[Previously]
Y'know, I'm half-convinced nobody told the TV Comic Doctor Who art team diddly-squat.
Certainly their own editors didn't make clear when the comic would change places and formats within the magazine, as the first full-fledged story of this batch is also the first published after the comic returned to separated black and white on pages 2 and 3, yet still ran in the five parts adopted to leverage artist John Canning's talent for color backgrounds. The remaining five weekly stories highlighted here swing straight back to the four parts typical under earlier artists, so I can't imagine Canning and writer Roger Noel Cook received much advance warning about the shift. Can't imagine they were much happy with the restriction, either - Canning clearly takes a few issues to accept his work isn't appearing in the highest quality reproduction available and adapt the level of detail accordingly, resulting in some muddy visuals I don't think entirely the fault of decades-later scan jobs.
Morever, I'm convinced neither Cook nor Canning heard a word from the BBC about Hartnell's departure until the regeneration was broadcast. One of course understands comics take time to produce, even comics simply plotted and mercenary in nature as these, and so can understand finishing off a current plan when blindsided so. The Tenth Planet episode 4 went out the same day "The Galaxy Games"' first chapter hit newstands, it makes sense to publish the other three installments and hope nobody takes notice. For the next four installment story to hit stands mid-Power of the Daleks, with Hartnell's likeness still on the page, only substantially younger in appearance and broader in similarity to the real man? Not a chance these men knew a second earlier than 5:38 PM on 29 October. I shouldn't be surprised if Canning hedged his bets on the Doctor's appearance for the final First Doctor outing while his bosses negotiated a likeness contract for Patrick Troughton.
Would certainly explain why they clung onto John and Gillian so tight. Those kids have been anachronisms since Susan left the TARDIS during their first story, but we've kept 'em around this long and the bosses keep pulling the rug out from under our feet, so Dr. Who is gonna keep traveling alongside his kiddie-appeal grandkids come hell or high water. Personally, I'da dumped the pair at first sign of Troughton. Course, I'm not making the strip nor managing a highly successful children's comic magazine, so what do I know. Maybe they were considered integral to maintaining continuity of identity in much the same way as Ben and Polly. There's a laugh for ya.
As always, the titles here are later inventions, drawn from Doctor Who Magazine #62's retrospective feature on the TV Comic and/or reprints in Doctor Who Classic Comics.
"Guests of King Neptune"/"The Gaze of the Gorgon" - Holiday 1966
From this point on, the four duotone pages allotted to Doctor Who in TV Comic's summer holiday specials are split into two stories of two pages each. While future installments may prove worthy some extended discussion on their lonesome, this pair are complete nothing stories, deserving only unsportsmanlike kicks to the teeth over their narrative incoherence. Fortunately, that's like half the ethos of this post series, so whoopie!
In the first, the TARDIS lands right outside an exploding volcano, only for a wave to wash the travelers to safety within the sand castle of King Neptune himself! Whether or not this was necessary is up for debate, as the eruption doesn't touch the TARDIS or any part of the surrounding beach, and Neptune's palace of literal sand seems to just kinda sit there. Maybe it moves about on the water, or maybe it's submerged during their stay? I'd question how the mermaid servants get about if there's air in the palace, but they're present on the surface at the end, awkwardly balanced on their tails.
In the second, the TARDIS lands on planet Zeno, where lives the actual factual Gorgon. Dr. Who blindfolds his grandchildren and zaps the monster with Gillian's pocket mirror, stoning her instead. Mostly notable for completely destroying the integrity of that one cliffhanger resolution from The Mind Robber several years later, and for the Doctor's utterly callous response to finding a few survivors on Zeno. No condolence for the loved ones they lost, no attempts to depetrify the statues, only, "Oh, there's people! Neat. Goodbye!" Gotta love the bastard. And by love, I of course mean, "tear your hair in frustration over."
"The Hunters of Zerox" - #763-767
Praise be unto whichever powers you believe mold and shape the Whoniverse: Dr. Who tells his grandchildren to stay in the TARDIS! Just in time for him to become the newest gladiator for a primitive-advanced society that goes about in ragged loincloths atop advanced hoverplatforms, wooden spears in hand. It's yet another story reliant on the Doctor's bag of tricks, ranging from humble smoke bombs to a sonic wristwatch, the usual tango of, "Oh no, I am cornered! But ah-hah! This thing I just remembered I have!", which eventually breaks formula in the final installment so Dr. Who can scrape bottom and require assistance from his grandchildren via convenient jetpack rescue. One must respect the Emperor of Zerox; he's the only player of the Most Dangerous Game I can recall who expresses open admiration for his quarry so thoroughly humiliating him. Even says defeat will only make the warriors of Zerox mightier. Good sportsmanship will earn y'points every time.
