The Forgotten (comic story)

The Forgotten was a Tenth Doctor comic published by IDW from 2008 to 2009. It is notable for its inclusion of many historical Doctor Who elements.

Summary

The Tenth Doctor discovers a museum dedicated to his lives and has to remember events from his previous incarnations in order to restore his fading memories.

Plot

Issue 1: Amputation

The Tenth Doctor wakes in a strange room without the TARDIS or the sonic screwdriver. He finds Martha Jones. Together they explore the building. They soon learn it is a museum dedicated to the Doctor.

The displays consist of things such as a Dalek gun, the Seal of Rassilon and a Voord helmet. They enter a large room where the Doctor's clothes from his previous nine incarnations are found, along with some thing he used during that incarnation (jelly babies, a staff, a recorder, psychic paper, etc.). The Doctor mentions how he'd be lost without his previous incarnations.

A strange man in a darkly lit room decides to test that theory. The Doctor suddenly becomes very weak. He realises he can't remember anything from before his encounter with the Sycorax on Christmas Day a couple of years ago.

Martha brings him his staff from his first incarnation and he tells her a story (when Susan, Barbara and Ian were travelling with him) of how he saved a pharaoh's life with that staff. He tells how and when he dropped Ian, Barbara, and Susan off. Martha asks if he thinks that Susan is dead and he replies in the affirmative and mentions that, as far as he knows, he is the last, although the Doctor mentions he left Susan on a future Earth with a freedom fighter she fell in love with. The strange man chuckles and says, "If only that were true". He reveals (talking to himself) how he will force the Doctor to regenerate so he can steal the Doctor's remaining incarnations. The Doctor collapses. He tells Martha that one of his hearts has stopped; he collapses into unconsciousness.

Issue 2: Renewal

The Doctor has fallen into a coma. Martha performs CPR on him and he wakes up. The Doctor and Martha explore more of the museum and find the recorder he played in his second incarnation. He tells Martha about his second incarnation.

The Second Doctor is on a space ship with Jamie and Zoe. They find it has been attacked by snake-like creatures. They help the crew of the spaceship defeat them by playing on the recorder. Back in the museum the man watching the Doctor and Martha releases an Auton, ready to kill the Doctor and Martha.

The Doctor remembers his third incarnation as Martha hands him the keys to Bessie, the car he used to drive while he worked for UNIT. The Brigadier, Jo Grant and he are in a car, chased by giant, spider-like robots, with humanoid dogs as drivers. Jo uses her make-up mirror to aim the laser beams at the ships and the Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to destroy the dog-like aliens, with Captain Yates's help.

Back at the Museum the Auton approaches the Doctor and Martha. The Doctor fires a can of Nitro 9 at the Auton, killing it. The Doctor checks the readings of the TARDIS' key. Horrified by the absolute lack of response, he tells Martha that it means the TARDIS has been destroyed.

Issue 3: Misdirection

Martha asks if the TARDIS is actually gone. The Doctor and she return to the costume room and find a bag of Jelly Babies. This reminds him of his fourth incarnation.

He remembers the time he took Romana II to Paris the second time, in the year 2000. Romana notices a mime posing. She thinks he is trapped in time, but a time hole appears near him. The mime, the Doctor and Romana fall through the hole and land in a late 17th century sewer. They are soon questioned by guards; the Doctor makes up an alias so he can have an excuse to boss them around. Following the trail, they reach the exit door, which is guarded by Taureau the Minotaur, who agrees to let them pass if they answer his riddle. When Romana fails miserably to answer correctly, the Doctor opens a wall, causing an explosion, killing Taureau and the mime. The Doctor and Romana escape through it.

Back at the museum, the Doctor says to himself that Romana did pretty well for herself - until the Time War. He notices Martha has gone. He finds a cricket ball in his pocket. He thinks about the his fifth incarnation.

The Fifth Doctor is playing cricket near Allen Road. Tegan Jovanka and Vislor Turlough are watching. All of a sudden a Judoon ship flies over. The Doctor asks Turlough to fetch his five hundred year old diary, while he and Tegan go to meet the Judoon. It turns out the Judoon have landed on Earth in search of the Eye of Akasha. Turlough returns and the Doctor fetches the Eye from the TARDIS before doing a switch with his cricket ball. He gives the Judoon the ball.

