Dr. Who's Time Tales (DWM 33 comic story)
The fourth story in the Dr. Who's Time Tales series was printed in Doctor Who Weekly #33.
It followed the format of the series: short tales depicting strange events in the Doctor Who universe, narrated by the Fourth Doctor himself, similar to DWM backup comic stories, created by adding the Fourth Doctor framing device to a preexisting Marvel comic story, in this case The Frightened Man!, first published in 1959 in Strange Tales #73. Unlike previous entries in the Time Tales series, this one did not see fit to alter dialogue in the story that evoked this original date: the "present-day" sequences of the story are still referred to as being set "a full fifty years" before 2009.
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Fourth Doctor reflects on a time tale about Professor Egen, a human scientist from 1959 who intends to build a time machine to observe the future of humanity directly. When he presents the project to a panel of his colleagues, they call him mad, insisting not only that his machine would probably not work, but also that knowledge of humanity's feature might be a dangerous thing to bring back to the present. He tries to build his machine on his own, but the government intervenes, confiscating his equipment.
Determined to build his machine at any cost, Egen secretly buys additional equipments and sets up camp in an abandoned cave. The authorities eventually locate him, but the searching party sent out to find him get to the cave just too late, seeing him take off in the newly-built time machine. Hopping forward fifty years, he ends up in 2009 and sees a modern city. However, still curious, he presses the time-accelerator button again to propel himself to 2109. The city, although in a different architectural style, has not changed very much on the whole, and, disappointed, Egen makes another, two-hundred year jump; 2309 gives him a glimpse of city-sized space stations.
Emboldened, he jumps forward one thousand years — but the Earth of 3309 appears deserted of human life. He theorises that humanity must have left their original homeworld behind to conquer the stars, but, after a short hop to 3359, he sees that humans have returned to being cavemen. Panicking, he pushes the time dial further than its limit of one thousand years apiece; as the world blurs around him, he catches glimpse of all of human history repeating, including the rise and fall of the "ancient civilisations", and finally ends up back in what appears to be the exact world he started from. He steps out of the time machine, wondering if the Earth's history is actually an endless time loop, only to find his head growing heavy and hazy while, behind him, an unknown force melts his time machine into scrap metal. A voice resonates in his head, telling him that "Man was never meant to know the future" and that "if he ever learns it, then Fate itself takes the memory from him!".
By the time he makes his way back to his lab, Egen has entirely forgotten his entire adventure. He resumes his work on time travel experiments and is once again decried as mad by his colleagues.
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Fourth Doctor notes that he previously told this tale to K9, who enjoyed it.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Although it was implicit in the story's original printing, and the style of dress of the soldiers who confiscate Egen's equipment remains consistent with this notion, nothing in the story actually confirms that Egen lives in the United States of America.
- In its original status as a stand-alone Marvel Comics story, there was no clear hint of the nature of the force which returns Egen to his own time, melts down his time machine and suppresses his memories, with the florid assertion that it is "Fate itself" remaining the only available answer. In the story's recontextualisation as taking place in the Doctor Who universe, however, the obvious conclusion is that it is the Time Lords. Indeed, assuming the Doctor's story is real at all rather than a fabrication, the Doctor can only have heard it from the force who destroyed Egen's machine, since Egen himself forgot it immediately after it occurred — meaning the Doctor knows the nature of this force and is on speaking terms with "it".
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- A mysterious force believes that humans should not possess knowledge of time travel, and when catching up with a human who has indeed time travelled, erases his memory, leaving him to return to his original life with no recollection of his adventures in time. (TV: The War Games)
