By Rob McCow

The Neutron Knights
 

The readers of Doctor Who Monthly were introduced to The Neutron Knights in issue #60 of Doctor Who Monthly, published in January 1982. US Marvel Doctor Who Comic fans got to read it in November 1985, published in issue #14. Doctor Who Magazine’s Classic Comics also reprinted the strip in colour in issue #9 If you want to get involved with The Neutron Knights today, look no further than the Doctor Who graphic novel ‘Dragon’s Claw’, published in 2004 by Panini Books.
 

Writer – Steve Parkhouse

Art – Dave Gibbons

Editor – Alan McKenzie
 

That man with the beard and wearing a skullcap, could it really be Merlin? And that man with the beard and wearing power armour, could it really be Arthur? Merlin has mysterious powers invested in him by the Lords of Time and is able to summon the TARDIS. Is Merlin merely a vessel through which a greater power flows? Mysterious to the point of obtuseness, Merlin is indeed a formidable ally for the Doctor. If indeed he is an ally.

It’s one of those comic strips.
 

Earth of the far future is under siege from The Neutron Knights, a powerful coalition of warriors. They are led by Catavolcus, The Wolf, who wields a powerful sword of fire. The Neutron Knights are perilously close to victory as they breach the last defences of Earth.

In an inner sanctum of Earth’s ruling castle, a shadowy figure, a magician, sits in repose. He reaches out with his mind and summons the TARDIS. The Doctor is shocked, but finds that his mysterious summoner has been drained by the effort of reaching out to him. The Doctor asks why he has been brought to Earth. The magician explains that the Earth is in ruins and shows the Doctor the attacking forces.

The magician then shows the Doctor what the enemy are after – the Dragon, an enormous power source that the Doctor identifies as a nuclear fission device. To the Doctor’s horror, the magician activates the Dragon, setting it to explode.

Suddenly, the battle reaches them as The Neutron Knights burst in. The Doctor hears the leader of the defenders refer to the old magician as Merlin, while Merlin calls the leader Arthur. The old magician and some of the castle defenders escape with the Doctor into the TARDIS, while one man stays behind to fend off Catavolcus himself. The TARDIS dematerialises as the Dragon explodes.

The Doctor awakens some time later by the TARDIS in an old wood. In the distance, he glimpses an armoured man with a sword, standing on a hill. The Doctor re-enters the TARDIS, where an apparition of Merlin warns him that their paths are destined to cross once more. The Doctor realises that he cannot predict his own future.

It’s January 1982. This is the end of Tom Baker’s run as the Doctor, the longest and most fertile period of the show’s history. Meanwhile, Castrovalva has started on BBC 1, so there’s a new Doctor in town. So this story, even more than Logopolis, is a final goodbye to Tom. He’s evolved from the melancholy but foolish Doctor of Season 18, to the awe-struck comic strip adventurer. With Davison starting on the screens, it’s fair to say that this version of Tom’s Doctor would have been the definitive one for the brief space between Seasons 18 and 19.

The seventh Doctor TV story Battlefield also features a take on Arthurian myth. In that story, it is revealed that the Doctor is also Merlin. If you want to tie that in with the continuity of The Neutron Knights, then the Doctor must drop Arthur off in the alternate dimension at the end of the story to face the likes of Morgaine and Ancelyn. It also means that The Neutron Knights is a multi-Doctor story, though he doesn’t recognise himself.
 

It’s pretty cool stuff. The opening page is glorious, with thousands of Neutron Knights in power armour besieging Earth’s castle-like defences. Although the scene is complex, you can still pick out the distinctive ‘Atom’ design on the Knight’s armour and shields. The art keeps the pace of the story up, with whiteout explosions, enormous armies and ruined cities peppered throughout.

The Doctor looks older than ever in this story. By the last frame, his face is lined and ancient, looking almost as wizened as Merlin.

That said, the TARDIS console is once again given short shrift, being incorrectly proportioned. This kind of thing matters to some people!
 

At the same time as being a farewell story for the fourth Doctor, this story clearly looks to the future. The best aspect of the story is the sense of an enormous, undiscovered landscape for the Doctor to explore, of which we only see the smallest corner. At the time it must have served as a breathtakingly exciting teaser for the forthcoming epic story, The Tides of Time.

I found it slightly disappointing that Merlin’s main reason for summoning the Doctor was so that they could all escape in the TARDIS. It’s not as if the Doctor is without skills that may have been useful. He has occasionally been known to defeat an overwhelming opposing force!

It’s an inessential prologue to Davison’s opening story, though as an 8 page piece on it’s own it stands up fairly well.
 

The final Tom Baker story.

The events of this story are picked up (to an extent) in The Tides of Time.

The Doctor hasn’t pre-set a course on the console for ages. The console has an automatic course indicator light, which sometimes flashes.

The Neutron Knights received universal praise in the letters pages.