First Doctor comic stories

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Overview 

First Doctor comic stories appeared in Doctor Who annuals, TV Comic and Doctor Who Magazine.

History 

As with the television series, the William Hartnell version of the Doctor was the original comic strip Doctor. However, the actor's portrayal of the character was often lost in TV Comic, the dominant publication to feature First Doctor stories. At a superficial level, the character wasn't called "the Doctor", but "Dr. Who". Yet at a basic level, the comics were hampered by the inclusion of two children as his companions. Though they may well have made it easier for kids — the primary target audience for the comic strips — to relate to the Doctor, they made it almost impossible for a well-rounded portrayal of the First Doctor's many qualities. Especially profound was the loss of the Doctor's inherent "grumpiness"; with no adults around, the Doctor had no target for his anger. Thus, the comic First Doctor was reduced to being just a grandfather with a time-space ship.

However, even these two points were somewhat in doubt.

The comic TARDIS wasn't actually much of a time-travel device. As almost every story was set in the far future, it was little more than a simple spaceship. That threw the First Doctor's inclination towards historical adventures out the window. In addition, his status as "grandfather" was a point of incredulity, as well. How could he be the grandfather to John and Gillian? What was their relationship to the never-referenced Susan? How did the stories told in the comic strips relate to the television series? These were all questions left completely unanswered.

Worse still, the comic First Doctor was deprived even of the Daleks. Since Terry Nation had licensed the comic Daleks to appear only by themselves from 1965 to 1967, the comic First Doctor never encountered them. He was forced instead to repeatedly face the TV Comic "substitute", the Trods.

The best the TV Comic First Doctor could muster by way of resembling himself was a lone story that tied in with an atypical television adventure: Dr. Who and the Zarbi on the Web Planet.

It really wasn't until Doctor Who Magazine began publishing a handful of original First Doctor stories that the William Hartnell portrayal was really seen in comics. Consequently, most of the First Doctor's companions didn't have their comic debuts until the early 1990s. By then, thirty years after the fact, it was really a case of "too little, too late". Comic readers are still waiting for the First Doctor to encounter the Daleks.

Given these facts, it is perhaps not surprising that, as a matter of Doctor Who Magazine continuity, the entirety of the First Doctor's TV Comic run was retconned out of existence as a dream of the Eighth Doctor. (COMIC: The Land of Happy Endings)

Comic strip companions of the First Doctor

Regular

• John and Gillian (TV Comic)

One-off

• Susan (Doctor Who Magazine)
• Ian Chesterton (Doctor Who Yearbook, Prisoners of Time)
• Barbara Wright (Doctor Who Yearbook, Prisoners of Time)
• Ben Jackson (Doctor Who Magazine)
• Polly Wright (Doctor Who Magazine)
• Vicki Pallister (Doctor Who Magazine, Prisoners of Time)
• Steven Taylor (Doctor Who Magazine)

List

Many of the early comic strip stories did not have individual story titles so there is no "correct" title for many of the strips. Commentary and listings from older sources may use variant titles.

• The titles given below conform to widely accepted titles (as referenced by Jean-Marc Lofficier and revised by John Ainsworth (comic historian)). The titles below were also adopted and used by Doctor Who Magazine and throughout Doctor Who Classic Comics (to which John Ainsworth was a major contributer).
• The titles used below are firstly taken from the strip itself or from titles given by the preceding issue. In some cases the writer/artist has been able to provide a title for a given piece of work.

The listing below shows first publication details only. Reprint details can be found by following the story links.

TV Comic

Travelling with John and Gillian

• The Klepton Parasites (TVC 674-683)
• The Therovian Quest (TVC 684-689)
• The Hijackers of Thrax (TVC 690-692)
• On the Web Planet (TVC 693-698)
• The Gyros Injustice (TVC 699-704)
• Challenge of the Piper (TVC 705-709)
• Moon Landing (TVC 710-712)
• Time in Reverse (TVC 713-715)
• Lizardworld (TVC 716-719)
• The Ordeals of Demeter (TVC 720-723)
• Enter: The Go-Ray (TVC 724-727)
• Shark Bait (TVC 728-731)
• A Christmas Story (TVC 732-735)
• The Didus Expedition (TVC 736-739)
• Space Station Z-7 (TVC 740-743)
• Plague of the Black Scorpi (TVC 744-747)
• The Trodos Tyranny (TVC 748-752)
• The Secret of Gemino (TVC 753-757)
• The Haunted Planet (TVC 758-762)
• The Hunters of Zerox (TVC 763-767)
• The Underwater Robot (TVC 768-771)
• Return of the Trods (TVC 772-775)
• The Galaxy Games (TVC 776-779)
• The Experimenters (TVC 780-783)

TV Comic annuals

• Prisoners of the Kleptons (TV Comic Annual 1966 featuring John and Gillian)
• The Caterpillar Men (TV Comic Annual 1966 featuring John and Gillian)
• Deadly Vessel (TV Comic Annual 1967 featuring John and Gillian)
• Kingdom of the Animals (TV Comic Annual 1967 featuring John and Gillian)

TV Comic holiday specials

• Prisoners of Gritog (TV Comic Holiday Special 1965 featuring John and Gillian)
• Guests of King Neptune (TV Comic Holiday Special 1966 featuring John and Gillian)
• The Gaze of the Gorgon (TV Comic Holiday Special 1966 featuring John and Gillian)

Doctor Who annuals

• Mission for Duh (Doctor Who Annual 1967)

Doctor Who Magazine

• Timeslip (DWM 17-18 the Fourth Doctor retro-regenerates into his earlier incarnations)
• Fun House (DWM 102-103)
• Flashback (DWMS Winter 1992, features Benny and the Seventh Doctor)
• Are You Listening? (DWMS Summer 1993, features Steven Taylor and Vicki Pallister)
• Time & Time Again (DWM 207 featuring Susan Foreman)
• Food for Thought (DWM 218-220 featuring Ben Jackson and Polly Wright)
• Operation Proteus (DWM 231-233 featuring Susan Foreman)
• Happy Deathday (DWM 272 featuring the first eight Doctors and Izzy Sinclair)
• Death to the Doctor! (DWM 390 featuring Steven Taylor and Dodo Chaplet, and numerous other Doctors and companions)

Parodic

• "Doctor Ooh"
• The Comic Relief Comic (untitled story)
• It's Bigger on the Inside!
• Numerous editions of the three-panel cartoon, Doctor Who?

Doctor Who Yearbook

• A Religious Experience (Doctor Who Yearbook 1994 featuring Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright and the Seventh Doctor)

 IDW Publishing

Miniseries

• The Forgotten (TF 1 featuring Susan, Ian, and Barbara, the first ten Doctors (save the War Doctor) and numerous companions

Doctor Who (2012)

• Dead Man's Hand (DW12 15 featuring Matrix projections of the first eleven Doctors and the War Doctor)

Prisoners of Time

• Unnatural History (POT 1 featuring Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton, and Vicki Pallister)
• Endgame (POT 12 featuring Barbara Wright, Ian Chesterton, and Vicki Pallister, the first eleven Doctors (save the War Doctor), and numerous other companions)

Titan Comics

Back-up strips

• Prologue: The First Doctor (10DY2 12 featuring Susan Foreman)

Parody

• An Unearthly Child (The Unscreened Edition) featuring Susan, Ian, and Barbara.

External links

• Altered Vistas - In the Comics - The First Doctor
• Doctor Who Magazine strips featuring the First Doctor at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• TV Comic strips featuring the First Doctor at the Doctor Who Reference Guide