced in size to easily hide from the fleet.

Admiral Shotto of the Tyrryxians launches a robot probe to find the Mantis ship and a Mantis underling destroys it, effectively giving away their position. The Mantis leader knows they must return to full size within a few hours or risk damaging their  metabolisms, but believes the Doctor may be able to provide a solution to their problem. He despatches a scarab-like creature called a Scarus after the Doctor which captures him, but he is rescued by two Tyrryxians. It seems the Tyrryxians considered the Mantis mindless workers, until one of the Mantis mutated and developed purpose. It then took control of the other Mantis and stole the ship. The Tyrryxians stranded aboard miniaturised themselves to avoid detection. They also tell the Doctor that if the ship doesn’t return to its normal size soon then it will be stuck in those dimensions forever.

They hatch a plan, and the Doctor is delivered to the Mantis leader in the jaws of the Scarus. He then tricks the Mantis leader into shrinking down so they can enter the TARDIS. Once inside, the Mantis is overpowered by the Tyrryxians and the TARDIS grows back to its original size, bursting open the Mantis ship.

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
‘Inter-dimensional nonsense’ is how the Doctor describes this adventure in the last panel of the strip, and it would be difficult to disagree with him, though it’s a fun enough tale with some interesting-looking aliens and a nice use of the size control idea. Interesting fact: when the Mantis x-ray the TARDIS they see only the console room and three other chambers (one of which appears to be the police box itself). One of the captions reads ‘Awareness hits the Doctor like a disintegrating meteor’ which shows great enthusiasm for silly space talk but is virtually meaningless.

SCRIPT: Unknown
ART: Gerry Haylock

ISSUES: 1177 - 1183
COVER DATES: 6 July 1974 - 17 August 1974
REPRINTS: Reprinted in TV Comic Issues 1397-1403 with Jon Pertwee’s likeness replaced with Tom Baker’s (see here).

The Doctor finally makes it back to Earth, but in the Middle Ages, where he is quickly charged with stealing the local Lord’s deer, taken before Sir Geoffrey De Beauvain and soon committed to death, but he is watched by a mysterious hooded stranger. In gaol, he meets Haval, one-time Sergeant at Arms to the Lord of Castle Beauvain, but Beauvain’s returning brother Waldeau brought with him a magaician named Signus. Signus placed the Lord in a deep hypnotic trance. He will die in time and Waldeau will seize power without suspicion being raised. The Doctor and Haval escape their cell, but Signus is watching them with the aid of magic and finally confronts them. He conceals them in his quarters.

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

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

ALTERED VISTAS SAYS:
There is much to commend this strip, including a very nice sense of period conjured with some good art and suitably period-sounding dialogue, and strong characterisation, but - although the Doctor makes it clear that Signus’ magic is nothing but hocus pocus - it is clearly shown to work in the strip, as Signus spies on the Doctor from afar using his cauldron, places Sir Geoffrey in a deep trance and summons apparitions. The Doctor even admits to there being power in the alignment of the planets! So where this strip falls down is in its lack of clarity and consistency, but it’s still a refreshing change from the more usual space adventure and invading monsters.