By Rob McCow

The Tides of Time
 

This epic story graced issues #61-67 of Doctor Who Monthly, published between February and July 1982. US Marvel Doctor Who Comic fans got to read it in issue #13, published in October 1985 with a new Dave Gibbons cover. The story is also in the Doctor Who graphic novel ‘The Tides of Time’, published in 2004 by Panini Books.
 

Writer – Steve Parkhouse

Art – Dave Gibbons

Editor – Alan McKenzie
 

The Doctor’s main companion for this story is Sir Justin, a missionary knight from the middle ages, whose open-mindedness is matched only by his sense of right and wrong. He claims that in his own time ‘I have no fief… the world of men is my domain, where I wander freely doing that which I perceive as Our Lord’s will.’ He has a thirst for adventure that makes him a good companion for the Doctor. Tall, blonde and handsome, Justin is a medieval dish, though his hair is a little too long.

There is also Shayde, the mysterious black-suited, blaster wielding man, whose head resembles a bowling ball. It is not at first clear what Shayde’s motives are. He accesses the TARDIS by disappearing out of existence and then reappearing inside. It’s not until he saves the Doctor’s life that his allegiance becomes clear. Shayde is not a real ‘person’ in any sense of the word. He is a projection of the energies of the Matrix, but gifted with some will of his own.

Also present are the Higher Evolutionaries, powerful being who have evolved beyond the limits of mortals. These include:

Finally, there’s the villagers of Stockbridge, an earthy collection of cricketers and policemen. And possibly Zoë too.
 

The Event Synthesiser is an enormous electronic space organ that controls events in the Universe, controlled by The Prime Mover, who ensures peace and harmony. Until one day, when he strikes a discordant tone.

The Fifth Doctor is playing cricket on a village green in England, but the first ball bowled at him turns into a hand-grenade. The Doctor and the villagers find a Roman Legionary nearby who attacks them.

The Doctor heads back to the TARDIS to investigate, where he hears a news report about UFO’s and a Cheyenne War Party that attacked a trucker. He decides to go back to Gallifrey to find out what’s going on.

At the Event Synthesiser, the discordant notes form a gap in time, through which the giant Demon Melanicus bursts. He takes control of the Synthesiser, promising ‘FEAR! DESTRUCTION! AND UNENDING CHAOS!’ Much like South West Trains.

Collecting belongings from the village, the Doctor is attacked by a jousting knight on horseback. The Knight strikes the TARDIS and is knocked unconscious. When the Knight wakes up he reveals his name is Justin. Before the Doctor can take Justin back to his own time though, he must travel to Gallifrey.

Melanicus considers making himself omnipresent, but the Prime Mover warns him that there are those who would fight him. So Melanicus decides to hide in the abyss of time, out of reach of his enemies.

Melanicus’ actions are noticed by the Cosmic Engineer, Rassilon (Father Christmas in Monk’s robes). He consults with Morvane (Giant moustachioed head) and the other Higher Evolutionaries (Non-denominational weirdos).

The TARDIS lands on Gallifrey and Justin is impressed, but not phased by the majesty of the place. Using his credentials as the President of Gallifrey, the Doctor takes Justin to the Matrix room.

Away from the security of Gallifrey, the TARDIS is invaded by a mysterious dark figure with a smooth, spherical head. (This is Shayde)

The Doctor enters the Matrix, joining a mental Council of Higher Evolutionaries. One of these is Merlin The Wise!*

Inside the Matrix, Merlin reveals that it was he who banished Melanicus into another dimension in the first place. The Council orders the Doctor to find the Synthesiser and defeat Melanicus.

As the Doctor and Justin prepare to leave in the TARDIS, it is struck by a Mantric Bomb that was launched by Melanicus. An alien assassin bursts in to the console room, but the Doctor is saved by Shayde.

The TARDIS is hurtles out of time and space into Melanicus’ hiding place.

