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| Top: 'The Two Doctors' meet Bottom: The TARDIS lands in a variety of bizarre locations |
In
many ways my early “Doctor Who” stories “Dual” and “The Earthboom” are of
little interest except as examples of a time when both my storylines and
drawing style were possibly at their most sloppy and undisciplined. However despite the poor quality
of my writing and shoddy penciling, both four-parters do hopefully have some
elements of note within them.
“Dual” was a rather half-hearted attempt to bring
back one of my Doctor’s former companions, Susan Foreman and a duplicate First Doctor. It soon becomes
abundantly clear however that I quickly ran out of ideas for the adventure as
the tale swiftly degenerates into the Timelord simply meeting an earlier
version of himself and having to then briefly travel with him (and his
grand-daughter) in order to return to his own timeline’s co-ordinates.
The
story was clearly drawn in a hurry as well, as the inking is splotchy and
undisciplined, and many of the panels lack any background whatsoever. However the
plot does contain several references to genuine BBC “Doctor Who” television
serials, and I must have been heavily influenced by these adventures
at the time. As a result the TARDIS lands in Brisbane, Australia during World
War Three (Magnus Greel was the Butcher of Brisbane and started World War Six
in “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”), momentarily stops off in the year 1,000,000
B.C. (as does the real TARDIS in “An Unearthly Child”) and then briefly arrives
in sunken Atlantis (inspired by “The Time Monster”). Even the planet Skaro and
the Daleks make a single panel appearance before the Doctor is reunited with
his own TARDIS once again.
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| Top: The Ice Warriors are swiftly replaced by a Terminator Bottom: The Doctor blows up the Martian rocket |
I still remember that at the time of my drawing
“Doctor Who And The Earthboom” I was fleetingly filled with a lot of enthusiasm
for the story, as it heralded the long-awaited return of the Ice Warriors; one
of my favourite televised monsters. However my zeal for the tale quickly
evaporated when I started making mistakes drawing the Martians and as a result
I quickly removed their visible presence from the ‘screen’. Indeed after just a
handful of frames during the second part, and yet another poorly executed Ice
Warrior, they were never to be seen again.
Instead I replaced them with the
Terminator character, who had accompanied my Doctor’s companion Viki during her
initial story “Magma’s Return”. During that earlier two-parter I had only
implied that the bald-headed humanoid space policeman had been eaten by the
monster, Magma. In “The Earthboom” Viki discovers her former jailer was somehow
rescued by the Ice Warriors, cybernetically enhanced (i.e. given the trademark
ice Warrior clawed hands) and placed in charge of a rocket which had been built
in order to destroy the Earth. A complicated, convoluted and unbelievable plot
which only a young teenager could create.
In addition the story also gives my
companion the full name of Kame Viki… a massive departure from the televised
companion Vicky (Pallister) and in all honesty a bad mistake on my part.
However as with its predecessor “Dual”, it was clear that I was in something of
a rush to finish the tale and move on to the next one; my keenness for
reintroducing the Ice Warriors clearly having been already exhausted. Needless
to say the Doctor uses the TARDIS to land inside the Martian’s rocket, and blow
it up prematurely, rescuing both Steven Taylor and Viki in the process.
