Planet of the Dead (comic story)

Planet of the Dead
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Main enemy:	Gwanzulum
Main setting:	Adeki
Key crew
Publisher:	Marvel Comics
Editor:	Richard Starkings
Writer:	John Freeman
Artist:	Lee Sullivan
Letterer:	Zed
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who Magazine 141-142
Release date:	8 September - 13 October 1988
Reprinted in:	A Cold Day in Hell!, DWCC 14, DWCSD 4, Doctor Who Classics Volume 7
Format:	Comic - 2 parts (16 pages)
DWM comic stories
← Previous	Keepsake
Next →	Echoes of the Mogor!

You may be looking for the TV story.

Planet of the Dead was a Seventh Doctor comic published in Doctor Who Magazine.

Summary

The Doctor is on the planet Adeki, trying to fish, when he comes upon an old city of the Adekians. It is populated with metamorphic aliens. On meeting him, they take the shapes of his former companions (most of whom are dead), but then take the form of his previous selves.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Gwanzulum

Worldbuilding

• Frobisher told the Doctor about the Shaper Wars.
• The Doctor considers visiting the Halls of Speculative Interest on Vesivius.
• The Doctor mentions having lost his 500 Year Diary.
• The Gwanzulum predate the Whifferdills and the Kymbra Chimera, and have metamorphic DNA.

Notes

• The Gwanzulum shapeshifters were an idea by John Freeman that Richard Starkings decided to depict a "secret invasion" across multiple invasions. It was an attempt to see if anyone would notice.
• This was artist Lee Sullivan's first Doctor Who comic. He got the job due to his likeness of Richard Branson in a Transformers comic.
• The Doctor wonders if he has an appointment on Skaro, foreshadowing the events of the then-upcoming television serial, Remembrance of the Daleks.
• The story was later reprinted in DWCC 14 with additional colours.

Continuity

• The Doctor is confronted by his failure to save his companions from death in the forms of Adric, (TV: Earthshock) Jamie McCrimmon, (COMIC: The World Shapers) Katarina, and Sara Kingdom. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) Peri Brown is also present, (TV: Mindwarp) despite the Doctor knowing she survived to marry Yrcanos on Thoros-Beta. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
• Upon seeing Katarina, the Doctor remembers "a wooden horse" (TV: The Myth Makers) and "the Feast of Stephen". (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)

External links

• Planet of the Dead at the Doctor Who Reference Guide