The Dogs of Doom (Part 1)

STORYLINE

A shuttle is due to land at Davy Crockett Base, and many of the colonists have come out to greet it. It's been months since they've had contact with anyone from the New Earth System. Unfortunately, before the ship can land, the colony is attacked by Werelox, a vicious wolf-like species. Those who weren't killed immediately retreated to what they believed was the safety of the Alamo. However, those colonists who have been scratched and injured are quickly transformed into Werelox themselves. Within moments, all human life is extinguished at Davy Crocket Base. Meanwhile, the TARDIS has just landed on the transport ship due at the base. He has intended to take Sharon home, but the TARDIS' timing is way off. As the Doctor and Sharon are greeted at gunpoint by the pilot and his co-pilot, the transport is suddenly attacked by another space vessel.

The transport is caught in a tractor beam from a Werelox ship. Werelox boarding parties are soon to follow. Pilot Joe Bean and his co-pilot, Babe Roth, have little choice but to trust the Doctor and accept his aid against the attackers. Their only option appears to be to disconnect the cargo pods from the hauler. They are able to break free and speed away from the Werelox vessel, but not before a couple of boarding pods have attached to their hull and broken through. Despite Joe and K-9's valiant efforts, the vessel is nearly overrun by Werelox.

As K-9 is upended, the Doctor is alone against the final Werelok. He eludes the beast, but not without getting scratched. Once K-9 is back upright, he is able to stun the remaining Werelok. Babe and Sharon are able to handle their own side of the fight thanks to Babe's fine shooting. The stunned Werelox are all tied up and secured, and it looks like things have cooled down, but that's before the Doctor goes through a transformation himself. Thanks to the poison injected through his scratch, the Doctor has transformed into a Werelok.

A wolfed Doctor can't help himself; he knows he is a danger to Sharon and the two truckers, so he does the only thing he can. With what little control he has left, he jumps into the TARDIS and enters limbo. With K-9's aid, he spends months slipping in and out of lucidity and working on a cure for his affliction. Finally, a cure is found, and he is returned to his old self. He returns to Sharon on the hauler mere moments after he left. While he has been away, he has had time to think, and he doesn't believe the Werelox are the real culprits behind the attacks on colonies around the system. By hypnotizing a captured Werelox, the Doctor learns the dreaded truth: the real masterminds behind everything are the deadly Daleks...

Throwback: The Soul of the Cybermen (Part 2)

STORYLINE

Part 2 opens with Krail staggering through the wasteland, wrestling with existential questions like:

• Who am I?

• What am I?

• Why won’t these recurring flashbacks stop showing me the Cyberman version of a recruitment poster?

He remembers fragments of his life before conversion. Faces, voices, feelings — all terribly inconvenient things for a cybernetic warrior who’s supposed to operate on the emotional level of a calculator with a grudge.

Meanwhile, back in town, the locals have devolved into a full anti-Cyberman panic (the only kind they know). They’ve informed their local law enforcement, who respond with the Doctor Who–comic equivalent of “Sounds like a Tuesday.” Plans are made, weapons are gathered, and morale is high because they haven’t actually met a functioning Cyberman army before. If they had, they’d be running a lot faster and screaming a lot louder.

But one person is not on board with the “Let’s Shoot the Big Silver Man Until He Stops Having Feelings” plan: the scavenger who found Krail in the first place. This man, who was originally motivated entirely by profit, has now become something of an accidental Cyberman advocate. He insists Krail wasn’t hostile — well, no more hostile than your average confused metal giant having a panic attack.

Naturally, no one believes him.

Meanwhile, Krail stumbles into a cave, which becomes his personal sanctuary-slash-therapy bunker. Inside, he experiences a whirlwind of memories — his human name, his family, the conversion process, and the part where the Cybermen very helpfully overwrote his humanity with cold, calculated efficiency. But some piece of him survived, like a stubborn software glitch that no one could delete.

And as Krail relives his past, he realizes something terrifying:
He didn’t choose to be a Cyberman.
He was made into this.
He was taken, altered, stripped of identity — and now the leftover fragments of his former self are screaming to be heard.

Which, again, is very rude of his emotional processors, which were designed specifically to prevent this sort of introspective meltdown.

Back in town, the mob decides they’ve waited long enough and set out to hunt him down. They march into the desert with guns, torches, and presumably a few sandwiches, because Cyberman hunts are thirsty work.

The scavenger, not wanting his shiny robot friend to get perforated, tries to warn them that Krail’s confused, not hostile — but this is a 1984 Doctor Who comic, so naturally they ignore him in favor of traditional, ill-informed action.

