Petrified (TVC comic story)
Petrified was a five-page, duotone comic story in the 1975 TV Comic Annual. It featured a companion-less Third Doctor on a mission for the Time Lords, despite the fact that he had, by this point, regained the ability to control the TARDIS and was no longer in exile on Earth.
The story was perhaps most notable for its introduction of mennosium, a mineral the Doctor claimed was vital to operating the TARDIS.
Summary
Parada, leader of the Groobs, attacks the peaceful inhabitants of Zenos with his petrifying ray, and then sets about removing some of the planet's natural resources. The Zenosians, neither dead nor able to move, cannot oppose him.
Elswhere in the universe, the Third Doctor, tinkering with the TARDIS, discovers that he's in desperate need of mennosium. He uses a bit he has in reserve and appears to get the TARDIS working again, when suddenly the Time Lords divert him to Zenos.
As the Doctor tries to make sense of why the planet's people are petrified, he is nearly killed by one of the Groob mining vehicles. Before he is captured by its operators, however, he spots some mennosium ore on the ground and begins to hatch a plan for how to both free the Zenosians and solve his own transportation problems.
He is quickly brought before Parada in the Groobs' orbiting control ship. Parada is at first wary of the Doctor. He has already discovered that the Doctor is a Time Lord — a race of which he does not approve. The Doctor, however, quickly convinces the Groob leader that he is an outcast from Time Lord society; he can be trusted since he, too, hates the Time Lords. This wins Parada's confidence, so the Doctor presses forward with another lie. If the petrifying ray is reversed and re-calibrated to a different setting, the Doctor says, it can detect the planet's mennosium ore deposits. Parada is unconvinced. Why would he do this, since it would mean that the Zenosians would then be free again? The Doctor counters that collecting mennosium will give the Groobs the secret of time travel.
Parada agrees and the petrifying ray now becomes a "mennosium detector". The ship's monitor now begins to highlight those areas of the planet rich in ore. Parada becomes intently interested in the monitor as it changes to blue patterns. The Doctor is able to use the patterns on the screen to hypnotise the Groob leader. He tells Parada to order all Groobs back to the ship. When the last shuttle arrives, the Doctor hops aboard it and flies back torwards the planet. In flight, he witnesses the Groob ship blow up, the apparent result of Parada being hypnotised to pull a self-destruct trigger.
As he speeds toward the surface of Zenos, the Doctor considers that his earlier problems with the TARDIS are well and truly solved — since he's used the Groob to find the planet's significant mennosium ore deposits.
Characters
References
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Notes
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Continuity
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Timeline
Polystyle stories are notoriously difficult to date. Nothing in this story specifically ties it to any other comic story, so we're left to try to place it broadly, which is to say, between television stories.
The Third Doctor is travelling alone and had full use of the TARDIS. That means it's at least post-Three Doctors. The lack of companion suggests, but does not necessarily indicate, a point between TV: The Green Death and The Time Warrior. That said, it could equally fit in that period of time in the closing moments of Planet of the Spiders where the Doctor is wandering around the universe, dying — something PROSE: Love and War tells us took a whole decade.
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