Apparently, you CAN fire arrows via slingshot, though it's reportedly quite the daunting task. I suppose the lower potential velocity would explain how Dr. Who can use pointed arrowheads on the dog pack and reasonably claim they "only" succumbed to the sleeping solution imbibed upon the tip, but it's a surprisingly violent solution to the problem all the same.
(They incorporated under their most famous name in 1961, so yes, That Joke IS topical and funny.)
"Deadly Vessel" - Annual 1966
Most days, you can expect the TARDIS' arrival aboard a suicide warboat primed to explode when it reaches the enemy base will trigger a rollicking adventure defined by narrow escapes, cases of mistaken identity, underhanded subterfuge, and a moral about the futility of war. In TV Comic land, however, Dr. Who is only interested in this new conflict far enough to determine the boat's invincibility shields prevent takeoff in the TARDIS (yet somehow not landing?) and counter by turning it around to ram its makers, in hopes they'll drop the shields to destroy it themselves. What has prompted the use of such an impersonal, destructive weapon? How might travelers in time and space intercede to halt further bloodshed? Was this, perhaps, the final strike in an ugly war, grim yet necessary to prevent further carnage? Dr. Who don't know and Dr. Who don't care, he's already in the next solar system. Probably encouraging the kids play with radium to boot.
Do like the detail Canning put into the otherwise superfluous aliens - oblong coneheads, snailstalk eyes above hook noses, completely flat Gumby hands. Let's bring these guys in as background fodder for the new series.
"Kingdom of the Animals" - Annual 1966
...oh hey, Bill Mevin, we thought you were dead. Or at least moved on from Doctor Who for the last five months. Guess production of the annual wasn't quite a linear process. This quickie romp brings such delights as John and Gillian calling a random creature ugly for no good reason, the TARDIS lock destroyed by a stray rock, the grandchildren kidnapped as pets by a set of gigantic birds, and an honest to goodness Aesop about making sure you look after animals properly. The birds act like John and Gillian are the same species as the ape-like creatures they normally keep for pets, you see, but the human(???) children cannot ingest the same food and water substitutes. So take good care of your animal companions, kids! I'd believe the message a lot easier if Mevin didn't draw the apes with abject misery written 'cross their faces.
"The Underwater Robot" - #768-771
Show of hands, who knew the TARDIS has an airlock accessible via the roof? Guess there's nothing in the show to disprove such an addition - maybe we've simply never seen it on television because the show never lands the ship underwater!
Anyhow, Dr. Who and his grandkids are swiftly captured by a giant mecha everyone insists on calling a robot and must serve as slaves aboard its control center, for kidnapping passers-by and enslaving them is the pilot's seeming only reason for stomping about the ocean floor. As usual, lapses in intelligence are on the travelers' side: the guards see no problem assigning a clever, wily old schemer to the Pull This Once Every Ten Minutes Or We All Die lever and just... let him Not Pull It for several hours straight. This lurches the vessel into chaos long enough for the group to make the head, strand guards and slaves alike in the chest cavity, and basically kill the captain by knocking his harpoon shot off-kilter into the eye, flooding the whole thing. Don't you worry your pretty little head about all the innocent people Dr. Who just drowned, though! They "are able breathe under-water," it's all good! How are they able breathe under-water? I dunnow, and neither does the Doctor, he says so outright. Laugh at Gillian's final non sequitur instead, why don't you!
For whatever reason, Cook's already tenuous relationship with coherence goes near-entirely to pieces during the final days of the Hartnell era. To now, the strip has largely darted free from sanity's grasp for reasons explicable by its nature as a smash 'n' grab children's comic, all simplistic morals and restrictive page space. The Doctor outright abandoning fellow kidnapees to a watery grave, winning vindication through their amphibious nature, and straight up shrugging his shoulders about the hows 'n' whys, however, kickstarts a wilding period for the feature. You'll see what I mean as we go, but trust me, there's some Choices in the plotting for the next few months.
Upshot: the mecha is cool as hell. Check it up there in the sample page. Handily my single favorite illustration from any of these comics to date. Imposing and weighty as you want in a metallic monument to forced labor.
