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{{Infobox Comic|
{{title dab away}}
comic name= Profits of Doom |
{{real world}}
image= |
{{ImageLinkComics}}
series= [[Doctor Who Magazine comic strips|Doctor Who]] -<BR> [[Sixth Doctor Comic Strip Stories]]|
{{Infobox Story SMW
number=1|
|range          = DWM comic stories{{!}}DWM Comics
doctor= [[Sixth Doctor]]|
|number in range = 41
companions= [[Frobisher]], [[Peri]] |
|image          = Profits of Doom.jpg
enemy= |
|series         = [[DWM comic stories|''DWM'' comic stories]]
year= |
|doctor         = Sixth Doctor
writer= [[Mike Collins]]|
|companions     = [[Peri Brown|Peri]], [[Frobisher]]
artist= [[John Ridgway]]|
|enemy           = [[Seth (Profits of Doom)|Seth]]
publication_title= [[Doctor Who Monthly]] 120-122|
|setting        = ''[[Mayflower]]'', [[7 January]] [[2321]]
publication_dates= January - March [[1987]]|
|writer          = Mike Collins
publisher= [[Marvel Comics]]|
|penciller      = [[John Ridgway]]
format= Comic - 3 parts|
|inker          = [[Tim Perkins]]
previous story= [[Changes]]|
|editor          = [[Sheila Cranna]]
next story= [[The Gift]]|
|letterer        = [[Annie Halfacree]]
}}
|publication    = [[DWM 120]]-[[DWM 122|122]]
|release date    = 11 December 1986-12 February 1987
|publisher       = Marvel Comics
|format         = Comic
|epcount        = 3|reprint=The World Shapers (graphic novel)
|prev            = Changes (comic story)
|next           = The Gift (comic story)|The Gift (comic story)
}}{{comic stub}}
'''''{{StoryTitle}}''''' was a [[Sixth Doctor]] comic published in ''[[Doctor Who Magazine]]''.


==Summary==
== Summary ==
Out in space the Mayflower, with its 20,000 crew in cryo sleep, is travelling from the overcrowded 24th century Earth. One of the occupants, Kara, is woken from her sleep by the maintenance computer, Monitor. She begins the routine that every five years she checks out the ship, and fixes any easy faults.
Arriving on the ''[[Mayflower]]'', the [[Sixth Doctor]], [[Peri Brown|Peri]] and [[Frobisher]] find themselves under attack.
After being stuck in the TARDIS for three weeks, Peri is beginning to feel bored. The Doctor proposes a holiday.  


Kara notices two slug like aliens, unrecognisable to Monitor, patrolling the ship. Kara tries to find out how they entered the ship, but Monitor tells her they had the correct entry codes, and arrived from their 85 kilotonne bulk carrier into access bay three quite properly.
== Plot ==
 
''to be added''
The Doctor proposes to Peri and Frobisher a holiday to Arcadia, a paradise planet. They land on the Mayflower, and soon meet up with Kara, who threatens them with her laser welder. When she sees they are mostly people, she relaxes and asks whether they are from the top drawer. Kara explains the situation with the slugs. Monitor soon tells her that the Doctor is not top drawer, he is an intruder. After the Doctor explains who he is, and how he arrived, he persuades Kara to lead them to the top drawer, where the ship's leaders are, believing they can get help. But when they arrive where the top drawer sleep, there's no one there.
 
The slugs arrive and fire at the group, all the time watched by an unseen figure. The Doctor, and Kara flee with the damaged Monitor, while Peri and Frobisher are captured. While escaping, the Doctor explains that the slugs are a group of space mercenaries known as the profiteers, who ravage planets, engaging in no action without sizeable return, with every world conquered just another credit making endeavour.
 
While Peri and Frobisher ponder over their fate, the senior Profiteer goes into communication with the unseen figure, whom they address as Seth. Seth asks about the success of their takeover.
 
Kara explains to the Doctor that the mission of the Mayflower was started by Varley Gabriel, who was a political figure of the 24th century. After finding a suitable planet for the overcrowded humans to live, he called the fittest, smartest and most adept humans to travel, and be the top drawer. Another 20,000 were chosen to work under them.
 
Seth explains to the profiteers that he wants the top drawer, and all others are their concern. He does demand that they find the Doctor, who he knows is a Time Lord. Seth says that a ship will arrive soon to collect his "cargo".
 
The Doctor and Kara are heading towards the computer core, so the Doctor can check if someone tipped the profiteers off. Kara dismisses the idea, as anyone who did that would have to have done that 80 years ago. Monitor clears the Doctor to receive all classified information, and the Doctor sets to work, not realising Seth is watching.
 
