Terrorformer (comic story)

Terrorformer
Doctor:	Twelfth Doctor
Companion(s):	Clara
Main enemy:	Rann-Korr
Main setting:	25th Century
Main setting:	Isen VI
Key crew
Publisher:	Titan Comics
Editor:	Andrew James
Writer:	Robbie Morrison
Cover by:	Alice Zhang (regular), Mariano Laclaustra (incentive)
Designer:	Rob Farmer
Artist:	Dave Taylor
Colourist:	Hi-Fi
Letterer:	Richard Starkings, Jimmy Betancourt
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor #1-2
Release date:	15 October - 19 November 2014
Cover date:	October - November 2014
Format:	Comic
Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor
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Terrorformer was the first story of Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor comic strip series published in 2014.

Summary

Freshly regenerated and with a new head full of unanswered questions, the Doctor whisks Clara Oswald away to a strange and distant world.

Clara thought she was in for an evening of marking essays on the Metaphysical Poets, followed by going out on a date – or at least trying to. You know, normal stuff.

Instead, she’s facing down exotic flora and fauna in her best dress, backing up the Doctor on a trek through traumatically alien undergrowth – and she doesn’t even know what the Doctor is searching for, or what will try to kill them should they find it!

Plot

Part One

Zaxx, a designer, is investigating irregular seismic activity on Isen VI. He is intrigued by the lava pool, but is engulfed by it. His robot companion, Clive, has two words: "Hyperios rises."

The TARDIS: The Doctor has collected Clara from a school skiing trip for another adventure in the TARDIS. The Doctor promises to help improve her skills by taking her to a real ski-slope - the planet Isen VI; a planet which, among other things, contains ice-sharks and ice giants. However, he has another reason for visiting: the TARDIS has picked up a faint warning message. Landing on the planet, the Doctor and Clara are surprised to find that it is a tropical jungle full of flora and exotic animals, only decades since the last planetary survey. The Doctor hypothesises that the planet could only have changed through outside interference.

Clara is attacked by monkey-like creatures, who Clara calls 'skunkeys'. Fending them off with the sonic, the Doctor realises that the jungle is manmade and was terraformed by the businessman Kano Dollar, of Dollar Intergalactic, into a paradise for his fiance, Princess Thanna, and he plans to expand. The TARDIS is confiscated, as the Doctor and Clara are taken to Professor Spector in the central tower.

Spector explains that the planet was terraformed over a period of three years, building towers from underground upwards by robo-drones, modifying the atmosphere, temperature, topography and ecology through nanotek swarms and populating the planet with hypoevolutionary organisms. The Doctor warns them that they are at risk of global cataclysm. Dollar threatens Spector to stabilise the planet.

An exploration team crashes under an earthquake, however the Doctor and Clara materialise the TARDIS in the wreckage to save the crew from near-certain death. He takes the crew, along with the android Eric and Professor Spector, to the volcanic caverns surrounding the tower's base. The Doctor reveals to Clara that the message is a beacon established by the Gallifreyans millenia ago, used to detect inexplicable phenonema across the universe, however the technology has worn with time. The group are intrigued to find the terraformer has penetrated below the surface and joined with Hyperios. Examining the runes on the side, Dr. Scrofolus reawakens Hyperios.

Part Two

to be added

Characters

• Twelfth Doctor
• Clara Oswald
• Kano Dollar
• Rann-Korr
• Rassilon

References

• The Twelfth Doctor voices an observation to Clara that humans are too obsessed with their own image. He notes procedures such as chemical peels, liposuction, buttock lifts to be akin to a Sontaran torture chamber.
• According to Clara, the Doctor's sonic screwdriver doesn't work on dead-bolts, including the lock on her flat.
• The robots sing an altered version Time Warp from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, altering the lyric to "Let's jump the time tracks again!"
• The name of the news reporter, Alice Xanada, is likely a reference to series cover artist Alice X. Zhang.
• The Doctor says that "the weather's not that changeable" except in Scotland. This is a sly reference to Peter Capaldi's nationality, something also seen in TV:Deep Breath.
• The TARDIS is compared to a portaloo.

Notes

• The cover to #2 alludes to Peter Capaldi's description of the Doctor as "100% punk rebel Time Lord", showing a graffiti version of the Doctor painted on a wall.

Original print details

to be added

Continuity

• Clara is teased by her students over her relationship with Danny Pink. (TV: The Caretaker)
• Clara's students refer to her as "Ms. Oddwald."
• Clara says that all the Doctor does is interfere in events, however the Doctor dismisses this.
• The Doctor criticizes his previous incarnation's fondness for bow-ties, fezzes and the word "cool". (TV: The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang et al)
• Clara references facing Daleks, Robot Knights and a Skovox Blitzer. (TV: Into the Dalek, Robot of Sherwood, The Caretaker) She also mentions having been to Antarctica with the Doctor. (TV: Cold War) Of her clothes, she says she's dressed for a Yeti-hunting expedition.
• The Doctor remembers that he knows Venusian karate. (TV: Inferno, Robot of Sherwood, PROSE: The Eight Doctors, The Blood Cell, AUDIO: Voyage to Venus, Faith Stealer)
• Clara jokes that the Doctor's aversion to money explains "why it takes you so long to get the coffee." (TV: Deep Breath, Into the Dalek)
• Clara references that the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords; Hyperios asks if he is the last of his kind. (TV: Gridlock, Last of the Time Lords et al.)
• The Doctor responds to a beacon from the Time Lords from before the Time War.
• In a flashback, we see the Great Inferno, a war between the Time Lords and the Hyperions. Rassilon appears in his incarnation from TV: The End of Time, this time adorned with the Seal of Rassilon. This could suggest that the incarnation from TV: The End of Time is a reincarnation of an earlier regeneration, or that the war with the Hyperions was part of the events surrounding the Time War.
  
• The Time Lords formed an alliance with a number of alien species, including the Silurians and the Sontarans. Previously, the Sontarans have been seen to be hostile towards Gallifrey. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
• The Doctor uses the blackboard. (TV: Listen)
• The Doctor claims he is a pacifist. (TV: Into the Dalek, Death in Heaven, et al.)
• Dr. Scrofolus refers to the oceans of Tantalus. (PROSE: Engines of War)

Cover gallery

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  Issue 1 (Cover A)

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  Issue 1 (Cover B)

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  Issue 1 (Cover C)

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  Issue 1 (Cover D)

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  Issue 1 (Cover E)

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  Issue 1 (Cover F)