Manton
Colonel Manton was a human who led the operations of the Church on Demons Run. Madame Kovarian and he conspired to kidnap Amy Pond and steal her baby. Manton hated the Doctor but feared him because of his long history of defeating foes such as Daleks, Sontarans and Cybermen. He wished to kill him, but underestimated the Doctor's abilities as he was able to defeat the Church forces with ease and without bloodshed. He went with Kovarian to threaten Dorium Maldovar in the Maldovarium before the Battle of Demons Run.
Manton was present with Kovarian at a troop rally in the hangar of Demons Run, where he boosted his troops' morale and ordered them to kill the Doctor on sight. To show them their advantages over the Doctor, he revealed the strength of their new allies, the Headless monks; they were literally headless and could not be diverted by compassion or surprise. However, the Doctor, in disguise as a Monk, revealed himself to Manton and all of the troops. As Manton raised his gun, Vastra and Jenny, two of the Doctor's allies who had seized the hangar control room, switched off the lights, allowing the Doctor to blend in with the Monks again in the dark.
Confused as to the Doctor's whereabouts, the troops targeted the Monks. One of the troops, believing a Monk to be the Doctor, opened fire, provoking the Monks to draw their weapons and strike down several troops. Realising that the Doctor had gained the upper hand and fearing that the Monks had turned against them, Manton ordered his troops to unload their weapons to persuade the Monks to stand down. The moment the troops finished unloading, a battalion of Silurian warriors and a platoon of Judoon teleported into the hangar and forced the rally to surrender. Commander Strax appeared beside Manton, announcing that the base now belonged to the Doctor. Manton warned that Demons Run would send out an automatic distress call to his outside fleet in the event of an attack; the Doctor, revealing himself once more atop a hangar walkway, countered this by ordering a pair of space-worthy Spitfires provided by Winston Churchill to destroy the base's comms array. With his entire army defeated in minutes, Manton had no choice but to surrender.
Manton was called to the Doctor in the hangar control room. The Doctor, infuriated at Manton and Kovarian's conspiracy to reach him by hurting his loved ones, told Manton to order his troops to "run away", taunting him angrily that he would be known as "Colonel Runaway" by everyone who saw him. As Manton was effectively useless for her secret plan, Kovarian abandoned him to the Doctor's orders, cruelly remarking "give the order, Colonel Runaway". (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
At some point, he wrote a book called Runaway Success: A Memoir. (PROSE: It's a Hard Life Being Madame Kovarian!)
Behind the scenes
- According to The Brilliant Book 2012, a book that contains non-narrative based information, Manton would later give a final report to the Papal Mainframe before being demoted to janitorial duties by Kovarian.
- Manton is one of the Church enemies in the Doctor Who: Legacy mobile game.