In the museum the Doctor finds Martha. She is holding Ace's baseball bat, ready to defend herself. The strange onlooker releases a swarm of giant spiders from Metebelis III, surrounding Martha...

Issue 4: Survival

The Doctor arrives and distracts the Metebelis 3 spiders with the crystal from his sonic screwdriver, which is similar to the type they search for. Martha and he escape and the Doctor vaguely recalls the phrase "There's something on your back." He collapses and begins to fade again. Martha hands him his sixth incarnation's cat brooch and goes off to hunt for the "Time Bracelet thing" and another screwdriver in the Fourth Doctor's costume, while the Doctor recalls a memory from his sixth life involving the brooch.

He remembers when Peri Brown and he were in the court of an animal people with Peri accused of the first-degree murder of Professor Mis'kin Karac. On the first day of the trial, Peri tells the court how while in the market, a boy pushed a gun into her hands. It fired, killing the professor as he left the building. Peri says she never meant to kill anyone and the Doctor calls off questioning.

On the second day, Professor Karac's assistant offers evidence against Peri and the judge calls a recess until the next day. The Doctor gets the assistant's permission to check out the lab, where the professor and he had been working on quantum flux technology. The Doctor finds the murder weapon in the lab and comes up with a plan.

The next day in court, the Doctor pulls out the gun and aims at Peri, explaining that it is tagged with a genetic signature which the bullet uses to find its target. He also explains this was why the professor's assistant was behind Peri: so he could fire through her at the professor and make it look like she, being the one with the gun, had done it. He tells the assistant how he is currently wearing a cat brooch doused in chronal energy and with a drop of his blood on it. If he fires, the bullet will kill him, not Peri. The assistant confesses and is taken away. As Peri and the Doctor leave, the Doctor explains that the gun wouldn't have worked. He was bluffing, a bluff which the assistant fell for.

Back in the museum, the Doctor speaks through a camera to the mysterious onlooker, who says the Doctor and he have much in common, except for the obvious, and that he should have left him in the Crucible. The Doctor challenges him to come out, holding up an umbrella and remembering his seventh incarnation.

He recalls the time Ace and he ended up in the war of Angrivan Seven, which was declared a non-intervention site by the Time Lords. Someone had given the Strykes a Gallifreyan virus to use on the Marats and the Doctor had to stop it. They were captured by the Strykes, but escaped due to an air strike. They met a Marat, who took them to the Marats infected by the Strykes' new bioweapon. The Doctor met with Doctor Treykan and gave her the antidote to the plague, hidden in his umbrella. He seemed to talk to the current Doctor, telling him to fight to survive.

Back in the museum, the Doctor finds the same restorative inside the umbrella and begins to hear the Cloister Bell. He declares the impossibility of this, as it can only be heard in the TARDIS, the Time Lord Matrix or on Gallifrey, none of which they are at--or are they?

Martha demonstrates knowledge of the Cloister Bell she shouldn't yet have and the Doctor remembers her saying he isn't the only doctor in the TARDIS, though she's only a medical student. The Doctor wonders again what's really going on. The mystery onlooker says they can't have the Doctor remembering his future just yet and sends out a Clockwork Droid and a Voc Robot. In the TARDIS with the Cloister Bell tolls, the interior red and an alien life form attaching itself to the unconscious Doctor...

Issue 5: Revelation

After the Cloister Bell rings, the Doctor begins to question who or what Martha really is. They are attacked by a Clockwork Droid and a Voc Robot. The Doctor and Martha escape. Martha hands the Doctor a cravat from his eighth incarnation and the Doctor begins to tell Martha about that life.

The Doctor was alone in a prison cell on an unnamed planet, wondering whether the Last Great Time War was still being waged, when the cell door opened and the guards threw a new prisoner into the cell. Sixteen days later the Doctor and his new cellmate, Chantir, saw through the cell window a spaceship land. The Doctor said it was time to escape. The Doctor slowed his heartbeats to almost nothing and Chantir called in the guards. The Doctor and Chantir overpowered them and stole their laser weapons. The Doctor opened all the other cells to allow the other prisoners to escape.