Just when the Doctor comes on important information the profiteers arrive and capture the Doctor, Kara and Monitor. Seth watches this with an impassive face, very similar to that of Varley Gabriel.


On Kara's orders, Monitor blinds the Profiteers with a burst of light, enabling the Doctor, Kara and Monitor to escape. Hiding out in the ship's ventilation ducts, the Doctor uses Monitor to instigate the surveillance system's maintenance routines, thus blinding the security cameras to the fact that he, Kara and Monitor are returning to the computer core to complete their work. The Doctor has already learned that "Varley Gabriel" has apparently programmed the navigational system to send the Mayflower to the middle of nowhere, and theorises that this is all part of a plot to lure the "top drawer" into his service.
== Characters ==
* [[Sixth Doctor]]
* [[Frobisher]]
* [[Peri Brown]]
* [[Kara McAllista]]
* [[Monitor (Profits of Doom)|Monitor]]
* [[Seth (Profits of Doom)|Seth]]


Once back in the core, the Doctor determines that Peri and Frobisher are still alive aboard the Profiteers' ship, and sends Monitor to rescue them. Frobisher nearly gives their escape away, but bluffs the Profiteers into retreating by threatening to transform into a ravenous monster.  
== Worldbuilding ==
===== The Doctor =====
* The Doctor has described the TARDIS as "the primary social artefact upon which Gallifreyan culture made its quantum evolutionary bound from time-locked to time-spanned."
* Among potential candidates for a holiday retreat include the planet [[Argolis]], [[Quiexly Major]], [[Placet]] and [[Trantor]]. The Doctor dismisses each, respectively, for past ''faux pas'', being "too touristy", having "crazy geography" and being "far too cosmopolitan." Eventually, he decides on a holiday to [[Arcadia (planet)|Arcadia]], a paradise [[planet]].
* Indulging in his penchant for recitation, the Doctor quotes [[William Wordsworth]]'s ''Resolution and Independence''.


The Profiteers pursue the escaping prisoners back to the core, where the Doctor and Kara have programmed the Mayflower to blow itself up. The image of Varley Gabriel on the computer screen then comes to life and addresses them; he is in reality an amoral immortal named Seth, who has been manipulating human history for his own ends for centuries. He required the "top drawer" for his own purposes on another world, and engaged in the "colonisation" ruse to lure them into his service, always intending to sell the remaining colonists into slavery to the Profiteers.  
=== The TARDIS ===
* The TARDIS chambers include the [[Falloean Gardens]] and the [[Bagdejalucian]] phosphorescent anti-gravity shrubs. The [[Diamond Avenue]] features the brightest gems from a dozen star systems.
* Frobisher plays [[chess]] with the TARDIS console and loses, though he claims that it cheated.


However, when the Profiteers arrive in the computer core, the Doctor threatens to blow up the ship unless they retreat. Seth knows it's a bluff, but the Profiteers claim that Gallifreyans are "zero tax rated" and refuse to take the risk. Seth vows revenge as the Profiteers retreat, but the Doctor ignores his rantings and reprogrammes the Mayflower`, sending the colonists to the world which will one day become Arcadia
=== Planets ===
* [[Arcadia (planet)|Arcadia]] is described as a planet of "verdant rolling fields, glittering still lakes, vast cloudless skies."
* The [[Profiteer of Ephte|Profiteers of Ephte]] come from [[Ephte Major]], their tax haven on the spur of [[Friedman's Curve]], and are an ancient race who have ravaged the galaxy under the philosophy of "profit or die". They communicate in a number-orientated language. When Peri and Frobisher are captured, they intend to sell them off to other races for enormous profit. Peri will go to the [[Grodomorph]]s of [[Cebalias Alpha]] as a [[handmaiden]] and Frobisher to the [[Tralfamadorian]]s of [[Vonnegut]] as a [[zoo]] animal.


==Characters==
=== Individuals ===
''to be added''
* [[Seth (Profits of Doom)|Seth]], a Methuselah-like figure, also adopted the titles of a 14th-century grand schemer in Rome and Vincent Grant, who unified the Western Alliance in the 22nd-century.
* [[Kara McAllista]] is a third-class maintenance technician responsible for the cryo-sleep chambers aboard the ''Mayflower''. One of ten awoken every six months and assisted by a mobile robot designated as Monitor. She curses with the epithets of ''"skaj"'', ''"seg-jak"'' and ''"what the jaxx"''.


