Skywatch-7 (comic story)

Skywatch-7
Featuring:	UNIT
Main enemy:	Zygon
Main setting:	Arctic Base Skywatch-7, 12 December 1985
Key crew
Publisher:	Marvel Comics
Editor:	Alan McKenzie
Writer:	Maxwell Stockbridge
Artist:	Mick Austin
Letterer:	Elitta Fell
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who Magazine 58, Doctor Who Winter Special
Release date:	November - December 1981
Reprinted in:	DWM 85, DW84 21, DW84 22
Format:	B&W 2 parts / 8 pages
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Skywatch-7 was a comic story published by Marvel Comics. It was written by Maxwell Stockbridge.

Summary

Part one

On 12 December 1985, UNIT Arctic base Skywatch-7 with UNIT Command loses radio contact after a meteor landing is detected. John Campbell goes out to investigate, leaving Tobey in charge, but returns having found no sign. In the night John smashes up the radio link and fearful of a lighter flame runs outside. When the other soldiers (Captain Hawks, Lederer, Tobey) follow, they are faced with a Zygon.

Part two

Going in pursuit, the soldiers witness changing footprints in the snow, indicating that the creature can change shape, and follow them to the vehicle shed. Wrongly shooting the real Campbell who is wandering around dazed, they drive the alien creature onto the ice with gunfire and send it sinking beneath the frozen waters.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• John Campbell
• Tobey
• Captain Hawks
• Lederer
• Zygon

Worldbuilding

to be added

Notes

• The original publication of part two in DWMS Winter 1981 included the following footnote under the opening frame: "Continued from Doctor Who Monthly 58 — still on sale!"
• A caption on the final page reads: "Zygons are instinctively afraid of flame. See Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster by Terrance Dicks."
• The caption at the top of the first page that reads "+++ UNIT ARCTIC BASE +++ DATELINE 12TH DECEMBER 1985 +++" is absent in the reprints by IDW.
• The story takes inspiration from the short story "Who Goes There?" by Joseph W. Campbell, which later inspired the films The Thing from Another World and The Thing, and follows men at an Antarctic base under attack from a shape-shifting alien.

Original print details

Publication with page count and closing captions

1. DWM 58 (4) To be continued...
2. DWMS Winter 1981 (4)

Reprints

• Reprinted in full in DWM 85 retaining the part one and two division which fitted in with the regular eight page comic strip split of four pages at the front and four at the back. There is no regular Doctor Who comic strip in this issue for reasons that were never explained.
• Coloured and reprinted by Marvel in DW84 21 and 22.
• DWCS2 13 (IDW colourisation)
• Doctor Who Classics Volume 5 (IDW colourisation)
• Doctor Who Classics Omnibus Volume 2 (IDW colourisation)

Continuity

to be added