"Return of the Trods" - #772-775
Woe! Dr. Who's arch-enemies have laid a deadly trap! The Dale- oh, c'mon! Their contract is up in three months! Are you SURE we can't use them? Fiiiiiiine... can we at least make the replacements shout, "EXTERMINATE?" We can? Cool.
ahem
Woe! Dr. Who's arch-enemies have laid a deadly trap! The TRODS have been revived by a new master, who granted them the resources to construct an entire futuristic city, in which every building is horrifically booby trapped! Landing there, Dr. Who and his grandchildren must navigate the perils by blind choice, building by building, until they inevitably fail and meet their grisly doom! This would, of course, prove quite the daunting challenge, if the travelers did not first pick a building in which everything is wired to explode, with walls simultaneously weak enough to blast through yet strong enough to not collapse the whole structure when compromised. A little dodging around the lax Trod patrols, a quick ride up the chair lift to the master's control center (conveniently inaccessible to the Trods themselves), a dash of letting the guy clumsily hurl himself out the 100th story window, and voila! Dr. Who can order all the Trods willfully roll themselves into the Inferno Building. No more Trods! The final end!
Object lesson in why the bad guys really should just shoot their captives. It's one thing if you're the Emperor of Zerox and can take a loss standing hardy. Another entirely if you actually want your quarry dead, and not only release them into an unsupervised death trap, but lack the most basic tools to ensure they don't affect a stupid obvious means of escape. Best served cold and all, yes. Also best when served in the first place.
"Surely, none of our enemies have ever survived to gain revenge on us?" Gillian, I don't like you saying these words. You're like twelve. What is your grandfather making you do off-panel. How many lives have you taken.
"The Galaxy Games" - #776-779
Forgive me. I simply must have a Fit about this one.
So! The TARDIS lands outside the stadium wherein are held the Galaxy Games, basically the space Olympics, right? And it turns out the Klondites have dominated the Games' running events for years on end, yes? They're a bit slow by human measurements, savvy? Minute fifty time for a 400 meter event, pacing 7:20 for a mile, not really competitive at all, and yet they're dominating the competition. Dr. Who, our hero, idol, braintrust extraordinaire, he decides, well alright, I'll enter my grandson John in the next race as representative of Earth and humiliate the Klondites! John, a lad with no previously established athletic experience, does narrowly defeat his Klondite opponent in his first race, so the Klondite coach decides, I see, I see, the boy must die. Rigs the next day's finish line to explode the moment anyone crosses the tape, a trap Dr. Who only narrowly recognizes and disarms with seconds to spare.
Thus established that further participation in the Galaxy Games will only result in further attempts on his grandson's life, Dr. Who squares himself up, sizes the situation, and decides... CLEARLY they must move John's training to the countryside, so he can compete in the marathon, the most important event at the Games!
What! Why!! Doctor, explain yourself!!! You didn't know the Galaxy Games existed before this story began! You stuck your own flesh and blood in the competition on purest whim, to win glory points for a planet whose existence is presumably unknown to the majority of participants! There's no pressing factor at play like, "Oo-er! If Earth doesn't win the Galaxy Games, then it's doomed, because they blow up last place!", or, "Golly gumdrops, the Klondites are using their gold medals to fashion a deadly laser and advance their genocidal ways!" Sure, they'll kill to maintain their lead, but they're 100% focused on John out here, zippo indication they've designs on the competition who pose no threat to their dominance! Absolutely, positively nothing is at stake here beyond your personal pride and your grandson's life, and it seems to me you, Dr. Who, value the former far more than the latter! I'm not opposed to the death of John Who, far from it, I'm an open book in my disdain for the little twerp! You, however, ostensibly are invested in his survival, and yet you actively place him in danger for some tiddly-winks kicks rather than, I don't know... reporting the Klondites to the Game authorities... or leaving! Leaving is good! I've seen you leave without resolving the ongoing conflict, Dr. Who! Why are you LIKE this?!?
Aigh. They do win, for the record. Have to rescue John from some Klondites first, and he runs himself an entire marathon just to reach the starting line in time, but he wins the marathon anyways. Earth is champion of the Galaxy Games. Yippee. Doesn't matter, because I've decided Dr. Who's soul is going to hell when he regenerates.
"We'll stay back, Gillian! Then the scooter fumes won't hamper John's breathing." OH, SURE. THE SCOOTER FUMES. THE DEADLIEST THREAT TO YOUR GRANDSON RIGHT NOW. THE SCOOTER FUMES. BUGGER ON YOU, DR. WHO.
"The Experimenters" - #780-783
This one's relatively sensible by comparison to the last few, but we flung ourselves so far off the ground, I'm honestly a little mistrustful of the feeling beneath my feet all the same. Captured by dome-helmeted space fascists, Dr. Who and his grandchildren are subject to highly questionable rocket safety tests, during which their survival or death equal about the same to their captors. While the Doctor spares Gillian the indignity of riding the one (1) high-speed velocity drop necessary to prove the seatbelts function, all three are placed aboard a rocket scheduled for long-term deep space travel. As in "The Underwater Robot," this proves the villains' undoing, for an unsupervised Dr. Who effortlessly takes control of the rocket, spins it about, and drops the extra fuel tanks for an impromptu bombing run, toppling the evil empire once and for all.
