Polystyle Holiday Special: Difference between revisions

Published in the waning years of the [[Polystyle]] licence, the [[Doctor Who Winter Special 1977|1977]] edition couldn't be more different. It is reprint-heavy, as reflects the state of the ''[[TV Comic]]'' strip of the late [[1970s]], and its [[The Living Wax (short story)|one original story]] confuses televised continuity entirely.

The [[Doctor Who Holiday Special 1973|1973]] volume is quite faithful to ''Doctor Who'' as it was then being televised. It makes thorough and in-character use of [[UNIT]], [[the Brigadier]] and {{Delgado}}. It contains both a [[Fogbound (comic story)|comic story]] and a [[Smash Hit (short story)|short story]] using the Master. That alone is unusual — most non-televised stories with the Delgado Master being published in the [[1990s]] — but the fact that these came while [[Roger Delgado]] was still alive makes them quite extraordinary.

As an example of the effort this volume makes to be faithful to television, [[Secret of the Tower (comic story)|one story]] even mentions [[Mike Yates]]. He didn't actually appear, but it was the only time that the character ever got a namecheck in comics published contemporaneously with the Pertwee era.

As with the previous year's special, [[UNIT]] and [[the Brigadier]] are back, this time with [[Sergeant Benton]] appearing in [[Doomcloud (comic story)|one story]]. Moreover, the notion of [[parallel universe]]s is explored in ''[[Who's Who? (comic story)Who's Who?]]'', which — as an occasional theme of the [[Third Doctor]]'s televised era — further makes this volume feel like a more faithful representation of Pertwee's time in [[the TARDIS]] than is typical for the ongoing Polystyle comic strip.

It is also interesting for having been released during the initial broadcast of ''[[Planet of the Spiders (TV story)|Planet of the Spiders]]''. It's thus a kind of "last hurrah" for the [[Third Doctor]] which would have been experienced by many contemporary readers after they knew [[Fourth Doctor|a new Doctor]] was on his way. Still, just as with the [[Second Doctor]], Polystyle would stretch out the Third Doctor's comic era for months after the televised [[regeneration]]. The [[Third Doctor]] still had more than six months of life in the pages of ''[[TV Comic]]'' after the publication of this volume.

The [[Doctor Who Winter Special 1977|1977]] edition stars the [[Fourth Doctor]] and is far poorer in terms of its original offerings. It has no original comics, instead preferring to reprint a number of stories that had originally starred the [[Third Doctor]]. As is common to the final years of the [[Polystyle]] comic licence, a (usually poor) attempt at [[Tom Baker]]'s likeness is merely dropped into the part of the frames previously occupied by [[Jon Pertwee]]. Its one contribution to the body of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' fiction is [[The Living Wax (short story)|a short story]] featuring the Fourth Doctor and [[Leela]] in [[Victorian era|Victorian]] [[England]]. Its illustrations are merely photos from ''[[The Talons of Weng-Chiang (TV story)|The Talons of Weng-Chiang]]'', meaning that there aren't even original ''illustrations'' in the 1977 edition, much less comics.