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 By Rob McCow |
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What’s the story called? The Shape Shifter
The Collector Doctor Who Magazine issues #88-89 first featured The Shape Shifter, in May-June 1984. It was reprinted in fabulous full colour for two one-off Doctor Who Magazine specials, first in August 1986 for Collected Comics, then in April 1989, for Doctor Who: Voyager. Panini Books have scheduled ‘Voyager’ for 11 October 2007, which will collect together all the Colin Baker comic strips in their original black and white format. Can’t wait!
The World Shapers Writer – Steve Parkhouse Artwork – John Ridgeway Lettering – Steve Dillon Editor – Ian Rimmer Colours (for the reprinted edition) – Gina Hart
Fellow Travellers This story introduces the massively popular shape shifting character, Avan Tarklu. He is a Whifferdill, the self-proclaimed scourge of the galaxy. Here he appears in what could be his natural form; a green humanoid with a featureless face apart from his big Looney-Tunes eyes, over which he wears a pair of enormous, circular glasses. He works as a Private Detective, using his shape-changing skills to his considerable advantage. He is also an avaricious character and ruthless in his threatening of the Doctor, though he is not without conscience.
Dogbolter returns, the frog-faced head of Intra-Venus Inc. from the previous story, The Moderator. He has placed a reward of 250,000 Mazumas on the Doctor’s head.
The Deal An alien office worker phones his wife. He tells her he’ll be late home from work, but really he is going out with a tarty woman. His phone has been spying on him. It is not an ordinary phone but a shape shifter. The shape shifter escapes as a pigeon, but is attacked by an owl. He plummets into a dustbin, turning into a burger and is found by a tramp that takes a bite out of him. The shape-shifter then runs back home, hiding in the shadows. At home, he gets the latest ‘Wanteds’ from his computer. The first is Marty Mouse, wanted for bank robbery and copyright fraud. The second is the Doctor, wanted for a quarter of a million Mazumas. Smelling something big, the shape shifter takes up the case. Disguised as a barfly, he hunts for the Doctor in the galaxy’s bars and eventually finds him. The Doctor is looking for information about whom The Moderator worked for, when he accidentally swats the shape shifter into his glass. The waiter flushes the shape shifter down the drain but fortunately he is still able to catch up with the Doctor as he heads for the TARDIS. A pair of assassins attack the Doctor as he gets to the TARDIS, but the shape-shifter rescues him. As the Doctor prepares to leave, the shape shifter hijacks the TARDIS, appearing as a big pair of eyes on the console time-rotor! The shape-shifter announces that he is a Whifferdill and threatens the Doctor with shape-shifting horrors. The Whifferdill plans to hand the Doctor in. He demands that they go to Venus, though the Doctor says he was heading there anyway.
The TARDIS lands on top of a building on Venus. Dogbolter tells his security guards to knock it off, which they do by demolishing the building with missiles. When the smoke clears, a white flag emerges from the TARDIS. The Doctor is handed over by a bearded man with a bazooka and a big a hat, who accepts the reward in a big green suitcase. The Doctor is led away by two guards to an enormous vault. Suddenly, he vanishes and there are three guards. One of the guards panics and guns the other two down. This turns out to be the Whifferdill! The TARDIS arrives to rescue him, piloted by the Doctor wearing a fake beard. The Whifferdill and the Doctor had agreed to share the money, but the Whifferdill has a further condition – he wants to travel with the Doctor for a while!
TV Action This bit of the column might be empty for a while, as there is hardly any relation between the comic strip and the TV show during the early Colin Baker era. Parkhouse disliked the TV show at the time and took the strip in his own direction. The character of the Doctor in this story isn’t substantially different from Davison’s, but he is seen to be more aggressive in rebutting the Whifferdill’s threats. The regeneration is briefly referenced as the Whifferdill looks at a screen showing the faces of the Davison and Colin Baker Doctors. The Doctor’s changed face is explained: ‘last seen like this… or disguised like this’. The Doctor must indeed be a master of disguise! The Doctor fought a powerful frog-like enemy in the TV show ‘Four To Doomsday’. Shape-shifters on the TV show include the Doctor’s companion Kamelion, the evil Rutans and the sinister Zygons. However, the Whifferdill has abilities far beyond any of those creatures. The Doctor claims he has been threatened by experts. These include Cybermen, Ice Warriors, Daleks and BBC Producers.
