Once Upon a Time-Lord (comic story)

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Once Upon a Time-Lord was a Sixth Doctor comic published in Doctor Who Magazine. It is notable for having several pages written out in story form with accompanying comic panels. With its end, it concluded both the Voyager and Astrolabus themes that had started in the Sixth Doctor's second strip, Voyager.

Summary

On the trail of Astrolabus, the Sixth Doctor and Frobisher find themselves in a land of make-believe where nothing is real.

Plot

Part 1

The Sixth Doctor heads into the Cabinet of Astrolabus to retrieve Frobisher. As the Doctor exits the TARDIS, he is attacked by a dark rider who attempts to kill him, but who rides away after the Doctor ducks. The Doctor finds Frobisher, who insists the Doctor come and meet his "friends", but the Doctor resists, saying that he doesn't trust Astrolabus, and warns Frobisher that he believes that the reality they are in isn't real.

Meanwhile, Astrolabus watches them from inside a carnival, where children watch the Doctor and Frobisher. Astrolabus instructs them to put on their "thinking caps" so that they can control the story.

In the forest, with their lives now reading like a storybook, the Doctor and Frobisher meet Brock, who gives Frobisher a worm. They soon come under attack, and the natives try to cook and eat Frobisher. However, Frobisher is saved by Tarzan.

After escaping, Frobisher feels like he's not in control, and the Doctor urges him to try and find answers in the castle. Meanwhile, Astrolabus urges the children to think up "something really dangerous", and sure enough, a gigantic troll begins attacking the Doctor and Frobisher, and they make a run for the castle

Part 2

To be added.

Characters

Worldbuilding

Notes

File:Once Upon a Time Lord colour reprint.jpg
The colour reprint of this comic.
  • Once Upon a Time-Lord features a number of implicit pastiches and homages to other media. These include allusions to the Black Riders of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Little Red Riding Hood from the Brothers Grimm, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan, and, more loosely, Star Trek and William Shakespeare's Hamlet.
  • Three pages are devoted to a wholesale homage of Rupert Bear's presentation style. Six identically-sized square panels are captioned with rhyme. At the bottom of the page, a small instalment of prose retells the images in greater detail. These pages each have the subheading: "Frobisher Eats a Worm", "Frobisher Wishes He Hadn't" and "He Who Hesitates is Lunch".
  • Upon their escape from the Rupert Bear pastiche, the Doctor and Frobisher leave a panel whose signature is partially obscured to read, "HOGAR". An homage to Tarzan's comic artist Burne Hogarth.
  • Once Upon a Time-Lord was also the name of a documentary broadcast by PBS in 1983.
  • Alongside Ridgway's little penguins, this story's final panel also has a cameo from Parkhouse and Ridgway's character C.Y.R.I.L., a fictional "editor droid" for Marvel UK who had a back-up strip in Star Wars Weekly beginning earlier in 1984.

Continuity

External links