Land of the Blind (comic story)
- You may be looking for Country of the Blind.
Land of the Blind was a Second Doctor comic story featuring Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot. It was originally published in Doctor Who Magazine.
Summary
The Doctor visits a planet that has been sealed off from the rest of the universe.
Plot
The TARDIS arrives in a spaceport on Denossus, but for some reason its engines continue functioning even after it has materialized. As the Doctor, Jamie and Zoe explore their surroundings, a young woman named Anna attempts to destroy the shield generator in the centre of the spaceport, but only manages to attract the attention of the Vortexians who now rule Denossus. The Doctor tries to intervene on her behalf, but the Vortexians politely arrest him and sentence him to five seconds in the Speculum -- an ordeal which normally destroys the victim's mind. Anna's father-in-law, Max, explains to Jamie and Zoe that the Vortexians sealed off the planet from the rest of the Universe twenty years ago, and have ruled it ever since; his son, Anna's husband Luther, was recently placed in the speculum for attempting to destroy the shield generator. The Doctor, however, survives the speculum, and recognizes the force within as the Time Vortex -- which leads him to realise where they really are.
Upon being released by the Vortexians, the Doctor and his friends set up a trap for them, and catch them in mid-transit when Anna lures them by trying to destroy the shield generator again. While the Vortexians are trapped, the Doctor switches off the shield generator's holographic sky- projection to reveal that the spaceport has in fact been removed from real space-time altogether and suspended in the Time Vortex. The Vortexians intend to unite all races in harmony under their rule and had transplanted Denossus into the Vortex as a test of their abilities. They break free of the Doctor's trap and attempt to arrest Anna, but Max deliberately shouts a racial epithet at them, causing them to administer a shock to his nervous system as punishment. But his ageing heart can't stand the shock and he dies, telling the Doctor he knew what he was doing. The Doctor points out that the Vortexians have broken their own moral code by killing Max, and the Vortexians punish themselves by restoring Denossus to its place in the Universe and departing.
Characters
Worldbuilding
- Denossus was captured and taken into the space/time vortex by the Vortexians over twenty years prior to the Doctor's arrival.
- The Doctor is put on trial.
- The Vortexians considers Jamie and Max calling them "sassanachs" to be potentially racist.
- "Speculum" is an old word for mirror.
- The Doctor captures the Vortexians mid-transmat in a static interference funnel.
Notes
- The name, design and background notes for the Vortexians came from Paul Fisher, the winning designer in Doctor Who Magazine's Design a Monster competition. The winner was announced in Doctor Who Magazine 224.
- The runner-up monster designs also had cameos in the same strip. They were the Zrontaks, designed by Richard Burnell, the Insoids, designed by Jason Powdrill and the Pharaohs, designed by Justin Askham.
- This is not the first competition where the winning monster was presented in a Doctor Who comic strip story. TV Action + Countdown ran a Design a Monster competition in 1972 and the winning design, from Ian Fairnington, the Ugrakks, were presented in the Third Doctor strip The Ugrakks.
Cameos
- This story's large crowds feature many cameos, notably featuring several cameos from the early Doctor Who annuals. Lee Sullivan would later draw similar crowd cameos in Bazaar Adventures and Liberation of the Daleks.
- The audience in the arena scene in Part 1 include a Go-Ray, a Monoid, a Zrontak, a Pharaoh, and a Mechanoid.
- The street crowd in Part 1 includes a Kandalinga Fishman and a woman with a Starfleet hoodie. Additionally, an Insoid is seen in the background of one panel in this scene.
- The arena audience in Part 2 includes a Mechanoid, a Go-Ray, and a Menoptera.
- A flashback in Part 2 includes a Quark in the background.
- The arena audience in Part 3 include a CyberFaction Cyberman, an Ice Warrior, a Zarbi, a Robot Yeti, and RoboCop, as Sullivan had been a frequent artist for a RoboCop comic in the early 1990s.
- As the Doctor and friends leave the arena in Part 3, they pass four characters from non-Doctor Who comics, including Mandrake the Magician.
- One panel in Part 3 has a crowd entirely of aliens from the Annuals, composed of a Stagg and Deemon, two Ethereals, a Baggolt, a Rostrow, a Glacian and a dimension-explorer of the Life Force, one of Queeg's robots, a living matter reservoir, a Kandalinga Fishman, a Korad, a Voord, a being from the contents page of The Dr Who Annual, the Robot King, a Zarbi, a humanoid Yend and a shapeshifting Yend, two burly Sensorites with their appearance from The Monsters from Earth), and a Kaark.
Continuity
- The Doctor and Zoe recognise transmat technology. (TV: The Seeds of Death)
