Review by Tony Keen

In 1979, Marvel UK began publishing black and white Doctor Who comics, featuring the Doctor, as played by Tom Baker, the fourth lead actor in the long-running  British TV series. In 1980, these strips were coloured and republished in the US, and from 1984 in the Doctor’s own title. Twenty years later the US rights had passed to IDW, who began republishing the old Marvel strips from 2007. The strips were all recoloured by Charlie Kirchoff, in somewhat more sympathetic form than had been the case with Marvel (see sample image).

To write their strips in 1979, Marvel recruited two stars of 2000 A.D., Pat Mills and John Wagner. Officially, they were jointly credited, but in actuality they wrote alternating stories, with the writer responsible for each credited first. These were all story ideas Mills and Wagner had submitted to the BBC for the actual television show, without being accepted, though in 2023 ‘Doctor Who and the Star Beast’ was adapted for David Tennant as the Doctor. This collection covers 1979 and early 1980, featuring Mills’ ‘Doctor Who and the Iron Legion’ and ‘Star Beast’, and Wagner’s ‘City of the Damned’. There’s also the two parts of ‘Timeslip’ by Marvel UK staffer Paul Neary from a plot by then-editor Dez Skinn, which bears all the hallmarks of being a fill-in, and in consequence is often left out of reprints.

Without a BBC producer or script editor to make them conform, Mills and Wagner give us their version of what they thought the Doctor Who universe ought to be like, which, unsurprisingly, is quite like the universe they created for 2000 A.D. In particular, the humour is very like what one might expect in Judge Dredd. There’s also a high body count, especially in ‘City of the Damned’, and one wonders if this would have been acceptable to a BBC at the time running scared of ‘decency’ campaigner Mary Whitehouse.

Also distancing these strips from most people’s experience of Doctor Who is the lack of the regular cast besides the Doctor (due to complicated rights issues). For the first two stories, the Doctor interacts only with characters created by Mills and Wagner, before K-9, the Doctor’s robotic dog, was brought into the comics in ‘Timeslip’. Then in ‘Star Beast’ Mills introduces a new companion for the Doctor, a working-class black schoolgirl called Sharon, a deliberate contrast to the companions accompanying the Doctor on television. Mills was ahead of television Doctor Who here, which wouldn’t provide the Doctor with a non-white companion for another two decades.

Art is by Dave Gibbons, also lured from 2000 A.D. He does well with Mills and Wagner’s concepts, and captures Tom Baker’s face. Overall, these are enjoyable strips.

All the material here can also be found in Doctor Who Classics Omnibus Volume 1, and, with the obvious exception of the Neary-drawn ‘Timeslip’, in Doctor Who: Dave Gibbons Collection. The stories are also in Doctor Who: The Fourth Doctor Anthology, in black and white. ‘Iron Legion’, ‘City of the Damned’ and ‘Star Beast’ are in Doctor Who: The Iron Legion, whilst ‘Timeslip’ is in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time; all these are also in black and white. Finally, the original 1980 Marvel coloured version of ‘Iron Legion’ is reprinted in the Doctor Who 1985 Summer Special Classic. This series continues with Doctor Who Classics Volume 2.