Backtime (comic story)

Backtime
Doctor:	Third Doctor
Companion(s):	Charlie
Featuring:	Lincoln
Main setting:	London, 1863 Gettysburg, 1863
Key crew
Publisher:	Polystyle
Writer:	Dick O'Neill
Artist:	Frank Langford
Release details
Number of parts:	7
Printed in:	Countdown 33-39
Release date:	2 October - 13 November 1971
Reprinted in:	DWCC 3, DWCC 4
Format:	Comic
TVA comic stories
← Previous	The Celluloid Midas
Next →	The Eternal Present

Backtime was a comic adventure of the no-longer-exiled Third Doctor in the pages of Countdown, originally published in 1971.

Summary

The Third Doctor is in London in 1863 when his TARDIS key is stolen by young pickpocket Charlie Fisher. When a policeman finds a 1970s bank note on the Doctor, he finds himself arrested for forgery, but the Doctor and Charlie escape in the TARDIS. They land in Gettysburg, where they meet Abraham Lincoln and rescue the TARDIS from the outlaws George Bamford and Asa Bamford. The Doctor eventually leaves Charlie in Ballarat to start a new life.

Characters

• Third Doctor
• Charlie Fisher
• Abraham Lincoln
• George Bamford
• Asa Bamford
• General Grant
• Magistrate

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor reads a book published in the 19th century called Balloons and Flying Machines.
• The Magistrate sentences Charlie to three months in Bridewell Prison.

Notes

• Oddly, "backtime" is used in the introductory captions as a word meaning the past.
• This story is a "pure historical" featuring no science fiction elements apart from the presence of the Doctor and the TARDIS.

Continuity

• The Doctor has traveled into the past, as he said he would do at the conclusion of his last adventure. (COMIC: The Celluloid Midas)
• The Doctor once again claims to have built his TARDIS. (TV: The Chase)
• Though this is the first time he's met him in-person, the Doctor had watched Abraham Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address on the Time-Space Visualiser during his first incarnation. (TV: The Chase)

External links

• Backtime at the Doctor Who Reference Guide