29 April, 2023

The Doctor brings on Darkness and night

"Bringer of Darkness" is a comic that appeared in the 1993 summer special edition of Doctor Who Magazine and so is very different from the comics that appeared in the late 1960s.

The Doctor, Victoria, and Jamie finally escape the London of The Web of Fear and land in the forested part of a planet. It all seems idyllic until they discover a damaged Dalek ship with a trio of the evil eye-stalked demons building a beacon to send a distress call to bring even more of these menaces to their rescue.

In classic style, the Doctor reverses the polarity of the beacon's neutron flow or some such thing causing the SOS signal to go in reverse and kill the Daleks. Victoria gets to see the creatures in the metal shells and feels a bit of empathy for them in contrast to the Doctor's glee at having killed 3 of his enemies. Victoria is disturbed by the display of hatred on the part of the Time Lord and wonders why the Daleks referred to him as Ka Faraq Gatri, a name which the Doctor dismisses a superstition. She realizes that she must leave the TARDIS.

A neat little tale that gets into Victoria's head more than you'd think possible. I like how the text that is from her journal is in script while Dalek dialogue is in their font. It was really nice to have a comic with a bit of substance and one where the Doctor does not refer to his companions as "children".

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