Supremacy of the Cybermen (series)

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Supremacy of the Cybermen was a mini-series of Doctor Who comics published by Titan Comics in 2016. The mini-series served as a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Cybermen's debut appearance in the television episode The Tenth Planet, which was first broadcast between 8 - 29 October 1966.

Overview[[edit] | [edit source]]

Crossover between comic ranges[[edit] | [edit source]]

The comic story of the same name served as Supremacy of the Cybermen's main release. It was a five-part crossover story between four of Titan Comics' other Doctor Who comic ranges:

Of these four ranges, Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor comprised the core of Supremacy of the Cybermen's narrative, the events of which served to set up the scenarios that were the other three ranges' involvement in the mini-series. In particular, the Twelfth Doctor's appearance in Supremacy of the Cybermen narratively occurred sometime between the television episodes Hell Bent and The Husbands of River Song, expanding on Rassilon's ultimate fate after he was exiled from Gallifrey in Hell Bent, and featuring a number of other characters from said story, including the Time Lords, the General, Ohila, and the Sisterhood of Karn. Gallifrey and Karn also returned, and the Eye of Harmony was of significant importance to the story's events.

Beyond the Twelfth Doctor's narrative, however, the Eleventh, Tenth, and Ninth Doctors also appeared in separate narrative scenarios within Supremacy of the Cybermen. Firstly, the Eleventh Doctor's scenario featured Alice Obiefune and was set on prehistoric Earth. Secondly, the Tenth Doctor's scenario was set between the comic stories Vortex Butterflies and The Long Con, featured Gabby Gonzalez, Cindy Wu, and the Sontarans, and was primarily set on Sontar in the 24th century. Finally, the Ninth Doctor's scenario occurred between the events of the comic stories Hacked and Doctormania, featured Rose Tyler, Captain Jack Harkness, and Jackie Tyler, and was set on the Cyber-Earth in 2006.

Each of the Doctors' four narratives occurred in an alternate timeline created by Rassilon allying with an army of Cybermen based at the end of the universe and allowing them to invade all of time and space. The Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, along with their companions, each faced the Cybermen in situations which they were unable to overcome, engineered by the Cybermen to prevent them from assisting the Twelfth Doctor in defeating Rassilon and the Gallifreyan Cyber Fleet during their invasion of Gallifrey at the end of the universe.

Prologues[[edit] | [edit source]]

In addition, Titan Comics produced a series of nine short comic stories which served as prologues to Supremacy of the Cybermen's main story. Each prologue was one page in length, and featured an incarnation of the Doctor, prior to the Ninth Doctor, encountering the Cybermen within the alternate timeline that served as Supremacy of the Cybermen's main setting, also in situations that they were unable to overcome. These prologues featured several characters from the eras of their respective Doctors; while most of these were companions of their respective Doctors, Prologue: The Third Doctor featured the Master, Prologue: The Sixth Doctor featured Darkel, and Prologue: The War Doctor featured the Moment.

The Twelfth Doctor experienced most of these encounters that his previous selves had with the Cybermen, including those of the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors, as memories during the events of Supremacy of the Cybermen's main story, and by the end of said story, had complete memories of the entire alternate timeline's events, even after it was negated by himself and a betrayed Rassilon. However, the Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Doctors only remembered their respective encounters with the Cybermen in this timeline, with no understanding of how the Cybermen were defeated, while none of the Doctors prior to the Ninth Doctor retained any memory of their involvements with Supremacy of the Cybermen's alternate timeline.

Several of these prologue stories were alternate versions of stories from the Doctor Who TV series:

The Cybermen[[edit] | [edit source]]

Cover C of SOTC 1, depicting a Cyberman of the design introduced in Nightmare in Silver.

As part of Supremacy of the Cybermen's celebration of the Cybermen's 50th anniversary, a large number of Cyberman variants were used across both the mini-series' main story and the nine prologues. Many of these variants were taken from television episodes, and included CyberMondans (from The Tenth Planet), the "Late" CyberFaction (from The Wheel In Space), CyberNomads (from Revenge of the Cybermen) CyberIsomorphs (from Silver Nemesis), the Cybus Cybermen (from Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel), and the Cyberman design which debuted in Nightmare in Silver. Some of these Cyberman designs saw slight modifications; the Cybus Cybermen occasionally sported blue chest plates, similar to the blue chest power cells featured on the Nightmare in Silver Cybermen, while the unnamed Cyber-Leader of Supremacy of the Cybermen itself resembled a Nightmare in Silver Cyberman with the Cyber-helmet design first used by the Cyber-Lord from The Next Doctor. Uniquely, Prologue: The Eighth Doctor featured Cybermen of the design used in the comic story Dreadnought.

