Opening narration box
The Doctor and Donna are prisoners of the fearsome Zantraan Queen ...
Summary
Before killing the Doctor and Donna who are being held in an isolation bubble, the Zantraan decides to test what the Doctor has told her about the scout mutations. She orders a guard to leave its body and take over the Doctor. The guard obeys and for a moment the Doctor undergoes a mutation, but the Zantraan guard is overcome by a smell inside coming from a blue cheese baguette in Donna's pocket, and has to leave the sphere. The Doctor makes a hole in the sphere using his sonic screwdriver and, as the germs escape, spreading panic amongst the queen and her people, the Doctor takes over the controls and manages to land the mothership on a remote farm where on opening the doors they are 'greeted' by pigs. The Zantraan are overwhelmed by the smell and and disgusted by the animals and accept the Doctors help fixing the ships drives and sending it back to Zantrah, where the plague should have died out. Half an hour later the Doctor and Donna realise they are some five hundred miles from the TARDIS which was left in Paris.
ArtistLee Sullivan
Characters
- Tenth Doctor
- Donna Noble
- Zantraan - Although they appeared as large, grey in colour, three-eyed, six tentacled limbed creatures, ruled over by a monarch Queen they were in fact a host body The Zantraan are more, and capable of leaving their body. The Zantraans were forced to leave their home planet when it was ravaged by a plague. The surviving population fled in a spaceship destined to find a new world. Finding the Earth undesirable they repaired their ship and returned home where the plague should have died out.
Original print details
(Instalment, publication with page count and closing captions)
- 4/4 Doctor Who: Battles in Time Issue 48 (4 pages) THE END
- No reprints to date.
Notes
- Supporting the series of collectable Doctor Who trading cards, the magazine title, carried a regular 4 page comic strip series of the Tenth Doctor’s adventures.
- The limitation of only 4 pages meant that stories often lacked some depth in comparison to other regular comic strips running at the same time.
- Style wise, the artwork and colours were bold and bright reflecting the tone of the magazine and, as with Doctor Who Adventures, it reflected the appeal to younger readers than that catered for by Doctor Who Magazine.
References
- The Battles in Time comic strip often sought to reinforce the Doctor character with that as seen on screen by utilising various ‘props’ used in the TV series. Namely; blue/brown suit, sonic screwdriver, psychic paper and his intelligent glasses.
Continuity
to be added
Timeline
- This story takes place after DWBIT: Attack of the Rats
- This story takes place before DWBIT: Pawns of the Zenith