Dead Man's Hand (comic story)

Dead Man's Hand
Doctor:	Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Clara
Featuring:	Wilde, Edison
Main enemy:	Es'Cartrss of the Tactires
Main setting:	Deadwood, March 1882
Key crew
Publisher:	IDW Publishing
Editor:	Denton J. Tipton
Writer:	Tony Lee
Artist:	Mike Collins
Colourist:	Charlie Kirchoff
Letterer:	Shawn Lee
Release details
Printed in:	DW12 13 - 16
Release date:	18 September - 4 December 2013
Format:	American comic book 4 issues
Doctor Who (2012)
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Next →	The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who

You may be looking for the unproduced audio story.

Dead Man's Hand was a four-issue comic story in Doctor Who (2012). It was the first Doctor Who comic to feature the War Doctor. It was the last multi-chapter story published by IDW under its licence from the BBC, and was a sequel to one of its first story arcs, The Forgotten.

Although originally scheduled for monthly issue, due to IDW's licence to publish Doctor Who expiring at the end of 2013, the final two issues were published on an accelerated weekly schedule.

Summary

The Doctor and Clara cross paths with Oscar Wilde and Calamity Jane in the frontier town of Deadwood as they pay their respects to the recently passed Wild Bill Hickok. But soon they discover the grave is empty, and that the town is being plagued by a masked gunman who shoots his victims with nothing but a finger!

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Eleventh Doctor
• Clara Oswald
• Oscar Wilde
• Calamity Jane
• Wild Bill Hickok
• Thomas Edison
• Sondrah
• Es'Cartrss of the Tactires
• Sheriff Bradford
• Reynard
• Al Swearengen
• Kyle
• Captain Lacey
• Seth Bullock
• T'Keyn leader
• Kryll the Immortal Conqueror (Thistle the horse)
• Thundor the Tempestuous (Twinkle the horse)

Matrix projections

• First Doctor
• Second Doctor
• Third Doctor
• Fourth Doctor
• Fifth Doctor
• Sixth Doctor
• Seventh Doctor
• Eighth Doctor
• War Doctor
• Ninth Doctor
• Tenth Doctor

Worldbuilding

• Clara makes several references to the American TV series Deadwood, which involves a fictionalised version of the same town.
• Clara also references the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and the short story "The Happy Prince," both by Oscar Wilde. Due to this story taking place before they were written, the Doctor tells Clara she inspired them.
• The Doctor poses as Marshal Raymond from Yankton.
• Wilde was rejected by Florence Bascombe in favour of Bram Stoker.
• Wild Bill Hickok was killed by Jack McCall. He asks about his friend Charlie Utter, who went on to own a saloon in New Mexico.
• The Doctor cites the Shadow Proclamation using the made up numbers "umpteen" and "eleventy-twelve".
• Es'Cartrss fell into the T'Keyn mothership located in fifth dimensional E-Space.

Notes

• The frame in Part 3 showing all incarnations of the Doctor together in the Matrix is composed almost identically to the grouping of Doctors seen at the end of the television story The Day of the Doctor.
• The "play that mocks me" referenced by Wilde is the comic opera Patience by Gilbert and Sullivan. Though not directly parodying Wilde specifically, it was a satire of the aesthetic movement he was part of a lectured on and his booking manager was also the producer of an American production of the play.
• Clara's surprise that Wilde had his heart broken by a woman (Florence Bascombe) references the fact that Wilde was later infamously ostracised and imprisoned for being homosexual.
  • In real life, Florence's maiden name was Balcombe, not Bascombe, as it is spelt in this story.
• The speech that Wilde gives to defend humanity comes from his 1891 essay "The Soul of Man Under Socialism". This is referenced when the Doctor says he "may need it again one day".

Continuity

• Clara mentions having had enough of "big friendly buttons". (TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS)
• The Doctor can speak Horse. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
• The Doctor claims to have travelled with two children before Artie and Angie Maitland . (COMIC: The Klepton Parasites, TV: Nightmare in Silver)
• Oscar Wilde holds a strong resemblance to the Eighth Doctor. At one point, he puts on the original costume of the Eighth Doctor after finding it in the TARDIS. (TV: Doctor Who)
• The first twelve incarnations of the Doctor appear within the T'keyn Nexus, including the War Doctor, who is the only incarnation who does not speak. The Eighth Doctor attempts to defend him. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
• The Second Doctor states the Great Fire of Rome and the eruption of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii as fixed points in time. (TV: The Romans, The Fires of Pompeii)
• After Oscar destroys the ship of the aliens with the sonic screwdriver, he states that it now looks like a junkyard. The Doctor says that he spent some of the best times of his life in a junkyard with his granddaughter. (TV: An Unearthly Child) When Oscar asks what happened to her, he states that they lost contact. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
• The Doctor says that he wouldn't mind looking older again seeing as it's been "too long" since he last did so. He would get his wish when he regenerates into the Twelfth Doctor. (TV: The Time of the Doctor, Deep Breath)
• The Doctor calls the TARDIS "Sexy". (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
• The Doctor is able to deduce the identity of Es'Cartrss of the Tactires by its reaction in the T'keyn Nexus to seeing the Tenth Doctor; the events of their encounter are retold in brief. (COMIC: The Forgotten)
• Clara is not familiar with the Last Great Time War at this point and asks the Doctor to tell her about it, which he refuses to do. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• The final issue ends with the Doctor suggesting several possible destinations: visiting actor Archie Maplin in Hollywood, (COMIC: Silver Scream) having tea with H. G. Wells, (TV: Timelash, COMIC: The Time Machination) or visiting Kevin, a robot dinosaur currently working as a security guard. (COMIC: Space Squid)
• Clara then suggests visiting Dallas in November 1963, to see "what really happened on the grassy knoll". (TV: Rose; PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy) but the Doctor suggests Shoreditch instead, at Harry's Café near Coal Hill School. (TV: An Unearthly Child, Remembrance of the Daleks) The Doctor and Clara would later visit Shoreditch in November 1963, (PROSE: Shroud of Sorrow) and Clara became a teacher at Coal Hill School in 21st century Shoreditch. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, et al)
• Oscar Wilde is able to spend time in daylight with no visible signs of discomfort, despite the fact that other accounts state he is a vampire. (COMIC: Bat Attack!)