Once Upon a Time-Lord (comic story)
Summary
The TARDIS, chasing Astrolabus who has Frobisher, is in a dimension world that has supposely low level organic life, but featuring anyway, a floating balloon, the Little Red Riding Hood, and a spectral being on a horse that attack the Doctor when he leaves the TARDIS. To his surprise, the Doctor repels it with words he doen't even know. Frobisher comes running to him, telling him he has been having a lovely time. He has merry chums here, too! The Doctor is not too sure that anything here is real. Frobisher is a guttersnipe from a slum on some backwater planet and never had merry chums in his life. A living tree tells the Doctor this is the land of make believe but is as real as they want it to be. It is like a story book. The Doctor warns of the dark side of fairy tales.
To an audience of what appear to be humans and bug eyed aliens with strange things coming out of their heads, Astrolabus tells of the plight of the Doctor and Frobisher. He warns of a greedy goblin group, 7 foot March Manglers from Xenophobe-12, whose crashed ship lies in the forest depths, hand hunters of Gamma Delta, who make necklaces from their victims' fingers. People enter the Land of Make Believe Fun House.
ONCE UPON A TIME LORD...FROBISHER EATS A WORM. A furry woodland gent, a badger man named Old Brock in Wild Wood and he has a huge earth worm in his hand. Frobisher eats it, cross-eyed. They leave him and find the shadows of the forest are alive with eyes.
ONCE UPON A TIME LORD... FROBISHER WISHES HE HADN'T. The pair find skulls and bones on sticks and an arrow hits a tree behind Frobisher. They heard the merry tinkle of little people. Frobisher wants to get away and steps into a monkey trap. It springs and makes him dangle upsidedown from his foot.
ONCE UPON A TIME LORD... HE WHO HESITATES IS LUNCH. Pygmies tie Frobisher to a stick and carry him horizontally, ready a bowl to cook him in. The Doctor watching, says, to himself really, "Why, Penguins taste awful and give you terrible heartburn!" A loincloth wearing mostly naked man, a Tarzan like figure with a knife, cuts the ropes off Frobisher's tree and frees him. Spears follow Frobisher as he runs to the Doctor.
Frobisher asks the Doctor what is happening, he does not feel like he is in control. Astrolabus asks the children to think of something really dangerous. On a brick walk way, the Doctor and Frobisher don't see the giant feet appear in the woods next to them. A giant troll with furs, a belt, a popping right eye, and a giant axe that he swings at them. It is very tall and large. "Doc! I can't take much more of this..." Frobisher yells. The Doctor says, "Just keep running... we've got to make it to the castle!"
This land of make believe is inside a magician's cabinet -- which is where the Doctor went after Frobisher, when the Penguin was kidnapped by Astrolabus after the pair freed a captured pair of Zyglot creatures...
Astral Arbus, swami, aviator, trick cyclist, accountant, thespian, gazeteer, boulevardier, man about town, and legend in his own lunchtime... is the one behind it all. Inside the castle, shelter from the giant troll chasing them, Frobisher and the Doctor encounter a midget knight guard who seems to attack them but who snaps the rope on the gate to bring it down on the troll giant's neck and head.
Astrolabus is in the king's chair playing with a Doctor puppet on strings. The Doctor bursts through the doors, shouting, "Knave! Varlet! Vagabond! Caitiff. Wretch. Rascal! Rapcallion! Blackguard. Shyster. Skunk. Cur. Tyrant. Fiend. Cad. 603n. Tergiversator!" He pulls a sword from the wall and cuts the strings off the puppet, telling Astro to get out of his mind. Astro pulls a sword and they fight. The Doctor rips the enemy's sleeve and sees that on the arm beneath is the missing star charts of Life are tattoed.
Astro runsout ao door to a dimension gate, through mountains, onto a stagecoach dressed as a cowboy, and onto a merry go round ride, riding a fake horse. He runs to a cottage but doesn't get in yet, trying to find a short cut to the next page of this comic! He is in nothingness on the next page as he makes it into the doorway. He wants to just make it to the next EPISODE.
He feels a power greater though and gets afraid. Dressed as an Arabian shiek on a camel is Life who wants the maps. The Doctor catches up with Astrolabus and forces him to tell Life the truth. While the villain asks Life for mercy, Life tells him that Astrolabus stole the charts for access to the most mysterious dimension of all... the dimension of death. Astolabus has the charts tattooed all over him. Life makes the charts vanish... with their skin... that of Astrolabus... a sandstorm hits and makes the thief vanish.
The Doctor's mind is now free. The Doctor finds what is left of Astrolabus's body, still alive and calling him. "Why, Astrolabus, why?" This was his last incarnation... he wanted immortality. The Doctor holds his own face, "You're mad, my friend... magnificent but quite quite mad." Astrolabus tells the Doctor that the Doctor would have made a worthy successor to him... the Doctor was just getting the hang of it. "I follow nobody, Astrolabus... I'm free... I go my own way." Astrolabus asks him, "Ah, Doctor... how can you know? How can you know.. how long... I have been writing you life? What will you do now that I'm gone?"
The castle blows up. Frobisher tells the Doctor, who is near the TARDIS with him now, "You rescued me!" Frobisher would like to look around the carnival now that they are there. He hasn't seen a carnival for ages. Frobisher asks the Doctor, "How about the Tattooed Man?" The Doctor has his hands in his pockets, "I don't think so. I'd much rather go somewhere else."
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Continuity
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