"The Doctor is never alone. I'm going to have to change that."
— The Mysterious Figure
A 12-issue comic book series released to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.
The premise is that a mysterious figure is travelling through time kidnapping the companions of every Doctor. Features appearances from Doctors 1-11 (not counting the War Doctor).
The identity of the villain, kept secret for the first eight chapters, is a massive spoiler, so you have been warned.
No relation to the book from the Lone Wolf series of the same name.
Tropes:
- And I Must Scream: What the Master has been doing to two Aeroliths in #7, trapping them in human form so he can siphon off their energy. What they do to him in turn isn't terribly enjoyable either.
- Captain Neal Shaw has been suspended in time but conscious.
- Artistic License – Economics: #4 has the Doctor go on a quest to find a stolen crystal that is the source of a planet's rejuvenation and its largest draw for tourists. This is all well and good...until it's repeatedly emphasized that if the crystal were discovered missing that the entire planet's economy would be instantly destroyed. This is ignoring the fact that the planet has plenty of food exports and is beautiful and bountiful enough to draw in tourism for its own merits, both facts that wouldn't vanish if the crystal did like the comic claimed. Likewise, even if it became public knowledge the crystal was gone, surely there would be recordings, holograms or something for tourists to see if not the actual crystal. Had it never been taken out of sight for cleaning or maintenance?
- Bag of Kidnapping: The Voraxx use this on Jamie so they can sell him..
- Big Bad: The mysterious figure kidnapping the Doctor’s companions across time, revealed in #9 to be Adam Mitchell.
- Big Bad Ensemble: Subverted; though Adam claims to be gathering help and resources from all the Doctor has "wronged", we only ever see the Animus, the Master and Autons (not even the Nestene Consciousness, just the Autons) emerge from the mix.
- Big Damn Heroes: Ten Doctors showing up to help Eleven defeat Adam and the Master.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Brigadier in #3 has a Remoraxian implanted in his tonsils to make him their slave.
- The Brigadier: It wouldn't be an anniversary special without the Brig, would it?
- The Bus Came Back: Grace Holloway and Adam Mitchell return.
- The Cameo: Pretty much every companion in the series that wasn't featured in one of the chapters proper. Rory and Amy stand out as two of the few whom the Doctor greets when they're reunited.
- Canon Immigrant: Frobisher, a shape-shifting companion of the Sixth Doctor, appears alongside new series Doctors.
- Continuity Cavalcade: At the beginning pictures of every Doctor and loads of companions are seen. At the end, they are all present to take down the Master's army of Autons.
- Continuity Porn: Within the story there are actual appearances from all 11 Doctors, their TV companions and Frobisher. Also has appearances from a variety of villains and aliens.
- A panel in #2 has a crowd containing a Voord, Raxacoricofallapatorians, and a Sontaran.
- When Adam is researching the Doctor the statue of the Tenth Doctor and Donna as Household Gods from "The Fires of Pompeii" is shown.
- Continuity Snarl: However, the series makes a number of blunders over the course of its run.
- The First Doctor only ever once had the power to control where his TARDIS went, and he never liked making friends with historical figures.
- Before the Time War, none of the Doctors, much less the Fifth, ever had to recharge their TARDIS on a time rift due to its connection to the Eye of Harmony powering it. From what the modern series has shown us, the process never made the TARDIS unsafe to be within either.
- Death Equals Redemption: After Adam gives his life to save the Doctor's incarnations and their companions, they bury him and erect a memorial gravestone in the shape of the TARDIS that reads: "Adam Mitchell: A Companion True".
- Demoted to Extra: Unlike the chapters preceding it, where the Doctor goes on an adventure with his companions that ends with them being kidnapped, the Eleventh Doctor's chapter starts with his adventure with Clara already over and her being kidnapped. She only gets a single on-screen cameo later on, without any dialogue.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Frobisher disguises himself as an Auton to defeat Adam.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Adam is fine getting revenge on the Doctor and his companions but is horrified to learn the Master plans to destroy the Universe.
- Evil Former Friend: Adam, even if he wasn't much of a friend he was still a companion.
- Evil Nephew: Subverted. The Doctor suspects Alan Campbell of being responsible for the sickness of his Great-aunt and Uncle Ruth and Gibson Campbell. It turns out Alan is actually the Master and his relatives are really aliens he has captured.
- Evolutionary Retcon: The Zarbi are portrayed as far more ant-like than they originally were, lacking their previous bipedal stature (since obviously they're no longer actors in costumes).
- Expo Speak: Begins with Adam explaining the basic premise of Doctor Who.
- The Great Flood: The plan of the Remoraxians in #3. Justified, because it gives them a more hospitable environment.
- Gambit Speed Chess: The last chapter, as the Master has to change his plan several times to adapt to the Doctor's tricks.
- Heel–Face Turn: Adam Mitchell, A Companion True. Never before have five words been so important for the Doctor.
- Heroic Sacrifice: After his Heel Realization, Adam sacrifices himself to save the Universe.
- Hijacked by Ganon: The Master hijacks the plot near the end.
- Historical Domain Character: The First Doctor brings his companions to meet Thomas Huxley.
- Human Resources: What the Overseers do to the Ascended in #8.
