Doctor Who Graphic Novel #1: The Iron Legion


Illustrated by Dave Gibbons and scripted by Pat Mills, John Wagner & Steve Moore (Panini Books)
ISBN: 978-1-904159-37-7

The British love comic strips and they love celebrity and they love “Characters.” The history of our homegrown graphic narrative has a peculiarly disproportionate amount of radio comedians, Variety stars and film icons and television actors: such disparate legends as Charlie Chaplin, Flanagan & Allen, Shirley Eaton (“The Modern Miss”), Arthur Askey, Winifred Atwell, Max Bygraves, Jimmy Edwards, Charlie Drake and so many more long forgotten.

As well adored and adapted were actual shows and properties such as Whacko!, ITMA, Our Gang (a British version of the Hal Roach film sensation by Dudley Watkins ran in The Dandy as well as the American comicbook series by Walt Kelly), Old Mother Riley, Supercar, Thunderbirds, Pinky and Perky, The Clangers and literally hundreds more.

Hugely popular anthology comics such as Radio Fun, Film Fun, TV Fun, Look-In, TV Tornado, TV Comic and Countdown translated our viewing and listening favourites into pictorial joy every week, and it was a pretty poor star or show that couldn’t parley the day job into a licensed comic property…

Doctor Who premiered on black-&-white televisions across Britain on November 23rd 1963 with the first episode of ‘An Unearthly Child’. In 1964 his decades-long association with TV Comic began: issue #674 offered the premier instalment of ‘The Klepton Parasites’.

On 11th October 1979 (although adhering to the US off-sale cover-dating system so it says 17th), Marvel’s UK subsidiary launched Doctor Who Weekly. It became a monthly magazine in September 1980 (#44) and has been with us – under various names – ever since. All of which only goes to prove that the Time Lord is a comic hero with an impressive pedigree.

Panini’s UK division is in the ongoing process of collecting every strip from its archive in a uniform series of over-sized graphic albums, each concentrating on a particular incarnation (those in the know refer to them as “regenerations”) of the deathless wanderer. This particular tome was the very first, gathering 36 weekly monochrome strips from the first 38 weeks, all drawn, inked and lettered by International Treasure Dave Gibbons and published between 11th October 1979 and July 3rd 1980.

In fact, the Doctor Who stories were amongst the last regular comics work the artist created for the British market before being scooped up by the Americans as part of the early 1980s “British Invasion”.

All that and more is covered in the comprehensive ‘Dave Gibbons Interview’ conducted by Alan Woollcombe which precedes the frantic tales plucked from the annals of history featuring the Fourth Doctor (AKA Tom Baker). Thanks to the skills of writers Pat Mills & John Wagner (who plotted the yarns together but alternated as solo-scripters for completed stories) and latterly Steve Moore, the adventuresome episodes combine thrills, fights and scares with a suitable degree of surreal humour and whimsical Anglophilic cultural nonsense…

The cosmic comics carnage kicks off with a ‘The Iron Legion’ (originally seen in Doctor Who Weekly #1-8: 11th October to December 5th 1979) with Mills providing dialogue as the wandering Time Lord lands in a contemporary English village just as it is attacked by robot soldiers from a parallel plane where the Roman Empire never fell.

Taken as a prisoner across the dimensional divide, The Doctor faces formidable opposition from the tyrannical mechanical General Ironicus, bratty boy-Emperor Adolphus and his terrifying mother Juno.

However, as the gob-smacked Gallifreyan strives to survive the worst trials and tribulations the all-conquering empire can throw at him, he realises that there is an even greater evil controlling the toga-draped elite: immortal alien devil Magog and his arcane brethren The Malevilus.

Escape is no longer the issue: The Doctor needs to stop a ghastly scheme to enslave and consume the entire universe…

Wagner did the typing for next serial ‘City of the Damned’ (DWW #9-16: 12th December 1979 – January 30th 1980) as our hero attempts to enjoy a little downtime in placid Benidorm but instead ends up in grim metropolis Zombos, where all emotion has been outlawed and the citizens submit to mind-altering procedures to keep the all-pervasive state sound and stable.

Captured by the passionless Moderators, The Doctor is only saved from surgically-induced emotional lobotomy by daring – possibly deranged – rebels fighting to restore feeling to the People.

When one of their number unleashes a doomsday bio-weapon that thrives on the lack of emotion, the Time Lord and his ZEPO (Zom Emotional People’s Organisation) allies. The immortal wanderer has to think – and feel – fast to save the population and restore feeling to the endangered masses…

The next two tales were fill-ins and our ongoing saga resumes with the strip from #19 as, still searching for a seaside retreat, The TARDIS next dumps the increasingly harried Doctor in the English town of Blackcastle. The BBC news is full of denials that a starship has crashed into the local steelworks, but schoolgirl Sharon Davies and her friend Fudge know better. After all, they have already befriended ‘The Star Beast’ (February 20th – April 9th) that was hiding in the wreckage and promised to hide it from its enemies…

The Doctor has already met them but believes he’s successfully escaped the contingent of Wrarth Warriors. He is blissfully unaware that they have implanted a devasting bomb in his stomach for the moment he finally meets their elusive prey Beep the Meep…

Even after escaping that near-death experience, the gullible Gallifreyan is unaware of quite who and what’s he’s dealing with in a devious tale where no-one and nothing are quite what they seem…

And to make things even more complicated, by the time the stardust settles, Sharon has moved into the TARDIS as his latest companion…

The Mills & Wagner stories – originally created as prospective TV adventures – conclude in deep space and an indeterminate future as The Doctor and Sharon encounter space truckers Joe Bean and Babe, servicing the colony worlds of the New Earth System. What nobody knows at this stage is that the planets are under attack by highly infectious lycanthropic horrors dubbed ‘The Dogs of Doom’ (DWW #27-34: 10th April – June 5th).

As the creatures ravage the young planets, eradication seems certain, and doubly so once the infected Doctor discerns that the werewolves are merely tools of his greatest enemies – the Daleks!

This stunning, sterling trade paperback concludes with the first story by veteran British comics stalwart Steve Moore and the threat of ‘The Time Witch’ (DWW #197-202: June 12th to 3rd July).

Before Earth formed, psychic adept Brimo was imprisoned in a timeless cell for misusing her powers. From her crystal cage she saw galaxies rise and fall and raged to be free…

That joyous moment occurred when the dashing time meddler’s TARDIS accidentally interfaced with a blank universe, freeing her and granting her the power to reshape reality. Unfortunately for her, The Doctor realised that those conditions applied to anybody trapped in that unformed region, and in a battle of wills and imagination his brain was second to none…

Sheer effusive delight from start to finish, this is a splendid book for casual readers, a fine shelf addition for dedicated fans of the show and a perfect opportunity to cross-promote our particular art-form to anyone minded to give comics another shot…
All Doctor Who material © BBCtv. Doctor Who, the Tardis, Dalek word and device mark and all logos are trademarks of the British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence. Dalek device mark © BBC/Terry Nation 1963.All other material © its individual creators and owners. Published 2004 by Panini. All rights reserved.