The search party finds Krail’s cave.
Krail hears them coming.
And here comes the dramatic moment: instead of attacking them, Krail steps out… with his hands raised.

A Cyberman.
Surrendering.
Fully cooperative.
Emotionally vulnerable.
It’s the kind of thing that should have earned him a hug or at least some sympathetic eye contact.

But no — the humans scream, shoot at him, and immediately prove why alien species have trust issues.

Krail, wounded and shaken, flees again, running deeper into the desert. And just when it looks like things can’t get worse, a group of men from the town catch up and corner him.

He pleads with them — actually pleads — insisting he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.

Which is touching.
And also completely futile.

Because in the final moments of Part 2, one of the humans fires a shot straight into his chest.

Krail collapses to the ground, sparks showering from his armor, humanity flickering inside him like a dying lightbulb. The last panel shows him lying motionless in the dirt, as the humans stand over him, congratulating themselves on their great victory over the creature that was literally begging them not to attack.

The Final Quest

STORYLINE

We begin on a distant, scenic alien world — the sort of place that would be a tourist paradise if not for the fact that it is currently being ravaged by violent monsters that look suspiciously like Doctor Who’s legal team told the artist, “Different enough from Tolkien to avoid a lawsuit.”

Here we meet Valgard, a warrior whose entire aesthetic is “barbarian action figure but spiritually exhausted.” Valgard is part of a tribe locked in an endless battle against the monstrous Morlox — no relation to the Morlocks of The Time Machine, of course, because these creatures have the physique of steroidal cave trolls and the personality of a malfunctioning blender.

Valgard, along with a small group of fellow warriors, is in pursuit of the Great Artifact of Plot Importance — a mystical blade called The Sword of Truth, destined to end the war. Or so everyone hopes. Honestly, the prophecy is vague, but they’re rolling with it.

Now you may be asking, “Where is the Doctor in all this?”
Excellent question! So is everyone in the comic for the first few pages.

Enter the Fifth Doctor, who arrives in the TARDIS mid-quest because he has the impeccable timing of someone dropping into a Renaissance fair five minutes before the jousting accident. He walks right into the middle of Valgard’s Very Serious Heroic Mission and immediately starts asking helpful questions like:

• “Why is everyone shouting?”

• “Why are those monsters drooling?”

• “Why am I always in the wrong place at the worst time?”

Valgard, who is used to solving problems by hitting them with sharp objects, is not especially interested in the Doctor’s pacifist tendencies. But the Doctor politely insists on tagging along anyway, because meddling in other people’s business is the Time Lord equivalent of oxygen.

As the party travels deeper into the Badlands, the Morlox attack. It’s chaotic, violent, and visually the artistic midpoint between “epic battle scene” and “someone spilled ink on the page.” The Doctor, naturally, tries to negotiate with the giant murder-beasts, which goes about as well as trying to reason with a blender on the “purée” setting.

Valgard, meanwhile, is laser-focused on acquiring the Sword of Truth. He’s convinced destiny chose him personally — which is exactly the sort of confident self-narration that usually precedes a twist ending.

The group finally reaches the Cave of Face Your Problems, the mystical location of the fabled sword. Inside, everything becomes very spiritual and prophetic in that distinctly comic-book way where cosmic wisdom manifests as glowing vapors and someone shouting “BEHOLD!”

Valgard strides forward and grasps the sacred sword…
…only to discover he’s not the chosen one.

The sword rejects him.
Politely, but firmly.
Like an enchanted HR rep turning down his application.

Instead, the blade responds to another warrior, a young man named Raldon, who absolutely did not sign up for chosen-one status and looks accordingly panicked about it.

Valgard does not handle this well. Jealous fury! Betrayal! Existential crisis! All the fun emotions that Cybermen would kill to avoid experiencing!

Just when it seems like Valgard is about to turn this into a workplace incident, the Morlox burst into the cave for one last dramatic confrontation. In the chaos, Raldon — newly empowered by The Sword of Truth — actually manages to fulfill the prophecy, using the weapon to unleash a blinding energy blast that wipes out the monstrous foe.

Peace is restored! Hooray!

Except Valgard still has the emotional stability of a wet cardboard box. Shamed and humiliated, he storms off alone, vowing to “go his own way.” It’s the barbarian-warrior equivalent of slamming your bedroom door.

The Doctor, meanwhile, leaves the tribe to sort out the awkward social fallout and quietly slips back to the TARDIS, no doubt muttering something like, “Well, that could have gone worse. Possibly.”