By Rob McCow

The Collector

This story first appeared in Doctor Who Monthly issue #46. It was re-printed in the US Marvel Comic issue #8 alongside Dreamers of Death and featured new cover art by Dave Gibbons dedicated to this story. The strip is still available in Doctor Who: Dragon’s Claw graphic novel, published in 2004 by Panini Books.

Writer – Steve Moore

Artist – Dave Gibbons

Editor – Paul Neary

Sharon isn’t sure about returning home now that she’s grown up. When she left Blackcastle she was a schoolgirl, but she is now four years older. Those four years occurred entirely in the story The Time Witch.

K-9 is still proving his worth as a lock-pick. In this story he blows up a lock that goes ‘WOOMPF!’ He also blows up an Electric Arc Projector, which goes ‘SPZZK!’ K-9 gets blown up in this story too, in an explosion that sends his little electronic ears flying in different directions. K-9 remains mute throughout the story.

The Doctor and his companions meet the geeky Varan Tak, from the anthropology unit on Oskerion. Tak is a friendly alien whose ship’s computer has become a little overprotective of him.

By Jove! The Doctor does believe he’s got it when the TARDIS lands in Sharon’s home town of Blackcastle! Unfortunately, a strange light beam immediately teleports them to a large house built on a rock in the asteroid belt, where they find a number of rooms containing environments from different periods in Earth’s history. Eventually, they run into Varan Tak, who has been collecting samples of humanity over the centuries for his anthropological collection. His intelligent ship crashed on the asteroid and rebuilt itself as a house, while the brain unit of the ship has reconstructed itself as a female figure.

The ship won’t let Tak visit Earth, although it will let him collect samples by teleport. The Doctor orders K-9 to destroy the Electric Arc Projector that prevents Tak from entering the teleport. Tak teleports down to the planet, but as the Doctor and Sharon celebrate a job well done, the ship’s robot bursts in and destroys K-9! She teleports up Tak, who has been killed by the industrial pollution on Earth. She had tried to stop Tak beaming down as she knew that the air on Earth would kill him.

Saddened by events, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to take Sharon and the robot back in time to the moment just before Tak teleported. The Doctor socks himself on the jaw and orders K-9 to destroy the teleport. As the smoke clears, their alternative selves vanish; Tak and K-9 are still alive.

The Doctor, Sharon and K-9 decide to hastily depart in the TARDIS "… before anything else happens to us!"

This wouldn’t have cut it at four episodes, in fact there’s barely 25 minutes of plot here. Unless they stretched out the running around on the ship, The Collector would have been too slight a story to show on television.

It would have been cheap to do though. Tak is just a fat man with glasses and greasy hair. The house / spaceship would have been an easy CSO bluescreen model shot. The robot even looks like someone dressed up, with rubber joints and a big mask. With stock sets for the rooms in the collection, this one would have easily been within budget.

The art in this one is mostly dull and functional, though Tom Baker and K-9 are superbly accurate and Sharon still has a million dollar body. There are a few good details, particularly in the frames where Sharon and the Doctor explore the collection. As they enter into each different time period, their clothes change to match, so they gain togas and sandals in one room, Edwardian dress in another, but the Doctor always retains his scarf.

Frequently with these fourth Doctor stories, at least one part will end with a close up on the Doctor’s face while he says something portentous in capitals. This time, we get an early doors: "BY JOVE! I do believe I’ve GOT IT!" on the very first page! Plus the Doctor sports the most enormous grin while he says it. The first page is rather wonderful, with the TARDIS materialising in three frames at the top with a ‘VWORP! VWORP!’ and Tom emerging looking delighted.

The cover for the US reprint is worth mentioning as well, featuring the Doctor having a fight with himself in front of the teleport. It makes it seem a shame that the fight between the two Doctors isn’t given such a good treatment in the actual strip, because this cover promises a right-old punch up between Doctor Who and his evil twin!

Fair enough this story is only one part long, but it is still incredibly slight. There’s a lack of coherence between the ideas that might have come across better if they’d been given more space to develop. In the Mills + Wagner strips, each monthly instalment of the story was usually based around a single idea, with a new development introduced at the stroke of the cliffhanger. In The Collector, it all comes very quickly in tiny frames and nothing makes much impact.

For a younger reader it’s great, because there is so much to pore over in this strip. You’ve got the K-9 explosion where his ears come flying off, the house on the asteroid and the costume changes, so you can re-read it and spot something fresh each time. The first page with Tom’s beaming entrance is perfect for tracing, too.

It’s also a problem squeezing the Doctor and his two companions into a one-part story. The characterisation of Sharon is appalling. All she does is stand about and ask the Doctor a few questions now and then. Even when they arrive in Blackcastle, she only gets a brief line where she says she’s not sure if she wants to go home, before the Doctor cuts across her.

K-9 seems to have laryngitis again, because he doesn’t say anything. Although it is sad when he gets blown up. Poor K-9!

This is the first time ever that ‘VWORP! VWORP!’ is used to describe the TARDIS materialisation noise, starting a comic institution. After the ‘Wheezing and groaning sound’ that Terrance Dicks used to describe the TARDIS materialisation, ‘VWORP! VWORP!’ is the second most popular way to put it into print. It’s still used in the comic strip today (check out issue #369).

The female robot collector has rubber joints, similar to the Fifth Doctor’s robotic companion, Kamelion. It looks somewhere between Maria from Metropolis and one of Hajime Sorayma’s fembots.

The Collector himself looks like a fairly generic geek and may be based on someone specific. But whom?

The Randomiser, a device which ensures that the Doctor always lands in a random location, is mentioned once again.