4-Dimensional Vistas Right from the start, John Ridgeway is impressive. His style is rather scratchy, with areas of black shaded by pencil rather than ink. It’s not at all glossy, but it’s very endearing and distinctive. He effortlessly captures Colin Baker, with some superb shadowy close-ups. Even his one drawing of Peter Davison is spot on. The Whifferdill has bags of character, despite being a simple pair of eyes on a blank face. There’s something about him that suggests film-noir detective crossbred with Porky Pig. The Whifferdill’s visits to seedy alien bars are also fun, we haven’t had this many random aliens since the days of Dave Gibbons and it adds a lot of texture to the comic. I also have to mention the bored and snooty-looking alien waiter that serves the Doctor. There’s a priceless look of disdain on his face as he peers at the Whifferdill, disguised as a fly and drowning in the Doctor’s drink. The action sequences are excellent as well. The owl and tramp attacks on the the Whifferdill as he escapes through the city are vicious and painful. The assassins’ attack on the Doctor with vibro-knives is equally exciting, with knives swooping centimetres away from the Doctor’s chest. Dogbolter’s missile strike on the building that the TARDIS has landed on top of is great too, a lovely big explosion.
End of The Line With The Shape Shifter, the Doctor Who comic strip shifts up a gear. Steve Parkhouse had produced some good stories for the Davison era, but when he lined up with John Ridgeway it moved from entertainingly surreal to brilliantly mind-bending. There’s also a lot of warmth and humour in this story that wasn’t so prevalent before. Most of this comes from the Whifferdill. Despite his constantly changing appearance he maintains the same talkative and greedy personality throughout, using lots of stylised catchphrases. His bizarre threats to the Doctor are especially amusing. They make full use of the Whifferdill’s shape changing ability in this story, mostly for the joy of it. It’s a bit weird that he can turn into a guard with a fully functioning gun, but then at the start of the story he’s disguised as a working telephone. He can even turn from a human-sized creature to something as small as a fly, shedding about 99% of his mass. It’s nonsense, but it’s so much fun that it’s just about forgivable. Fortunately, these problems are fixed in the next story through a cunning ruse!
The story itself is small-scale but satisfying. The switch at the end of the tale is superb and unexpected. It doesn’t tie up the threads from The Moderator, although the Doctor does get a partial revenge in extracting 250,000 Mazumas from Mr.Dogbolter. It feels to me that he should have toppled Dogbolter’s empire, freeing the slave workers and so on. Maybe they meant to come back to it again, but to be honest I think it’s a bit late now, so perhaps I shouldn’t worry about it too much. The Shape Shifter is a moderate classic, with sparkling dialogue and a fantastic new companion for the Doctor.
Follow That TARDIS! In this story, the Shape Shifter turns into: A telephone, a pigeon, a burger, his ‘real’ green faced self, a fly, a fish, himself again, a big boxing glove, The TARDIS time rotor, (potentially a sandwich that bites back, a bathtub warship and flying shoes), the Doctor, a Gaunt complete with gun, himself in a purple outfit and W.C. Fields. At one point he admits ‘I’m getting good… I’m getting fast… I’m getting exhausted!’ Avan Tarklu may not be the Whifferdill’s real name, but it is the name on the door of his office. Colin Baker’s likeness was captured from two grainy newspaper clippings, according to a John Ridgeway interview. The Gwanzalum are the only shape shifting race in the Universe that are more adept than the Whifferdills.
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