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The Doctor and Martha go sightseeing in Harankast, when the stumble on an ugly secret …
Summary
The Doctor and Martha arrive on the beautiful and peaceful earth colony of Harankast, where the Doctor alone hears a buzzing sound in the distance while a local vagrant who introduces himself as Joseph Manver, warns them of things not right, government conspiracies, young people disappearing and weird creatures. The Doctor and Martha’s arrival had also been watched by the native Ranfo, giant, tailed,frog-like creatures who kidnap them and take them back to their camp where an uprising against the city dwellers is being planned. The City Dwellers are destroying the planet by riding around in their new cars which produce toxic clouds which destroy the countryside. The people who once lived in harmony with the Ranfo, seem to be oblivious to their damage Then the Doctor realises that they are being influenced by a brainwashing beam that only he could hear. A multitude of artificial flies act like aerials and beams the signals to the colonists.Each of the flies carries the company logo of Manver Autos, who are also the maker of the new environmentally unfriendly cars. The vagrant they met on arrival, Joseph Manver, had picked up their arrival, and suspecting they could upset his plans to convince the colonists to buy his new cars, met the Doctor and Martha undercover to check out how much of threat they were. Manver instructs the flies to attack but Ranfo attack the flies and by using his sonic screwdriver to disable the flies shared network, the colonists are no longer under Manver’s influence. Following a joy ride back to the TARDIS on the back of the Ranfo, Joseph Manver is led away by the police.
Characters
- Tenth Doctor
- Joseph Manver - Ruthless, environmentally unfriendly car dealer who used a manufactured flies to brainwash the colonists of Harankast into buting his manufactured polluting cars. Apprended by the local authorities when his scheme was exposed.
- Ranfo – native to the earth colony planet Harankast, these intelligent and social giant, frog-like-lizards are capable of leaping great distance and heights even with passengers on their back. For a while their harmony with the humans was threatened when their environment was being unknowing being poluted by the colonists who were brainwashed by Joseph Manvers.
Original Print Details (Publication with page count and closing captions)
- Doctor Who Battles in Time Issue 17 (4 pages) THE END!
Reprints
- None 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.
- Many of the individually titled comic strip adventures were themed over several issues, but were relatively self contained ‘episodes’.
- The limitation of only 4 pages meant that stories often lacked some depth in comparrison 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.
- Why the Ranfo would have a “feeeding frenzy” on the artificial metal flies is unclear maybe for the sport.
- This Scooby Doo style story has a give-away clue in the first frame of the strip where a car in the background carries Manver’s logo. Marthas comment (also in the first frame) that “most of the locals look, so Human” seems at odd with the selection of characters drawn for the background – maybe she was looking in a different direction!
- Once again the Doctor wears his glasses for precision work, this time disorientating the flies.
- Without introduction this is Martha first appearance.
References
to be added
Continuity
to be added
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