They travelled to the end of the hall and blasted open the door. Inside, the Great Key stood on a pillar in the centre of the room. The Doctor picked it up and told Chantir he planned to use it to recreate the De-mat Gun and possibly even modify the original to increase its lethality to remove millions from time and space at once. The Doctor and Chantir escaped from the prison by sliding down a power cable on the outside wall of the prison. Chantir left the Doctor to find his crewmates and the Doctor walked a few miles to recover his TARDIS.

The Doctor explains to Martha how he ended the Last Great Time War with the Great Key and that his eighth incarnation died alone. Martha gives him the psychic paper and he remembers his Ninth Incarnation.

The Doctor and Rose arrived in a World War I trench on Christmas Day and the Doctor showed the British occupants documents identifying him as Brigadier Bambera with the psychic paper. A football landed in the trench and the Germans asked the British to hand them back their football. The Doctor challenged the Germans to a football match for their ball. As the British played football with them, the Doctor refereed. After the match, the Doctor and Rose left in the TARDIS.

Martha hands the Doctor the chameleon arch and the Doctor regains the last of his memories. That very moment, the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor arrives with the Clockwork Droid and the Voc Robot and threatens to steal the Doctor's regenerations so he can regenerate himself.

Issue 6: Reunion

Just as the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor finished his threat, the real Doctor laughed it away. He knew it was a bad fake of the creature who was responsible for the entire mess, using bits and pieces of the Master, the Valeyard and the Meta-Crisis Doctor to fabricate a poor amalgam to bedevil the Doctor.

Infuriated at his plans being exposed, the being identifies itself: Es'Cartrss of the Tactire, a parasitic race known as the Cranial Parasites. It tells how his planet was one of the many the Daleks had stolen to power the Reality Bomb. He infiltrated the Crucible until its destruction, then entered the Doctor's TARDIS and attached itself to him in the effort that began the story.

The Doctor uses the distraction to flee and "Martha" gives him the last clues to realise what it truly was - the TARDIS' own mind, desperately trying to help its pilot shake off the parasite. The entire place was actually the TARDIS matrix. Once the Doctor realises this, he begins to realise other things - namely, the TARDIS could assume the form of anyone who had ever travelled with him.

Prompted by the Doctor, the TARDIS assumes a variety of disguises of many past companions geared for combat, such as Steven Taylor, Leela and Harry Sullivan, while the Doctor examines the baseball bat. He realises it was, in fact, a chameleon circuit covering the Great Key of Rassilon, the final key to the last door of the Matrix, the one the robots had been so desperate to keep them away from.

The TARDIS begins assuming other shapes better suited to specific tasks, like Kamelion, who shrugged off attacks by the Voc Robot and the Clockwork Droid to open the door with the Great Key; Sarah Jane Smith; and Adric, whose intellect allowed him to design a way to break the parasite's hold on the Matrix by blowing himself, the infected Matrix components and the droids, with one of Ace's old Nitro 9 cans.

Confronted by the Last of the Tactire, the Doctor implements his plan - reminding the Matrix there was only one Time Lord in existence: himself. As he speaks, the power of the items he has gathered coalesces, and summons all of his other forms at once - ten Doctors against a Tactire. He offers his enemy a final chance and Escart'rss rejects it. Sighing, the Doctor asks the Matrix to eliminate all non-Time Lords from itself, purging the system of Escartr'ss.

The Doctors converse briefly. The Tenth is a bit surprised, as he didn't know it could be done, despite some squabbling and annoying on every side. Leaving his memories, the Doctor and "Martha" walk through the museum to the exit, modelled after the TARDIS. Having lost his key, the Doctor wonders how to open the doors, until Martha reminds him River Song already taught him how. Smiling, the Doctor thanks her and snaps his fingers. The doors open and flood the museum with light. Before leaving, he asks the TARDIS to assume a final form and she agrees.

Susan Foreman appears before her grandfather, who begs her forgiveness and asks if she's had a good life. She hugs him and soothes him, saying she understood his thoughts and that she always knew he was doing the right thing. She beckons him to walk into the light, and the dream ends.

