City of the Damned (comic story)

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City of the Damned was a Doctor Who Weekly comic story featuring the Fourth Doctor.

Summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Fourth Doctor arrives in the city of Zombos on the planet Zom. A ruling council, the Brains Trust, whose members have expanded brains instead of heads, have identified emotions as the cause of all crime and outlawed them. With the Moderator General and the Moderators, the people are controlled and forbidden emotional experiences. They use Harmonisers to remove emotions from the citizens. There is resistance from the Zom Emotional People's Organisation, each of whom carries out and lives by one emotion alone to preserve it until the arrival of the Great Emoter.

The Doctor is seen as the Great Emoter and is helped to escape the city. However, ZEPO's Big Hate has a plan to destroy the Moderators using his savage Barabara (giant blood bugs). The Barabara are released into the city but start to eat everyone, not just the Moderators. The Barabara, however, are defenceless against adrenalin. The Doctor appeals to the Brains Trust who agree to reinstall emotions to save what they have, but the Moderator General is opposed to the plan and kills the others.

The Doctor overpowers the Moderator General and orders the people into the Harmonisers, where they regain their emotions. The Barabara quickly die. The city begins a new life with all its inhabitants having a full set of emotions. The people feel so grateful to the Doctor that they end up dressing like him and adopting his mannerisms — such as offering jelly babies, for example. The Doctor appears to have observed this as the TARDIS heads through space towards its next unknown destination, saying "Oh well, I suppose they'll grow out of it!"

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

City of the Damned[[edit] | [edit source]]

Announcements warn those visiting the City of the Damned on planet Zom that emotions are outlawed, and even hope and alarm are strictly forbidden. While heading to Benidorm the Fourth Doctor visits the city in order to search for some repairs after the TARDIS's Time-space stabiliser cuts out on him.

Meanwhile, the Zomban people are addressed by the Moderator General who reminds them that the laws prohibiting emotion were created in their best interests, and that he will actively persecute the rebels who refuse to seek treatment for their primitive emotional urges. To prove his point the Moderator reveals that the rebel leader has been captured and proceeds to execute him - before instructing his subjects to visit a harmony booth immediately if they feel an emotion coming on.

Having landed in some living quarters, the Doctor is bemused to discover a married couple - 431/277A and 431/277B - who are seemingly devoid of all emotion. When the Doctor tastes some of their food he is disgusted by the tastelessness and, upon offering the pair a jelly baby, is informed by 'B' that foodstuff with taste is banned due to the fact that it could bring about unwanted emotions. At this moment the couple are contacted by the Moderator who informs 'A' that his recent Medexam had revealed a "hereditary malfunction of the heart", therefore he is withdrawn from the breeding stock and ordered to report to Chemfert. The Doctor witnesses 'A' and 'B' saying an emotionless goodbye, during which 'A' speculates that he is to be made into fertiliser - and that one day 'B' and her new 'A' would eat foodstuff grown from him.

After being questioned about her emotionless by the Doctor, 'B' feels tears welling up in her eyes and reports straight to the Harmony booth. The Moderator commemorates 'B' for coming straight to the booth, and she is hooked up to the machine in order to begin the Harmonisation process. Upon being informed about the Doctor's presence, the Moderator sends out a Moderation squad who immediately locate the Doctor. The Moderators scan the Time Lord and they are shocked by the rage of emotions they discover he possesses, and blast him with a transmat.

Mind-Wipe[[edit] | [edit source]]

The transmat takes them to The Watchtower, where the Moderators are appalled by the Doctor's clothes, hair, and the fact that he has a name. They force him to empty his pockets, and are not impressed when he produces coffee and donuts. The Moderator General explains that emotion was banned to remove crime, and that cranial implants are implanted at birth so that Harmony booths could be installed in the civilians' homes, but that there is a rebel group, the Zom Emotional People's Organization (Z.E.P.O.), who still fight. The Doctor witnesses Freddy Feel-Good go through the Harmonisation process, knowing that he is next. Meanwhile, the Z.E.P.O. fliers use gliders to break into the watchtower, smashing the glass of the room containing the Ultra-Harmoniser, claiming that they've come for "the prisoner".

Gauntlet of Death[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Z.E.P.O defeat the guards, but are surprised to find the Doctor under the machine instead of Freddy Feel-Good. They decide that as he was being treated for emotion, he is one of them, and the Doctor proves this by disabling the Ultra-Harmoniser, then escaping with the group on one of their wings. The guns on the watchtower and the moderators shoot at them, but they escape by flying out of the city, where the weapons don't work. A citizen remarks that the fliers are exciting, and is instantly arrested by a transmatting moderator who informs him "Excitement is an illegal emotion! Come with me, criminal!"

To save wing power, Z.E.P.O and the Doctor ride to their base on an outbound converter, as Will-to-Live explains that it was the Brains Trust who banned emotions. Meanwhile in the city, the Brains Trust tell the Moderator General to destroy the Doctor.

The Big Hate[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Night of the Barabara[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Bitter Harvest[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Streets of Blood[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

The Last Hours[[edit] | [edit source]]

to be added

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

Food[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Doctor claims that Jelly babies stop ears popping during transmat travel.
  • The Doctor has pills in his pockets for "Spanish tummy".

Places[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Doctor received a parking ticket on Jundian, although he swears that he wasn't doing a Grumma over forty.

Story notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • Pat Mills and John Wagner, although jointly credited, took turns in writing the scripts (the first person credited was the actual writer of the script, the second merely typed it). The Iron Legion was written by Pat Mills. (The Iron Legion's Dave Gibbons Interview)
  • City of the Damned was submitted as a television story, but rejected. (The Iron Legion's Dave Gibbons Interview)
  • For the American reprints, the story was retitled City of the Cursed, due to censorship laws in the United States.

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

Print Details[[edit] | [edit source]]

Original print details

  1. DWM 9 (5 pages) City of the Damned
  2. DWM 10 (4 pages) Mind Wipe
  3. DWM 11 (4 pages) Gauntlet of Death
  4. DWM 12 (4 pages) The Big Hate
  5. DWM 13 (5 pages) Night of the Barabara
  6. DWM 14 (4 pages) Bitter Harvest
  7. DWM 15 (4 pages) Streets of Blood
  8. DWM 16 (4 pages) The Last Hours

Reprints

  1. MP 59-60 (Marvel Premeire colourised reprint)
  2. The Iron Legion
  3. DWC 2-4 (IDW colourised reprint)
  4. Doctor Who Classics Volume 1 (IDW colourised reprint)
  5. Doctor Who Classics Omnibus Volume 1 (IDW colourised reprint)
  6. The Fourth Doctor Anthology
v • e
DWM Fourth Doctor comic stories
Original run
Solo
K9
Sharon & K9
K9
Solo
Later stories
Romana II
Romana I & K9
Sarah & Harry
Sean
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