Bizarrely, it lands in a bathtub next to a giant toy duck. Shayde pulls out the bath-plug. Justin and the Doctor then find themselves in a fairground carnival, where the Doctor sees a girl he recognises** who he follows into the Ghost Train. The shadow-man gets on a cart behind the Doctor. The ride travels outside and takes him down an enormous drop into the Mouth of Hell. The Doctor’s cart travels along the rails and leads him to the giant form of Melanicus!

The Higher Evolutionaries have a link to Shayde and increase his powers. Shayde tells the Doctor that this surreal world is created from ‘vibratory illusions’. Shayde blasts Melanicus with his handgun. The roller-coaster collapses and the Doctor and Shayde jump into oblivion. The Doctor, now alone, wakes up in a strange Victorian drawing room with a coffin. From the coffin emerges a fanged Vampire!

In the fairground, Justin is attacked a mutant knight. Other mutant knights join in, forcing Justin to hide in the Hall of Mirrors. Justin sees the Doctor in one of the mirrors. He smashes through several mirrors with his sword to reach the Doctor. The sight of Justin’s Sword of God frightens the Vampire, allowing the Doctor and Justin to escape to the TARDIS. The Doctor comments that Justin has smashed through four mirrors, bringing them twenty-eight years of bad luck.

* * *

The Millennium wars are raging across Earth as century battles century. Jet fighters blast WWII tanks that are romping over the Barbarian horde. A thousand worlds are in conflict over a thousand years.

In their council, the Higher Evolutionaries realise that Melanicus has confined himself to only one dimension. Though if Melanicus discovered the key to the Multi-Dimensional Range, even Gallifrey would be threatened.

The TARDIS has been hiding from the maelstrom for one day in another dimension, although the chronometer of absolute time shows that they are 28 years out from Gallifrey. The Doctor and Justin wonder where to re-enter the Universe to fight Melanicus and are answered by Shayde, who has been hiding in the Doctor’s own shadow. He introduces himself as the servant of the Matrix and an expendable foot soldier, unlike the Doctor.

The TARDIS registers an object outside, a mysterious giant Crystal. Shayde teleports himself to the Crystal. He is greeted by the Lords of Althrace, who are part of the Higher Evolutionary council. Shayde invites the Doctor and Justin down in the TARDIS, as the Great Crystal starts to move at great speed. They all watch through an observation window as the Great Crystal passes into a White Hole.

Inside is an entire Solar System that has been bolted together. The Althracians explain the White Hole is their home and they have been attempting to harness its powers. Althrace technology is bio-mechanical, and their worlds have become a single, vast, intelligent being. The Doctor and Justin are completely boggled by all this.***

The Althrace databanks tell them of the war with Melanicus.

Melanicus was once a Kalichura, a native of the Althrace system, but had a passion for war. He was defeated and took flight to another dimension, but the 3^rd Century despot Catavolcus summoned him back to our dimension. They would have conquered the Earth together, but were defeated by Merlin.

The Althrace built the Event Synthesiser to emulate the effects of the White Hole.

So anyway, the Althracians remove Shayde’s head, to connect the White Hole to the Matrix Lords. Then they commence a grand experiment, the reversal of time itself, which lets them locate the Event Synthesiser. It is on Earth.

The TARDIS arrives on an Earth that has been ruined by the Millenium Wars. The Doctor and Justin hear organ music coming from a ruined church, they investigate and find the Prime Mover at the controls of The Event Synthesiser.

Justin quickly sees through the disguise. He uses the Doctor’s hat to scoop up Holy Water, which he throws over the Prime Mover’s face – which melts to become the face of Melanicus! Justin and the Doctor fend off Melanicus’ fire breath and a re-animated zombie, while Melanicus escapes to the bell-tower.

At the top of the bell-tower, Shayde is waiting for him. He blasts Melanicus’s eyes and the beast slides back down the tower, across one of the windows. Justin sees Melanicus and leaps forward, spearing the beast with his sword. There is a blinding flash and the Doctor is caught in a maelstrom. The Prime Mover returns to the controls of the Event Synthesiser.