The Doctor awakens inside the real TARDIS, and kicks the now-mindless Tactire out of the way. Reflecting how he's never truly alone with his oldest companion, he thanks her and decides to go on a little adventure - to Barcelona.

Characters

Doctors

References

It is revealed that it is the TARDIS Matrix that is taking the form of Martha throughout the story; the Matrix proceeds to take on the forms of Harry Sullivan, Leela, Mel, Steven Taylor, Sarah Jane Smith, Adric, Nyssa, Kamelion, and, finally, Susan Foreman. Although he isn't impersonated, Sabalom Glitz is also mentioned (creating confusion as to whether Glitz is a companion or not).

Last Great Time War

During the Eighth Doctor flashback, the Doctor is held prisoner on an unknown planet (possibly Gallifrey) at some point during the Last Great Time War. He manages to escape and steal the Great Key. The Doctor intends to use this key to create a De-mat Gun that will seal the Medusa Cascade and somehow end the war. The device the Doctor is creating seems to be the Moment.
The Tenth Doctor refers to Romana's involvement in the war, and that it didn't turn out good for her; this may be a reference to Rassilon replacing her as Lord President.
The Tenth Doctor states that he succeeded in ending the Last Great Time War using the Great Key.

Species

The First Doctor mentions that the Egyptian gods Sutekh and Horus were aliens.
A Sea Devil is seen as a prisoner during the Eighth Doctor flashback.
The Controller of the museum unleashes a number of 'relics' to attack the Doctor and Martha. These include: Clockwork Droids, Metebelis III Spiders, an Auton, and a Voc Robot.
Inside relic cases are a number of familiar creatures and devices which include: a Cybermat, a Cybus Cyberman, the Sister of the Family of Blood, a Weeping Angel, the head of a Mondasian Cyberman, what appears to be a Time Lord breastplate, an Ice Warrior helmet, a Quark head, and a Vespiform.
The Fifth Doctor deals with a team of Judoon.
The Fourth Doctor faces a Minotaur.

The Doctor

During the Eighth Doctor flashback, the Doctor claims he created the fiction of being half-human using a chameleon arch in order to deceive an enemy.
The Doctor indicates that "no one alive" knows about all nine of his past incarnations. The implication in this statement is that Martha Jones is either the first companion to become aware of the first 10 incarnations (if one takes into account Amy Pond, Rory Williams and Jackson Lake viewing the Doctor's past incarnations through holograms in DW: The Eleventh Hour and DW: The Next Doctor), or that the Doctor believes that anyone else (companion or Time Lord) who is aware of it is now dead. The Brigadier is the closest to knowing all of them, having met the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 10th incarnations.
The Second Doctor says he "always hated" the song Jamie started to sing in order to distract the snake aliens, the song being "Who is the Doctor" by Rupert Hines.

The Doctor's items

Items associated with the Doctor's past incarnations include:

The First Doctor's walking stick
- The First Doctor was given his walking stick by Kublai Khan. The Tenth Doctor at first claims he obtained it in an unchronicled adventure involving Oscar Wilde and "midget assassins," but he later admits it was a ruse to trick "Martha."
The Second Doctor's recorder
The Third Doctor's keys to Bessie
The Fourth Doctor's bag of jelly babies
The Fifth Doctor's cricket ball
The Sixth Doctor's cat brooch
- Used by the Doctor to covertly collect a blood sample.
The Seventh Doctor's umbrella
The Eighth Doctor's cravat
The Ninth Doctor's psychic paper

Other relics of the Doctor's past adventures include:

