Pureblood (comic story)

Pureblood
Doctor:	Seventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Benny
Main enemy:	Modine
Main setting:	Pandora Spindle, Pandora's orbit
Key crew
Publisher:	Marvel Comics
Editor:	John Freeman
Writer:	Dan Abnett
Artist:	Colin Andrew
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Printed in:	DWM 193-196
Release date:	29 October 1992 - 21 January 1993
Cover date:	25 November 1992 - 17 February 1993
Reprinted in:	Emperor of the Daleks
Format:	Comic
DWM comic stories
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Pureblood was a four-part Seventh Doctor comic story published around the 1992-1993 Christmas season. It showed "ancient", non-cloned Sontarans, gave readers a rationale for why the Sontarans evolved into a clone race, and also served as a prequel to The Sontaran Experiment, offering a plausible explanation as to why Styre would have been seemingly unacquainted with Earth or the human race in the distant future.

Pureblood is also important for furthering the then-close ties the Doctor Who Magazine comic stories were trying to forge with the Virgin New Adventures books by introducing Bernice Summerfield into the strip. While those fans who had never read a New Adventures book might have been completely confused by the sudden replacement of Ace with Benny, those who had been dutifully following along would have picked up on a number of continuity beats between the two ranges.

The story contained some of the earliest visual depictions of Benny. Penciller Colin Howard's interpretation long predated either Lisa Bowerman or Adrian Salmon's involvement with the character, leading to a Benny quite dissimilar to the "Big Finish Benny".

Plot

Sontara, the home world of the Sontarans is about to fall. Their mortal enemies, the Rutans, are the apparent cause of their demise, but Marshal Stave and his men have little time to analyse the situation. They have only enough time to load the racepool into his flagship, the Warburg, and get into the comparative safety of space. The ship narrowly escapes as Sontara explodes.

The Doctor is knocked back by Rutan electricity.

Elsewhere in the galaxy, the Seventh Doctor and his new companion, Benny Summerfield, arrive on the orbital genetics laboratory called the Pandora Spindle. Though owned by the Lauren Corporation, it's affiliated with the Terran Federation, if only because its crew are dominantly human. No sooner have they surprised one of these humans than the Pandora Spindle is attacked and occupied by a Sontaran assault force. The Sontarans want to turn the world the humans are researching, Pandora, into a new homeworld. However, a Rutan spy who had been masquerading as the human Modine contacts the Rutans' allies — pureblood Sontarans who see the clones as weak and impure.

With the Pandora now about to be beset by both Rutans and Pureblood Sontarans, the Doctor quickly hatches a plan to save the Sontarans, turn back the Rutans and help the humans with one fell swoop. He convinces Marshal Stave that if he can broker a peace between him and his distant cousins, and then defeat the Rutans, all he'll need is one tiny little favour in return. The Marshal agrees, so the Doctor presses Benny into service. She goes off to the brig where the humans are keeping their Rutan "guest".

Benny extracts a Rutan confession.

The Doctor, meanwhile, materialises his TARDIS onboard the lead Pureblood ship and takes a surprise audience with Vord. He tries to convince the leader that the Rutans are deceiving the Purebloods into destroying the clone Sontarans. Vord is sceptical, having no reason to think the Rutans his enemy. The Doctor therefore chooses to offer proof. He establishes communication with Benny, who is by now face to face with Modine. In full view of the Purebloods, she gets the Rutan spy to disclose the full Rutan plan, which includes the destruction of the Purebloods after they kill the clones. Vord changes his tune almost immediately, and he joins the Doctor in the TARDIS for a quick hop back to Pandora. There, the two Sontaran groups reconcile and turn their might against the Rutans, who are successfully repulsed.

Marshal Stave then gets the Doctor's bill. In return for this victory, the Doctor wants Stave to breed out of the racepool all memory of humanity, thereby giving humanity a relief from Sontaran encroachment for centuries to come. The Sontaran agrees, cognisant of the fact that he has a lot of rebuilding to do. Stave transports the humans on Pandora back to Terran Federation space, and begins the long process of rebuilding the Sontaran Empire, using the planet beneath the station as their new home world.

As she slips back into the TARDIS, Benny isn't convinced the Marshal will keep up his end of the bargain. The Doctor is more optimistic, because he's already lived through it, telling Benny, "Earth will be spared Sontaran interference for a long time. Until a Field-Major called Styre comes along, actually."

Characters

• Seventh Doctor
• Bernice Summerfield
• Marshal Stave
• Modine
• Chief Lora
• Dona
• Sylvie
• Ganx
• Vord
• Major Brel
• Geneticist Denx
• Private Tryve

Worldbuilding

• The Doctor says the Rutan-Sontaran War started when both races expanded their empires and ran into each other "ten centuries ago".
• Benny mentions Heaven, the planet on which the Doctor first encountered her.

Notes

• The Rutan-Sontaran War is the backdrop against which the story is told.
• Unusually, the story contains a glaring editorial error. At the top of Part One, the opening narration establishes that it's the 26th century, which aligns with information given about the Second Dalek War given in TV: Frontier in Space. However, Part Two's opener says it's the 25th century.
• Immediately obvious in the script is the overwhelming presence of the word "cruk", a swear word Paul Cornell had gifted to Benny in her very first story.
• This story provides a retcon to the television episode The Sontaran Experiment by having the Sontaran Empire suddenly "forget" about humanity.
• In the commentary for the Emperor of the Daleks collection, Dan Abnett says he sees a "hint of the Ogrons" in Colin Andrew's art of the purebloods, and wonders if there could be a possible link between the species.

Continuity

• The Second Dalek War is being fought in the 26th century. (COMIC: Star Tigers)
• The Doctor says that Benny has just joined him. (PROSE: Love and War)
• When discussing why he's saving the Sontarans, the Doctor mentions times he's had the opportunity to wipe out deadly races, and how he has always stopped himself by asking is he has the right to. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
• The Doctor tells Benny that Earth will be left untouched by the Sontarans until Field Major Styre arrives on the planet. (TV: The Sontaran Experiment)