Black Death White Life (comic story)
Black Death White Life was an IDW one-shot comic book featuring the Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones. It was significant for being the final Tenth Doctor one-shot by the publisher during that incarnation's "era". After this publication, all IDW Tenth Doctor stories were seen in the pages of Doctor Who (2009).
Publisher's summary
After the Doctor and his companion Martha mistakenly land the TARDIS during the Great Plague of London, the discovery of a healer draws them into a mystery that could mean the end of Martha!
Summary
En route to witness The Beatles' famed rooftop concert in 1969, the Doctor and Martha Jones find themselves instead in rural England in 1669, where there appears to be a revival of the Black Death three years after it was supposedly eradicated. Villagers claim to be cured by a faith healer (leaving plague doctors disgruntled), who the Doctor decides to visit, suspecting a connection. Martha stays behind to help care for the sick, but is attacked by one of the doctors.
The Doctor arrives at the nearby church where the healer resides. He is led to him by Father Vital, who thinks he is an angel. The Doctor realises he is not so, but leaves the church. Once outside he encounters Martha, who has now been infected and informs him the plague doctors are aliens. The doctors reveal themselves to be a macro-virus, commenting they have an enemy to destroy and that Martha has been recruited. The Doctor barricades himself in the church and realises what recruitment means as some of the infected transform into other macro-virus.
Father Vitale and the Doctor try to protect the healer from the oncoming macro-virus. The Doctor realises the healer's true identity, and makes its full strength return by urging him on to be brave and save the Father. The healer multiplies and defeats the macro-virus on Earth. The Doctor has the original healer come with him into the TARDIS, healing Martha and travelling to its home planet with the new army to defeat the macro-virus.
The Doctor and Martha look on as the battle begins. Martha comments how the Doctor usually doesn't allow war, and he replies that his travels have taught him to let wars be sometimes.
Characters
References
- The Doctor quips about Martha's liking for milkshakes, referencing events in COMIC: Agent Provocateur.
- The Doctor and Martha are headed for 30 January 1969 to witness the Beatles' famed rooftop concert in London, an event also featured in PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird and reportedly disrupted per TV: End of Days. The Doctor's last words in this story, "Let It Be", are likely a reference to the famous Beatles song recorded around the time of the rooftop concert as well as the title of the movie featuring the concert.
- The Doctor says he started the Great Fire of London in 1666, but that "it was completely necessary", referencing TV: The Visitation.
Planets
Notes
- Martha Jones once again appears as the Doctor's companion; the IDW standalone series of comics is not being published in chronological order.
- The comic was originally promoted under the shorter title, Black Death.
- According to the letters column of Doctor Who (2009) #9, this was the last of the one-shots planned "for the moment", and therefore of the Tenth Doctor's era.
- Reprinted in the graphic novel Through Time and Space.
Cover Gallery
Cover A
Cover B
Continuity
- The reference to Martha liking milkshakes likely places this story after the events of COMIC: Agent Provocateur, but otherwise there are no other direct clues indicating when this story takes place during Martha's travels (other than it occurring prior to TV: Utopia).
- The Doctor mentions to Martha that one of his earlier incarnations was responsible for the Great Fire of London in 1666 (TV: The Visitation) but states that it was complete necessary in order to maintain the Web of Time. Though he does not make reference to it, that was not his first involvement with the fire in his personal timeline. The Fourth Doctor arrived on the scene shortly after his future self's departure and he and his companion Sarah Jane Smith were accused of having started it. (TV: Pyramids of Mars, PROSE: The Republican's Story)