the Seal of Rassilon
a Voord helmet

Notes

The Forgotten was a comic book mini-series produced by the American company IDW Publishing in the fall of 2008, following on from its initial Doctor Who title (Agent Provocateur).
This was the first officially sanctioned spin-off to feature all ten (at the time) of the Doctor's incarnations.
It was collected and reprinted as the graphic novel The Forgotten in April 2009.
Due to a printing error, the dialogue balloons on Page 1 of Issue 6 were left blank. The absence of the dialogue had caused confusion over whether the villain was meant to be the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor or the Valeyard, since most references to it were on this page (although the Doctor refers to the villain as the Valeyard on a later page). Tony Lee posted the missing dialogue on IDW's web forum [1], and the dialogue was fixed in the trade paperback release.
The fact the villain takes the form of the Meta-Crisis Doctor, and refers to himself as the Valeyard, has added credence to the rumour that the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor could be destined to become the Valeyard. The Doctor himself however laughs at this idea in the story. Until such a time as a connection is actually made, the fact the villain chooses "the Valeyard" as his alias means that's the villain being impersonated here, no matter what he actually looks like.
This story contains several plot points reminiscent of the novel The Eight Doctors.
- The Tenth Doctor loses his memory like the Eighth Doctor.
- The Doctor revisits, after a fashion, the events of his past adventures.
- The Doctor has an encounter with his previous incarnations, though in this case it is mental projections of them rather than the genuine articles.

Continuity

During the First Doctor's vignette (which is presented in monochrome as a reference to the original series being aired as such), reference is made to the Doctor hoping they don't end up in an Aztec temple, placing the Egyptian adventure before TV: The Aztecs.
The Doctor indicates that "no one alive" knows about all nine of his past incarnations. Indeed, the closest that comes to this is The Brigadier, who has met the first eight Doctors and the Tenth Doctor:
- TV: The Three Doctors (First Doctor)
- TV: The Web of Fear (Second Doctor)
- TV: Spearhead from Space (Third Doctor)
- TV: Robot (Fourth Doctor)
- TV: Mawdryn Undead (Fifth Doctor)
- AUDIO: The Spectre of Lanyon Moor (Sixth Doctor)
- TV: Battlefield (Seventh Doctor)
- AUDIO: Minuet in Hell (Eighth Doctor)
- COMIC: The Warkeeper's Crown (Tenth Doctor).
- The Brigadier has yet to meet the Ninth Doctor in any known media.
The Doctor encountered Kublai Khan in TV: Marco Polo.
The Tenth Doctor recalls Susan's departure in TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth and the return of Ian and Barbara to more-or-less their original time in TV: The Chase. The Doctor says he doesn't reckon that Susan is still alive, but adds that, though he "can't prove it", he believes all the Time Lords are gone. This follows on from his earlier discussion of the Time War with Martha in TV: Gridlock and the return and death of the Saxon Master in TV: Utopia and Last of the Time Lords.
The Third Doctor tale is set in 1972 during the Doctor's exile on Earth.
The mysterious man at the controls in Issue 1 sports a beard similar to that sported by the Roger Delgado and Anthony Ainley versions of the Master. The Doctor himself comments on the similarity when he tries to use one of the Master's devices on him. Later, the character's identity is revealed to be an insectoid creature impersonating the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor.
The Tenth Doctor has experienced heart stoppage on prior occasions, beginning in TV: The Christmas Invasion.
During the Eighth Doctor's flashback it is suggested that his statement of being "half-human" in TV: Doctor Who was a ruse.
The final issue establishes that the events of The Forgotten occur immediately following the final scene of TV: Journey's End.
In the Ninth Doctor tale, Captain Jack Harkness is mentioned. A soldier mentions a Captain Harkness being shot in the head and surviving with "not a scratch to be seen", suggesting this is the version of Jack who is already immortal. According to Jack's backstory in TV: Small Worlds, Fragments, and Immortal Sins, Jack left Torchwood Three to fight in both World Wars. At this point in their timeline, the Doctor and Rose have not met Jack yet. (TV: The Empty Child)
Also during the Ninth Doctor tale, the Doctor uses the name of "Bambera" to pass in World War I.
The soldier that the Ninth Doctor meets is named Benton, and might be John Benton's grandfather.
The Advocate later confirms that the modified De-mat Gun becomes the Moment. (COMIC: Don't Step on the Grass)
A Heavenly Host's disk is in a glass case in the TARDIS Matrix. (TV: Voyage of the Damned)

Cover gallery

Part 1: Amputation
Part 1 (Cover RI)
Part 2: Renewal
Part 2 (Cover RI)
Part 3: Misdirection
Part 3 (Cover RI)
Part 4: Survival
Part 4 (Cover RI)
Part 5: Revelation
Part 5 (Cover RI)
Part 6: Reunion
Part 6 (Cover RI)
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