Time Bomb! (comic story)

Time Bomb! was the second story in the pages of Death's Head (1988) to cross over with Doctor Who Magazine. Unusually for stories involving the character of Death's Head, it was not written by Simon Furman, but rather another DWM veteran, Steve Parkhouse.

	Death's Head
	Seventh Doctor
	Josiah W. Dogbolter Hob
	Los Angeles Resettlement, Earth; 8162 Intra-Venus, Inc.; 8162 Thetford; 1646 Earth; Triassic Period France; June 1916 English pier; 20th century? New York City (Earth-616)
	[[publisher::Marvel UK]]
	Steve White Managing editor: Jenny O'Connor
	Steve Parkhouse
	Pencils: Art Wetherell Ink: Steve Parkhouse Cover art: Bryan Hitch & Mark Farmer
	Louise Cassell
	Annie Halfacree
	Death's Head (1988) #8
	July 1989
	American comic book - 22 pages

You may be looking for the weapon or the DWM comic story.

The story is notable for the fact that it knits together characters that were never before associated. In particular, it depicted a meeting between Josiah W. Dogbolter and his robot assistant Hob — two characters from the Sixth Doctor's DWM run — with Death's Head, who hadn't appeared in DWM until the Seventh Doctor's era. More significantly, it unmistakably showed the Doctor's TARDIS on top of the iconic Baxter Building, home of the Fantastic Four, thereby making the Doctor a character in the mainstream Marvel universe.

Summary

Josiah W. Dogbolter, head of Intra-Venus, Inc., hires Death's Head to kill the Doctor, and gives the mercenary a new time machine-in-a-backpack that his company is developing. He spins through time, stopping off in various historical spots, like the Battle of the Somme. Eventually he discovers the Seventh Doctor, who lets the robot into the TARDIS.

The unlikely duo soon discover that Dogbolter had dealt them both a bad hand. Attached to the time machine is a nuclear weapon, which Dogbolter can activate remotely. The Doctor thus transports to the Intra-Venus headquarters and helps Death's Head take off the time machine. They dump it right on top of Dogbolter's base and take off in the TARDIS. A mushroom cloud expands over the horizon, apparently indicating the Dogbolter's demise.

After that's done, the TARDIS materialises elsewhere, and the Doctor drops off Death's Head on the top of another building. The Time Lord tries to explain to the robot the necessity of self-improvement, and how that's a quality that organics will always have over mechanical beings. The plea seems to fall on deaf ears, however, and the Doctor returns to the TARDIS for another adventure. As he does it becomes apparent that this isn't just any old building.

The Doctor has in fact landed on top of the Baxter Building, its distinctive number 4 heralding only one thing: Death's Head is about to come face to face with the Fantastic Four.

Characters

• Death's Head
• The Seventh Doctor
• Josiah W. Dogbolter
• Hob
• Mistress Thorogood
• Dave

References

• The Dogbolter Temporal Rocket - a prototype time machine.
• Death's Head notes real paper is worth four million "megabux" a ream in 8162. Hob carries a sheet with a letter of introduction. (Dollars are in use in L.A. elsewhere in the series. Mazuma are never referred to.)
• Hob explains everything his robotic body is made from.
• Dogbolter once again has images of previous incarnations of the Doctor he has encountered (the Fifth Doctor and Sixth Doctor) as well as the current one. Dogbolter wants revenge on "that pipsqueak Doctor".
• The first Battle of the Somme.
• Thetford's parish records record a sighting of Death's Head as "the Horned One".
• A dinosaur is present in the Triassic.
• The Doctor tells a joke during his pantomime about Napoleon.
• Dave tells the Doctor that next year the panto will be Aladdin.
• Dogbolter and Death's Head identify the Doctor as a Gallifreyan. Death's Head also calls him a Time Lord.
• Intra-Venus HQ is unstaffed on Sundays.

Notes

The original cover to Death's Head #8

• As with the previous crossover with Doctor Who Magazine, none of the recurring characters in Death's Head appeared other than Death's Head himself. Unlike the previous one which built heavily upon the title character of Keepsake and made use of the city Death's Head lived in, only two pages are actually set in Los Angeles and remain entirely within the confines of Death's Head's office. Keepsake's vulture, the only recurring character in the Death's Head series from Doctor Who Magazine is not even mentioned.
• The two pages the Doctor and Death's Head spend in Earth-616 are never dated in this issue. The next issue specifies 1989 but because of Marvel Comics shifting timeline policy, the more accurate statement made in that issue is that Franklin Richards is five years old.
• The cover does not represent events that happened in the story.

Reprints

• Reprinted in The Incomplete Death's Head Issue 9 (as a Maruthean archive)

Continuity

• The Doctor is still carrying his vibrator piklok. (DWM: Voyager)
• Dogbolter finally achieves his goal of getting a time machine. Previous encounters with the Doctor involved trying to take the Doctor's TARDIS.
• Hob later revealed on Maruthea that he and Dogbolter didn't make it to the sub-basement in time and were caught in the explosion. Hob miraculously survived and believed Dogbolter had as well. (The Incomplete Death's Head)
• Death's Head since being sent to 8162 (DWM: The Crossroads of Time) has set up an office in LA.

Timeline

• This story occurs after DWM: Invaders from Gantac
• This story occurs before DWM: The Infinity Season

External links

• Time Bomb! at the Doctor Who Reference Guide