Prologue: The Fourth Doctor and Prologue: The War Doctor were unique in that they featured Cybermen whose designs were previously unused in any officially published stories; the former featured Cybermen resembling those which would have appeared in the cancelled Doctor Who 30th anniversary television episode, The Dark Dimension, while the latter featured Cybermen whose designs were initially produced by Millennium FX in 2005, as an early design for the Cybus Cybermen who would debut in Rise of the Cybermen and The Age of Steel.[1] A new version of the The Dark Dimension Cyberman design, which sported a black Cyber-helmet and side handles, was used for the unnamed Cyber-Leader of Prologue: The Fourth Doctor. In a similar vein, Prologue: The Eighth Doctor featured Cybermats of the design produced by visual effects assistant Mike Tucker for a potential appearance in the TV story Silver Nemesis, before script editor Andrew Cartmel swiftly decided against their use; a prop of one of these Cybermats was eventually used in the documentary 30 Years in the TARDIS.[2]

In addition, many new Cyberman designs were created for Supremacy of the Cybermen. A unique standard Cyberman design was used in Prologue: The Sixth Doctor; these Cybermen resembled sleeker Cybus Cybermen with various clock-like features (such as gear teeth on their shoulders and a clock face for a chest power cell). Supremacy of the Cybermen itself featured a unique design for the Cybermen faced by the Ninth Doctor: the Cyber-Warriors, a highly-muscular variant - predating the debut of the Cyber-Warrior design introduced in the television episode Ascension of the Cybermen by over three years - with Rose Tyler's Cyber-Warrior form closely resembling a Cybus Cyberman, albeit with a huge pyro cannon instead of a right arm. A sleek, near-featureless design was also used for the same story's Cyber-Controller, and a highly similar design was used for the Cyberman design envisioned by the same Cyber-Controller as the form that the Cybermen would take in the Age of the Cyberiad. Beyond the standard Cybermen, a new, significantly more advanced, design was used for the CyberKings, with minor variations between each of them. The Cyber-Silurians - partially cyber-converted Silurians - were encountered by the Eleventh Doctor and Alice Obiefune, rather than regular Cybermen, and Prologue: The Fourth Doctor featured a cyber-converted K9.

Stories[[edit] | [edit source]]

# Title Writer Doctor Featuring Printed in Reprinted in Released
1 Supremacy of the Cybermen George Mann, Cavan Scott 12th Eleventh Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Ninth Doctor, Alice, Gabby, Cindy, Rose, Jack, Jackie, Cybermen, Rassilon, Twelfth General, Sontarans SOTC 1-5 Supremacy of the Cybermen 6 July-16 November 2016
2 Prologue: The Eighth Doctor 8th Josie, Cybermen, Cybermats 4D 4 2016 Convention Special, Supremacy of the Cybermen 13 July 2016
3 Prologue: The Fourth Doctor 4th K9, Cybermen
4 Prologue: The First Doctor 1st Susan, Ian, Barbara, CyberMondans 10DY2 12
5 Prologue: The Sixth Doctor 6th Mel, Darkel, Cybermen 11DY2 11 21 July 2016
6 Prologue: The Second Doctor 2nd Polly, Hobson
7 Prologue: The Third Doctor 3rd The Master 12DY2 8
8 Prologue: The War Doctor War The Moment, Cybermen
9 Prologue: The Fifth Doctor 5th Peri, CyberNomad, CyberIsomorph 10DY2 13
10 Prologue: The Seventh Doctor 7th Ace, CyberIsomorph

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ https://cybermantra.wordpress.com/about-the-cybermen/cyberman-designs/the-millenium-fx-cyberman/
  2. ↑ https://whosfx.wordpress.com/category/silver-nemesis/
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