- Idiot Ball: The Eleventh Doctor summons his previous ten incarnations to Adam's fortress between moments by doing...something with the TARDIS which turns it into a portal for all the other Doctors to travel through. Though clever, it also allows the TARDIS to become vulnerable to destruction, which would allow the universe to be destroyed. The Eleventh Doctor had the coordinates to the place, and Ten already proved he could send messages back to his earlier incarnations through his TARDIS - what stopped him from giving coordinates that would allow ten other TARDISes to materialize?
- Aside from the fact that Adam and the Master had access to anti-TARDIS technology and were only expecting one Doctor, any more and they would have destroyed all the TARDISes materialising, this method gave the Doctor the element of surprise.
- In the Hood: Adam wears a hood to hide his identity from the Doctor.
- Just One Second Out of Sync: Adam hides between time periods in an attempt to escape from the Doctor.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: The villain uses memory distortion to make the Doctors forget him kidnapping their companions. However by the time he gets to the 5th Doctor he is remembered.
- Life Drinker: The Gulwort, which drains the life force from its victims and appears in #7.
- The Man Behind the Man: The Master is manipulating Adam into destroying the entire universe, purely so that he can have some peace from the Doctor.
- Mythology Gag: In one panel in #2, a Fishman from Kandalinga, an Atlantean, two Korad and a Mechanistrian are all seen shopping. All were introduced in the Doctor Who Annual 1966.
- The Tenth Doctor appears to Frobisher in the same way Frobisher first appeared to him, through the top of the TARDIS console.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Ninth Doctor throwing Adam out of the TARDIS with the info-spike left in him forces Adam to hide away for fear of discovery, leading to him becoming desperate for revenge on the Doctor.
- Noble Demon: The Overseers in #8 have smatterings of this. They rule over a planet of humans, but said humans wouldn't be alive if the Overseers haven't supported the failing colonies; them taking a few choice humans every so often for their organs was just the other part of the deal. As far as a Deal with the Devil goes, it's pretty fair.
- No Equal-Opportunity Time Travel: Martha's race is brought up again. Seems to be a theme for her.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The Master is going to wreck time and space and rewrite it.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Leela apparently has skills in operating hover-vehicles, explosives, fighting ChickenWalker style battle tanks, speaking like a normal teenager and turning once-enemies into feasting friends.
- The Second Doctor allowing Jamie to be kidnapped, just so they could track alien slavers smacks more of something the Seventh Doctor would do, complete with slipping a transceiver on Jamie when he wasn't looking.
- Police Brutality: The Judoon in #4.
- Pragmatic Villainy: The Overseers in #8. They may have an entire planet of humans under their rule, but only because they need their bodily organs to survive, and aside from the occasional human chosen as a sacrifice they leave the humans to live their lives well enough alone.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: For all the damage Adam causes, the grand theft, and the fact that he was willing to
murder all but ONE of the Doctor's companions just to spite the Doctor, he's Easily Forgiven by every Doctor by dying to stop the Master from destroying the universe. This is despite the fact that the entire situation was only possible thanks to Adam's own equipment, and the Master outright confirmed he had simply let him continue on his own without influencing him.- The sacrifice makes less sense, too, considering that we never learn how Adam planned on pulling his revenge off without blowing up the universe anyways, seeing as the Doctor's companions were key in saving the universe a multitude of times.
- Though the Overseers were using the human populace as forcible organ donars, it was also stated that they had pretty much saved the human colonies on the planet from dying off in exchange for the sacrifices. The Eighth Doctor essentially made humanity go against a contract that the oppressive force upheld their part, in full. Brokering a new arrangement, or even organ donarship program wasn't even considered, even though it was established that the Overseers needed their stolen organs to survive.
- Redemption Equals Death: Adam sacrifices himself to stop the Master destroying the Universe.
- Ret-Gone: The Master plans to do this to the Doctors and much of the Universe in the finale.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: The Voraxx, a group of Corrupt Corporate Executives-cum-slavers who resemble crocodiles.
- Rightful King Returns: What the 11th Doctor and Clara have just enabled with Fragalog for the Frogmen at the beginning of #11.
- Sadistic Choice: Adam threatens to kill all the companions, telling the Eleventh Doctor he can only save one.
- Shout-Out: Early in Nine's comic, Rose is seen calling her mother, and saying that not all aliens have a second head or a hidden arm.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: The Ninth Doctor tries this on Adam. It doesn't work.
- Slave Liberation: The plot of #2.
- Subliminal Seduction: The Dominators plan to do this using a film in #10.
- Trojan Prisoner: Frobisher shape shifts into Peri and is taken by Adam. However he is able to free himself and helps defeat Adam. No mention is made of where the actual Peri ended up.
- Villain Decay: The Animus, in its first appearance, was only barely defeated thanks to an untested weapon that rapidly decayed cells. Ian apparently kills it by ramming it with an old locomotive, with at least half the creature not touched. Bear in mind, this was a creature that was revived from just an arm of the original creature.
- Villain: Exit, Stage Left: The Master when Adam has foiled his plan. Five is annoyed, but Eight assures him that they’ll be meeting again.
- Villain Team-Up:
- Adam is helping the Animus and the Master. He claims there are more, but whom/what they are never materialize.
- The Master is using the Autons. Later he and Adam use them.
- We Need a Distraction: Leela and K9 perform one to the Judoon in #4 while the Fourth Doctor tries to find the crystal that motivates their brutality.
- Wham LineMysterious Figure: "Hello, Rose. It's been a long time."
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Master attempts this on Adam in #12, once he’s able to enact his solo plan.
