Ground Zero (comic story)

Ground Zero
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Ace
Featuring:	Susan, Sarah, Peri
Main enemy:	Threshold
Main setting:	Notting Hill, London, 2082
Key crew
Publisher:	Marvel UK
Editor:	Gary Gillatt
Writer:	Scott Gray
Artist:	Martin Geraghty, Bambos Georgiou
Letterer:	Elitta Fell
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who Magazine 238-242
Release date:	8 May - 28 August 1996
Format:	Comic - 5 parts
DWM comic stories
← Previous	Black Destiny
Next →	Doctor Who and the Fangs of Time

Ground Zero was a comic story featuring the Seventh Doctor and Ace. Notable for featuring a fate for the character Ace not supported by any other sources, it was one of the most controversial Doctor Who Magazine strips.

Summary

The Threshold have kidnapped three of the Doctor's former companions, along with his current one, using them for their employer's benefit; the Lobri — a creation of the human unconsciousness, feeding on fear. They intend to destroy the unconscious link between humans. The Doctor must stop them, but at what cost?

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Ace
• Susan Foreman
• Sarah Jane Smith
• Peri Brown
• Threshold

References

Energy and radiation

• Ace, Sarah, and Peri are sent to a "collective unconsciousness"; a place of pure psionic energy, only humans can survive there.

Individuals

• The Threshold neuro-lock Susan.
• Peri is tortured in order to harvest the greatest amount of fear from her.
• Susan Foreman recognises the Doctor as her grandfather.
• Susan can't be sent to the Lobri's realm because she isn't human.
• Ace attacks the Lobri single-handedly with the Doctor's umbrella and a can of Nitro-9. She is killed by the explosion, but succeeds in destroying one of the Lobri.
• The Doctor places mental blocks on Peri and Sarah's minds of the events.

Timeline

• Peri was taken from Hollywood, 14 May 1938.
• Susan was taken from London, 22 October 1963.
• Sarah Jane Smith was taken from Takhail, Russia, 25 April 2086.

Organisations

• The Threshold's motto is 'Just around the corner'.
• The Threshold are surprised initially that the Doctor isn't human (they kidnapped Susan in 1963, knowing she was connected to the Doctor, but not that she was an alien).

Species

• The Threshold's clients are called the Lobri, they feed off of primal emotions; fear and hatred.

TARDIS

• The Doctor links the Threshold's ring to the TARDIS's trans-reality navi-systems.
• As the TARDIS breaks through the collective unconsciousness, it starts to break apart, the cloister bell begins to ring, the Doctor tells Susan to refocus the force-field prisms.
• After the TARDIS's journey into the collective unconsciousness, the Doctor tells Susan to re-establish the tertiary navi-links.
• The Doctor lands the TARDIS inside the Lobri, the safety interlocks would have prevented this, had they been functioning.

Time Lords

• Susan claims that her people can see beyond the 'facades' of regeneration.

Weapons

• Ace uses her Nitro-9 to dispatch several of the Lobri.

Notes

• The first part of this comic starts with three inset panel from the last part of this comic.
• Ace dies in this comic. This prompted a hugely negative reaction from the fan base, as this was completely at odds with the account given by PROSE: Set Piece, part of the "Virgin continuity" the strip had previously adhered to.

• Then Doctor Who Magazine Editor Gary Gillatt explained this choice in DWM 240, citing the different resurrections of Abslom Daak in Emperor of the Daleks! and Deceit, and the conflicting Silurian stories Final Genesis and Blood Heat as instances where the continuities had diverged in the past. He stated "...as a result, we concluded things would be much simpler if the Marvel strip followed its own path". Then, in DWM 242, Gillatt stated "The bottom line is that Marvel's Doctor Who comic strip has been going strong since 1979. With seventeen years of our own continuity to draw upon we see no need (or feel any obligation) to try and shoehorn another publishing company's characters and concepts into our own."

• Part four was published in the same issue dedicated to the recent death of Jon Pertwee

Continuity

• Sarah was taken by the Threshold in COMIC: Black Destiny.
• Peri was taken by the Threshold in COMIC: The Curse of the Scarab.
• Susan was taken by the Threshold in COMIC: Operation Proteus.
• The Seventh Doctor is wearing the same outfit he is wearing in TV: Doctor Who (1996), the console room and the rest of the TARDIS is heavily damaged during this story, seemingly setting up for the changes seen in the TV movie.

External links

• Ground Zero at the Doctor Who Reference Guide