The Doctor finds himself in the church. It is no longer ruined. There is a statue of Justin on one wall. The Doctor ponders Justin’s epitaph, as Merlin looks on unseen.

A cricketer arrives to tell the Doctor he’s next in to bat. As the Doctor faces his first ball, he wonders if the events he had seen were real. Can the fate of the Universe hang on a single ball in a game of cricket? He hits the ball for four runs with a tremendous CRAK!

Shayde watches from the bushes as his Masters from the Matrix allow him to return to Gallifrey.

* See The Neutron Knights.

** Is it Zoë, companion of the Second Doctor? It looks like her!

*** So should you be.
 

In the first part of the story, the Fifth Doctor plays cricket, something he would do on television a month later in Black Orchid.

The idea of warriors from different periods of time fighting each other is reminiscent of the Pertwee story The Time Monster, although it’s far more effectively portrayed in The Tides of Time. Also, both stories feature a knight jousting at the TARDIS. The Doctor encounters Dracula in a haunted fairground, similar to that episode of The Chase.

Rassilon is similar to the character seen at the end of The Five Doctors, but not displays the gravitas and mystery that the TV version sorely lacked. Gallifrey is similar to the version seen in The Deadly Assassin, but amplified to a far vaster scale with enormous walkways and technological buildings.

The TV show could probably have afforded to show the initial game of cricket, but little else.

The Doctor in this story is far removed from Peter Davison’s fresh-faced portrayal. Without his three young companions, the Doctor is sombre and slightly manipulative, hiding out in Stockbridge and playing games of cricket. In many ways he’s similar to Season 18’s Tom Baker. As the adventure unfolds, it becomes clear that this version of the Doctor is a cosmic adventurer, unafraid to return to Gallifrey and commune with Rassilon and awed by the wonders of the Universe.

Merlin is a Higher Evolutionary from Earth. If, as the TV story Battlefield suggests, the Doctor is also Merlin, then this fact ties in with the TV Movie and also Andrew Carmel’s grand scheme for Doctor Who, where the Doctor was a reincarnation of one of Gallifrey’s great leaders. However, anyone who is smart enough to be able to use a pencil could tell you that joining up dots in this way will only reveal a load of old elephant spleen.
 

The Tides of Time looks beautiful. In many ways, it’s the pinnacle achievement of the Gibbons era of the comic strip, full of bizarre and fantastic images, from the TARDIS landing in an enormous bathtub to a solar system spinning in a White Hole.

It takes a while to capture the fair-faced Peter Davison though. Tom Baker could be drawn as a caricature, but Davison is far harder to capture in this way. He lacks Tom’s distinctive outline of curly hair and his lined face. For the first few instalments the likeness of the Doctor varies between being flat and distorted. By Part Four however, Gibbons has it nailed and from then on it’s spot on. The close-up of the Doctor on the final page of the strip is particularly excellent.

The Doctor’s outfit, which looked too over designed on television, comes off extremely well in the comic strip. Like a super-hero outfit, it’s made up of distinct patterns and shapes that are instantly recognisable.

The design of Melanicus is very strange. The top half looks great, with a superb snarlingly demonic head, but the bottom half is rotund and comical, mounted on a weird pair of chicken legs. He’s part wolf, part demon and part barbeque. Overall, it looks pretty good, but the chicken legs are impractical and unbalanced.

Shayde is an awesome creation; he’s just so black! A ninja with a shiny bowling ball for a head, the only parts that stand out from the shadows are his utility belt, wrist protectors and oddly human hands. The effect of the shiny head is simply achieved with a few areas of white colour, but it’s very effective. The overall look is sinister, but cool.

Everything that Gibbons excelled at is in this strip. There are enormous wars, really weird aliens and surreal landscapes. Even the plain old village that the adventure starts in is evocative of rural England, sunny days, the smell of linseed oil on the bat… excuse me, I have to wipe a small tear from my eye.