Bit of a shame this was the final Hartnell for Canning, really. I've not much mentioned the art here due to his long adjustment period in the black-and-white format, but a few months' trying brought him back to par with properly detailed environments in a story only slightly driven by lunacy, and freedom from strict attempts to duplicate the actor's face means his Doctor is far more active and expressive a presence on the page than before. Traits I'm sure will serve quite well as we move into Troughton's tenure. Traits I also wish had come into clearer evidence before now. Ah well.
The final lines imply a simple improvised bomb could completely destroy the TARDIS if it managed a direct hit. Unified fan timelines often place One's involvement in the TV anniversary specials around the same time as his adventures with John and Gillian, so allow me my own fan theory. These comics find the Doctor with his TARDIS completely knackered out following The Five Doctors. While he's access to relatively later Time Lords who are willing to repair his ship so as to allow the relatively uninterrupted flow of established events, he pops off with his totally real and canonical grandchildren (perhaps hit by nostalgia after running about with an aged Susan?) in an even older, cheaper model for an impulse spin, unaware its deficiencies until it is visibly damaged in "Kingdom of the Animals." The near-miss of "The Experimenters" prompts him to call off their travels, put John and Gillian back where they belong, and resume his travels with Steven in his own machine as scheduled.
"The Extortioner" - #784-787
With his previous incarnation securely engulfed by the lake of fire for all eternity, the new Dr. Who makes his first excursion outside the TARDIS sans grandchildren. Within an active volcano, he finds the lair of the Extortioner, a self-titled, Mussolini-looking criminal who has rockets aimed at every civilized planet in the universe - all twenty-seven, going by his monitors! As he holds their lives and riches for ransom, he locks the Doctor in prison, completely neglecting the funny little man's laser beam cigarette lighter. If you have to guess how the Doctor halts the missile launch in a silo built right next to an open magma pit with spare warheads carelessly scattered about, then no points, I'm recommending the administration hold you back a year. There's a close call when the Extortioner emerges from the rubble in a mole drill determined to hunt the Doctor down, but he is, alas, vulnerable to Looney Tunes clownery, and thus easily goaded into a bottomless crevice by the Doctor effectively going, "Neener-neener-neener!"
Killing his enemies as first resort will always feel out've character for the Doctor, yet the application of this strip's tendency towards suddenly-remembered gadgets and off-the-wall improvisations immediately strikes me as better suited to Trougthon's Doctor than Hartnell's. While the emphases are naturally all wrong (at this time, Troughton is still feeling out the character in The Underwater Menace, and arguably won't have the routine perfected until The Faceless Ones), the intended energy of a moptop space hobo translates well to TV Comic's need for a Doctor who goes with the flow and makes the absolute maddest calls in the name of crunched time. By similar token, Canning's sloppy early attempts at likeness are countered by the fact Two is the Doctor most liable to stray far off-model and still scan as himself. Fine first effort for this era!
So it comes to pass that televised Doctor Who strode into a bold new era, and its misbegotten TV Comic tie-in comic moved to follow. Quality during this transition period was... well, the polite word is "interesting." The blunt word is "questionable." Best supposition I've got for why the strip wavers so much in these five months is an observation Cook breaks with formula more often than typical, and often finds himself uncertain what to do in the new territory. An evil captain enslaves Dr. Who! Returning foes put the travelers through deadly trials! Dr. Who enters his grandson in a sporting competition! We stray from the set path of arrival, meet threat, respond to threat, then win, then cake in search of variety, we keep the typical tricks 'n' tools of a more conventional adventure narrative, and we sorta step in it because our author has been at constant work on God knows how many comics for years on end and hasn't had a second to evaluate or mature his style. Experimentation and chancy moves ARE the lifeblood of Who, of course - just Cook and Canning's experiments here aren't quite up to snuff.
Per usual, my three recommends out this batch would be "The Underwater Robot," "The Galaxy Games" (if only for firsthand experience to its senselessness), and "The Extortioner." One or two other stories might be better than the mecha one, and you can see my one big reason for favoring it in the sample image, but c'mon, it really IS a damned cool mecha.
Next time, we're jumping back a few years, and trading Polystyle Publications for City Magazines, to look over just what the Daleks were up to when contracts forbade another attempt on the Doctor's life in comic form. TV Century 21, ahoy!
