Sunday, July 25, 2021

Top Five Doctor Who Magazine Comic Stories: The Fourth Doctor

I got through the Doctor Who Magazine stories for the new Who Doctors (with the exception of Thirteen, as hers are still ongoing,) so I figured I’d circle back around to the classic Doctors. For One, Two, and Three, they only have the odd comic or two that was made long after their tenures on the show, since Doctor Who Magazine, and its precursor Doctor Who Weekly, wasn’t around until later. So, Four was the first classic Who Doctor to have a regular comic run. Personally, I think the comics grew up substantially over the years and plenty of Four’s stories don’t compare to the later stuff, but I still have my favorites, which are as follows.

 

Victims

First of all, anything with Romana is a win, so there’s that. The Doctor and Romana II head to a planet filled with the galaxy’s finest fashions so the Doctor can replenish the TARDIS wardrobe, but naturally they run into a dastardly alien plot. In between the conspiracy and murder mystery, I love watching the Doctor make a poor tailor’s head nearly explode at the sight of his trademark ensemble.

 

City of the Damned

The oldest stories on the list, the Doctor Who Weekly ones, come in shorter installments with wilder, pulpier stories. Some of them make me roll my eyes, but sometimes they’re just shlocky good fun. Case in point? “City of the Damned,” wherein the Doctor arrives in a city where all emotion has been made illegal (Four in an environment where he can’t emote? You know he’s not going more than five steps without getting arrested!) I like the ragtag band of rebels who have a very dedicated, albeit misinformed, means of keeping emotion alive, and the outrageous climax manages to earn its ending pretty well. This is a tried-and-true sci-fi premise cranked up to 11 on the B-movie scale, but I get a kick out of it.

 

The Star Beast

The introduction of Beep the Meep! When two English kids discover an adorable alien fuzzball, they’re pulled into a wild adventure involving intergalactic conflict, mind control, and a despicable war lord. It’s also our introduction to Sharon, a comic-only companion who rolls with the Doctor for a while. The shtick with the Meep might be a little obvious, but it’s still entertaining. Also, there’s this whole running gag where K9 is malfunctioning to think he’s a cat – again, obvious, but it cracks me up!

 

Dreamers of Death

I’m a sucker for a good “dream-world that turns deadly” yarn. Here, the Doctor and Sharon journey to a planet where collective dreaming has become a favorite recreational pastime. The scenarios are constructed by professional dreamers, who then transmit the dream into the consciousness of a group of people through the aid of technology and a psychic alien symbiote. What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

End of the Line

The Doctor finds himself on a subway line in a post-apocalyptic undercity, where the tunnels are menaced by roving bands of cannibals – obviously. I like the Mad Max vibe/aesthetic, especially the cannibal leader with a chainsaw for a cybernetic arm and a human sniffer-dog on a chain. Naturally, the Doctor makes for a delightfully-bizarre square peg in such a grim, gritty round hole.

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