The only environment that gets short-changed is the TARDIS interior. Quite often, there’ll just be the console against a white background. The proportions of the console are also a bit off.

Apart from that, this is a tour-de-force. There’s even a stunning two-page colour spread of the reveal of the White Hole solar system. This was originally presented as a poster spread, but now it was sadly mutilated in the graphic novel by being split between the first and last inside covers of the book. My other favourite highlights are the symmetry between the opening and closing games of cricket; the sight of Melanicus at the controls of the Event Synthesizer; Justin and the Doctor looking out of the TARDIS scanner at a giant rubber duck; Barbarians, tanks, fighter-jets and space planes battling it out; and the final death of Melanicus, with Justin plunging his sword into the beast’s chest.

"I’m speechless my friend! Why should anyone want to do this? Why?"

It’s Doctor Who’s first epic comic strip. The Tides of Time has a huge frame of references, from a cricket match, to Gallifrey, through a white hole and into a war between different millenniums. For scale and spectacle, it can’t be faulted. The Time Lords are powerful and mysterious, their enemies evil beyond measure. Rassilon is every part the Cosmic Engineer, not Father Christmas under disco lights. Melanicus is a suitably massive threat, a creature devoted to absolute chaos that has the power to control reality at his claw-tips.

The story as a whole is far more complex than any of the previous comic adventures. For the readers who followed it as it appeared month by month in DWM it must have been pretty baffling, especially if you missed a part. Although the mind-boggling is the point of the story. This isn’t about character or relationships. It’s about wonder, it’s about making the reader go slack-jawed at the immensity of the events portrayed. That’s what makes the opening scenes in the village essential, so that there’s something to scale up to. There’s also a bleak humour in the surreal fairground chase, which stops it seeming too pretentious. Of course it’s pretentious in spades, but it’s all deeply, deeply cool.

If there’s anything that Tides of Time loses points for, it’s the way that the Doctor is a bystander to events, with his moves manipulated by the Higher Evolutionaries. Even so, the story just wouldn’t work without him. We see the story through his perspective, often hearing his thoughts and sharing his awe.

Despite being a story that would be completely off the scale for the TV series, it still feels like Doctor Who. It plays on the reader’s expectations to achieve this. Gallifrey is how you would imagine it to be, a vast, futuristic metropolis. Rassilon’s home in the Matrix is a flat landscape with Invasion of Time style cogs dotted about. And at the end of it all, there’s a big and nasty villain to defeat. Good triumphing over evil is the very heart of Doctor Who.
 

Some of the elements of this story bear a resemblance to the Big Finish audio play The Axis of Insanity, featuring the Fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem. Specifically, the idea of a device controlling reality being taken over by a villainous lunatic and the chase through the funfair.

After the first instalment of this strip, Peter Davison was disappointed with his likeness, feeling that he looked ugly. Subsequently, DWM editor Alan McKenzie and Dave Gibbons were allowed to take photos on set for reference. After which, according to Gibbons, ‘Things improved dramatically!’

This is the first time Rassilon appears in person in Doctor Who. He had already been portrayed in one of the back-up strips in Doctor Who Weekly.

Shayde goes on to be a semi-regular character, appearing again with the fifth Doctor in The Stockbridge Horror, as well as the eighth Doctor stories The Final Chapter and Wormwood. He was given a voice in the Doctor Who Magazine #326 cover CD story, No Place Like Home.

The village shown in the comic strip is later named as Stockbridge, where the fifth Doctor spends much of his time in the comic. In the nineties, the comic strip eighth Doctor revisits Stockbridge on a number of occasions.

Yerp the Terrileptil from Saltburn in Cleveland had a letter published in issue #67 that said:

‘The Tides of Time. Phew! What a great story. I’m amazed by the way Steve Parkhouse has brought together bits and pieces from the stories he’s already written (i.e. Merlin, The Millenium Wars). And as for the art… Dave Gibbons is proving why he’s one of the most popular artists in the country today. His every picture is a masterpiece.’