Follow That TARDIS! (comic story)

Follow That TARDIS!
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Featuring:	El Ape, Deadbeat
Main enemy:	The First Monk
Main setting:	Earth
Key crew
Publisher:	Marvel Comics
Editor:	Richard Starkings
Writer:	John Carnell
Artist:	Andy Lanning, John Higgins, Kev Hopgood, Dougie Braithwaite, Dave Elliott
Letterer:	Bambos Georgiou
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Printed in:	Doctor Who Magazine 147
Release date:	9 March 1989
Format:	Comic
DWM comic stories
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Next →	Invaders from Gantac!

Follow That TARDIS! was a Doctor Who Magazine comic story featuring the Seventh Doctor. It is notable for featuring the first appearance of the Sleeze Brothers, and several other concepts, which would later appear in their own solo series.

Summary

to be added

Plot

On Earth in the not too distant future, brothers El Ape and Deadbeat encounter the First Monk, who is attempting to rig the election against President Sinatra, when their car crashes into his toilet-shaped TARDIS. The Seventh Doctor arrives in his TARDIS and attempts to apprehend the Monk, but the Monk escapes through time. Intent on catching up with the Monk so that he can pay for the damage to their vehicle, El Ape holds the Doctor at gunpoint and orders him to follow the Monk's TARDIS.

The trio first track the Monk to Tunguska in 1908, El Ape uses a Phosphorus grenade in his search for the Monk's TARDIS and the resulting explosion causes the Tunguska Event. Next they venture to the Atlantic in 1912 and find themselves aboard the Titanic, El Ape identifies a passing iceberg as the Monk's TARDIS and rams the ship into it causing it to sink. Following the Monk to Bermunda in 1945 they discover that his TARDIS's dimentional interface has been distablilised, the Monk surrenders himself on condition that they save him from the resulting explosion. The Doctor, El Ape, Deadbeat and the Monk manage to flee before his TARDIS explodes - the result of which causes a plane, Flight 19, flying over Bermunda to dissapear.

Infuriated with the brothers for their interference throughout history, the Doctor returns to where they first met and kicks them out of the TARDIS. All the while Deadbeat had been reading from a book which detailed unexplained mysteries and disasters throughout history.

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• El Ape Sleeze
• Deadbeat Sleeze
• First Monk

Worldbuilding

• The Sleeze Brothers drive a Volkswagen Beetle.
• TARDIS is installed with a fully operational enviromental cloaking device which renders it almost indistinguishable from its surroundings, however for the most part it takes the form of a portaloo.
• The Tunguska Event, the sinking of the Titanic, the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle and the disappearance of Flight 19 all occur due to the Sleeze Brothers recklessness in trying to catch the Monk in the Doctor's TARDIS.

Notes

• This strip was created as a "jam" featuring the work of several different comics artists.
• The strip introduced the Sleeze Brothers, who would later appear in their own solo series. Several of the concepts introduced in said series including; the slurs Icehole and Derk, President Sinatra, the Spond currency and the NIB broadcasting company.

Continuity

to be added