The Monster Makers (comic story)
The Monster Makers was the two hundred and tenth comic strip published in Doctor Who Magazine by Panini Magazines and was written by Alan Barnes. It starred the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday.
Plot
Part One: The Monster Makers
Inside the Doctor's TARDIS following their encounter with Hans Christian Andersen, Ruby Sunday asks the Fifteenth Doctor if he is sure they will land in Reykjavik for their party this time - he ensures that they will. However, they instead land in a strange city square with two moons in the sky, face to face with a smiling crowd all shouting "We surrender!" with their hands in the air. Sharing a baffled look, the Doctor and Ruby dematerialise, but almost instantly wonder what was going on. The Doctor wishes to discover why the people were surrendering and who to, so he hits the fast return switch to go back. He quickly gets his answers when, upon returning, the square has turned into the scene of an invasion: hulking green-armoured monsters with laser guns and heads consisting of giant red eyes are attacking the terrified locals.
Ruby, pointing to a city hall clock with sixteen hours on its face, notes that almost no time has passed since they were last there, so the Doctor faces up to a monster and demands answers. However, it cannot respond, and he and Ruby are forced to escape a group of them by running in opposite directions. On West Street, the Doctor runs into a bakery where he meets a local woman named Felice, while on East Street, Ruby runs into a fashion house and meets a man named Ferdy. Both of them agree that they have to do more than just run away. The Doctor plans to distract a monster while Felice hits it in the eye with a cake so he can use his sonic screwdriver on their weapon; Felice asks if he can change their stun guns to kill instead. Deeply concerned, the Doctor wonders why she would want that.
The Doctor and Felice continue with their plan, as do Ruby and Ferdy with covering up a monster's eye with a coat, but they are all caught off-guard when the monsters' eyes rotate 360 degrees, bewildering the Doctor. However, all stop dead when a loudspeaker tells the "invaders and invadees" that the invasion is over. The shadow of a huge spaceship fills the sky and several smartly-dressed assessors with clipboards and propellers descend to the ground. One woman speaks to Ruby, asking her to rate the invasion on a scale of one to five, and as the monster holds Ruby in place, the woman orders her to respond or else she is returned to head office for "reconstitution".
Part Two: Inside the Factory!
to be added
Characters
Worldbuilding
- The city includes a main square, city hall, and petrol station.
- West Street features a library, bakery, shoe shop, and barbers.
- East Street features a fashion house, fishmongers, cheese shop, and bookshop.
- The Doctor nicknames one of the monsters "Eye Claudius", in reference to the novel I, Claudius.
- The monsters have no mouths, ears, or noses. Despite being completely organic, their eye-heads can fully rotate, which the Doctor attributes to them potentially being on gimbals.
Notes
to be added
Original print details
(Publication with page count and closing captions)
- DWM 608: (6 pages): Next Issue: Inside the Factory!
Continuity
- This story follows immediately from the previous one, COMIC: The Hans of Fear [+]Loading...["The Hans of Fear (comic story)"], with the Doctor and Ruby again attempting to reach the Scandi Superclub. Ruby wonders if the TARDIS hitting the sloop in Copenhagen caused its settings to lose accuracy.
- The Doctor utilises the fast return switch in his TARDIS, first seen in TV: The Edge of Destruction [+]Loading...["The Edge of Destruction (TV story)"].
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