The Clockwise War (comic story)
The Clockwise War was a comic story published in Doctor Who Magazine in 2018.
Summary
Part one
In the tower of Silent Memory upon the desert of High Remorse on Gallifrey, the Time Lord Bellator ascends, followed by General Kenossium, to prepare for a ritual that will lead him to his final regeneration. Telling the Time Lords to hurry up because "I've heard this malarkey eleven times already", Bellator begins to regenerate, but something goes badly wrong. Part-way through the process, he ends up twisted and elongated, and collapses to the floor, dead, before dissolving in an orange puddle on the ground. A Gallifreyan soldier arrives to inform Kenossium that all six regenerations that have taken place in the last hour have failed and led to the deaths of the people involved.
In the TARDIS, the Twelfth Doctor is in a great rush, even missing Alan Turing and Ranesh's wedding, but for a reason he will not tell Bill. Before he can elaborate, the TARDIS hits a massive energy field, an 'entropy bubble', encompassing a huge variety of destroyed space craft floating in zero gravity, as the TARDIS is drained of its power. Realising they can breathe in the field, the Doctor and Bill leave to try and prevent the TARDIS being "sucked dry", before someone shoots the TARDIS. It is revealed to be Gol Clutha and her band of mercenaries, and they drag the Doctor and Bill to the dead remains of a colony ship, the Rangiroa. Gol seems surprised that the Doctor does not know who she is working for this time and believes the state of the ship is his fault, but he has no idea what she means. Gol shows the Doctor the other inhabitants of Rangiroa - lots of people who used to be celebrities and geniuses on their own worlds, now stranded and homeless on the ship. Wanting revenge, Gol prepares to shoot the Doctor but is distracted by something.
Led outside, the Doctor realises that as Gol is a temporal mercenary, the ships stranded in the energy field are actually time machines, not spaceships. He eventually comes face to face with the leader of the Rangiroa - Count Jodafra. Like Gol, Jodafra also believes that the Doctor has set them up and has come to gloat, having made Fey Truscott-Sade work for him, but the Doctor still does not understand why he thinks this. Suddenly, before they can go any further, they are interrupted by a sight that shocks even Gol - the return of the Clockwise Men.
Part two
On the banks of Westminster in London, Hugo Wilding walks alone along the River Thames. He is quickly identified by a very confident ex-colleague of his, Alexander Truscott, who confirms to a begrudging Hugo that he is soon due to be appointed as head of the Ministry of Defence. Alexander mentions that Hugo's 'side operation' of sending British agents to space to help defend from attacks is a secret that is safe with him, but Hugo quickly shouts at him for discussing it in public, and denies it exists. Apologising, Alexander quickly takes off.
On the Rangiroa, the sight of the Clockwise Men advancing on the group causes everyone to panic, and Gol and her group start attacking them. However, their shots go straight through them, and a simple touch from the Clockwise Men is enough to age the attackers to death. The Doctor, having removed his handcuffs, narrowly rescues Bill from the Clockwise Men and finally convinces Gol and Jodafra that the attack is nothing to do with him. The four escape into Jodafra's golden time machine, the Salvation, and it materialises next to the TARDIS so that the TARDIS can be powered up enough to break out of the entropy bubble. The Doctor and Jodafra get to work as Bill and Gol head outside to attack the Clockwise Men. However, Gol's proton cannon has no effect either, and a second Clockwise Man appears, attacking Gol and ageing her to death. When the Doctor and Jodafra finish their preparations, Jodafra reveals he was betraying the Doctor by swapping the settings to power up the Salvation instead of the TARDIS, but the Doctor shows how he swapped the settings first in anticipation.
The Doctor heads out of the ship and grabs Bill to return to the TARDIS, with a very angry Jodafra in hot pursuit. However, before he can attack the Doctor, his wrist is grabbed by Fey Truscott-Sade, appearing out of nowhere. Telling the Doctor he should just keep running as he always does, Fey throws Jodafra into the Clockwise Men, killing him as well. This leads to a chain reaction as the Rangiroa collapses in on itself, also killing everyone on board. As the Doctor begs Fey to stop, she refuses, and disappears. Running back to the TARDIS, the Doctor and Bill just barely escape the collapsing entropy bubble.
On a ruined castle floating in an area of red space, Fey approaches a robed figure she calls Absence, telling it that everything went as expected. Absence watches the death of Bellator through a portal, pleased at what it sees, and confirms it had sent the Phantom Piper to steal a complete map of the space/time vortex from Chiyoko. Fey states that with that information on their side, the Doctor has lost.
Part three
In the Indian Territory of America, 1882, Totika gets a surprise visit from a familiar face - the Marshal Bass Reeves. Being two years after their incident with the Stikini, she wonders why he came to visit, and he responds that he knows the feeling of being an outsider like her, and while he does not agree with what she did, he understands her anger and believes she deserves a second chance. However, they are interrupted by the sound of a TARDIS landing nearby. It is not the Doctor that emerges, though, but Kenossium, wishing to recruit Reeves for some reason.
Having escaped the entropy bubble, the Doctor and Bill head back to Cornucopia as the Doctor rushes ahead to meet with someone. Before he can do so, however, Bill grabs his wrist and shouts at him for not being open with her about his plans or who Fey really is, and the two walk off together. They enter a fancy office and the Doctor is immediately shouted at by a certain Miss Ghost for breaking in and taking his companion with him. As she reveals her true form as Annabel Lake, the Doctor explains he needs to access a very old file from her archives.
Annabel takes back the form of Miss Ghost, blindfolds the Doctor and Bill, and drives them to her secret Wonderland headquarters, but the Doctor quickly has to take the wheel as their car is intercepted by an air-truck, being ridden by a defiant Fey. Annabel jumps off and begins exchanging fire with Fey, but Fey aims at the car being ridden by the Doctor and Bill instead. When Annabel attempts to punch Fey, she turns intangible. Realising she must become tangible for even a split second when shooting, Annabel kicks her and uses her sonic screwdriver to divert the air-truck into the ground, where it explodes on contact, and she barely escapes with the Doctor. However, Fey emerges from the flames, unharmed.
At Wonderland HQ, the Doctor and Annabel meet up with Patrick Lake about the Doctor's request as Bill quietly recovers with a drink, feeling somewhat shaken for being the target of a shooting for once. Eventually, data about Fey reaches the Lakes, revealing her to be believed to have been killed in action in 1944. The Doctor explains how she used to be a good friend of his - travelling with him and eventually bonding with the Gallifreyan secret agent Shayde. Finally, the Doctor promises to explain all to Bill about what happened to her. The event did not take place in his current incarnation, however. Instead, it happened on "the worst day of the Time War."
Characters
- Twelfth Doctor
- Bill Potts
- Bellator
- Kenossium
- Gol Clutha
- Maakku
- Jodafra
- Hugo Wilding
- Alexander Truscott
- Fey Truscott-Sade
- Absence
- Bass Reeves
- Totika
- Annabel Lake
- Patrick Lake
- War Doctor
References
to be added
Notes
- The name of the Time Lord General who debuted in TV: The Day of the Doctor is revealed to be Kenossium.
- The title of the comic is reminiscent of the Ninth Doctor novel The Clockwise Man.
Original print details
- (Publication with page count and closing captions)
- DWM 524 (8 pages) Next: The Sacrifice!
- DWM 525 (8 pages) Next: Kill Bill!
- DWM 526 (8 pages) Next: The Death of the Doctor!
Continuity
to be added
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