==References==
== Notes ==
''to be added''
* This story was reprinted in the [[Panini Comics]] graphic novel ''[[The World Shapers (graphic novel)|The World Shapers]]''.
* The planet [[Trantor]] featured as a prominent location in [[Isaac Asimov]]'s ''Foundation'' series. It was the location of the First Galactic Empire and a single planet-wide city with a heavy dependence on external trade to maintain its stability.
* The [[Tralfamadorian]]s of [[Vonnegut]] feature in [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s ''Slaughterhouse Five''. A story with a singularly unusual approach to time travel. Their potential interest in Frobisher as a zoo animal echoes the protagonist, Billy, and his own experiences in the novel.


==Notes==
== Continuity ==
''to be added''
* Frustrated with the quiet, Peri asks to visit somewhere where she won't see "[[Irna|furry alien princesses]]", ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Nature of the Beast! (comic story)}}) "[[Shockeye o' the Quawncing Grig|alien chefs]]", ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Two Doctors (TV story)}}) [[Cybermen]], ([[TV]]: {{cs|Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)}}) or [[Tremas Master|the Master]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Planet of Fire (TV story)}}, {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)}})
* The Doctor wishes to avoid [[Argolis]] after what happened during his last visit. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Leisure Hive (TV story)}})
* The Doctor laments the loss of [[The Doctor's sonic screwdriver|his sonic screwdriver]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Visitation (TV story)}})


==Continuity==
== External links ==
''to be added''
{{dwrefguide|comic6.htm#profitofdoom|Profits of Doom!}}
 
{{Sixth Doctor DWM comics}}
==External Links==
{{TitleSort}}
''to be added''


{{stub}}
[[Category:Sixth Doctor DWM comic stories]]
[[Category:1987 comic stories]]
[[Category:Stories set in 2321]]
[[Category:Three part comics]]

Latest revision as of 14:53, 4 August 2024

RealWorld.png

StubTab.png

Profits of Doom! was a Sixth Doctor comic published in Doctor Who Magazine.

Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

Arriving on the Mayflower, the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Frobisher find themselves under attack.

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]
  • The Doctor has described the TARDIS as "the primary social artefact upon which Gallifreyan culture made its quantum evolutionary bound from time-locked to time-spanned."
  • Among potential candidates for a holiday retreat include the planet Argolis, Quiexly Major, Placet and Trantor. The Doctor dismisses each, respectively, for past faux pas, being "too touristy", having "crazy geography" and being "far too cosmopolitan." Eventually, he decides on a holiday to Arcadia, a paradise planet.
  • Indulging in his penchant for recitation, the Doctor quotes William Wordsworth's Resolution and Independence.

The TARDIS[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The TARDIS chambers include the Falloean Gardens and the Bagdejalucian phosphorescent anti-gravity shrubs. The Diamond Avenue features the brightest gems from a dozen star systems.
  • Frobisher plays chess with the TARDIS console and loses, though he claims that it cheated.

Planets[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Arcadia is described as a planet of "verdant rolling fields, glittering still lakes, vast cloudless skies."
  • The Profiteers of Ephte come from Ephte Major, their tax haven on the spur of Friedman's Curve, and are an ancient race who have ravaged the galaxy under the philosophy of "profit or die". They communicate in a number-orientated language. When Peri and Frobisher are captured, they intend to sell them off to other races for enormous profit. Peri will go to the Grodomorphs of Cebalias Alpha as a handmaiden and Frobisher to the Tralfamadorians of Vonnegut as a zoo animal.

Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Seth, a Methuselah-like figure, also adopted the titles of a 14th-century grand schemer in Rome and Vincent Grant, who unified the Western Alliance in the 22nd-century.
  • Kara McAllista is a third-class maintenance technician responsible for the cryo-sleep chambers aboard the Mayflower. One of ten awoken every six months and assisted by a mobile robot designated as Monitor. She curses with the epithets of "skaj", "seg-jak" and "what the jaxx".

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • This story was reprinted in the Panini Comics graphic novel The World Shapers.
  • The planet Trantor featured as a prominent location in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. It was the location of the First Galactic Empire and a single planet-wide city with a heavy dependence on external trade to maintain its stability.
  • The Tralfamadorians of Vonnegut feature in Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. A story with a singularly unusual approach to time travel. Their potential interest in Frobisher as a zoo animal echoes the protagonist, Billy, and his own experiences in the novel.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

v • e
DWM Sixth Doctor comic stories
Original run
Frobisher
Frobisher & Peri
Later stories
Peri & Davros
Frobisher
Doom
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