By Rob McCow

Crossroads of Time
 

The Collector

The Crossroads of Time were published in issue #135 of Doctor Who Magazine, in April 1988. Colour inks were thrown at the pages before it was reprinted in Marvel Bumper Holiday Special in Summer 1988. It’s also available today in full colour, in Deaths Head Volume #1.
 

The World Shapers

Script – Simon Furman

Art – Geoff Senior

Lettering – Zed

Editor – Richard Starkings
 

Fellow Travellers

Deaths Head is a ‘Freelance Peacekeeping Agent’ from the future, back when the future was 2006. He first appeared in Transformers Comic, causing trouble for Galvatron and Ultra Magnus, but he was thrown into the time vortex at the end of one of his adventures. Deaths Head is a mean robotic monster, interested only in striking deals – and at the start of this story, he’s eighty foot tall. He also tends to say ‘Yes?’ at the end of his sentences.

I suppose he transforms into a successful spin-off character in his own right, yes? No.
 

The Deal

The TARDIS collides with an object in the vortex (with a KSHUNK) and lands on an alien planet. A Time Warden appears to sort out the mess, but he tells the Doctor that he’s on his own when he spots the giant robot that he’s collided with. Deaths Head introduces himself and gives the Doctor a chance to bargain for his life. The Doctor rifles through his pockets and finds the Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminator. He blasts Deaths Head, but instead of killing him it reduces him to human size. Deaths Head is furious and chases after the Doctor.

Stop sniffing the Master's used TCE and give me my own comic strip, eh?

Eventually, the Doctor realises that he can now make a deal with Deaths Head. He waves a white flag of truce and makes his business proposition. In return for his life, he will give Deaths Head the TARDIS. The Doctor shows him the controls and starts to walk out, but Deaths Head says he will feel happier if the Doctor accompanies him on his first trip. The Doctor chooses a random destination – Earth: 8162, but instead of taking off in the TARDIS, the Doctor causes Deaths Head to dematerialise on his own.

Need some better publicity photos of McCoy, yes?

The Doctor explains to the Time Warden that he set the controls to lock onto the nearest mechanical organism and send it through time. The Time Warden agrees not to run the Doctor in… this time.
 

TV Action

The Doctor has one of the Master’s Tissue Compression Eliminators in his pocket. His most recent meeting with the Master on TV had been at the end of the Trial of A Time Lord season, although there’s no indication that he disarmed the Master in that story. It’s pointless speculating where he might have got it from, really.

The appearance of the Time Warden is completely at odds with the nature of time travel in the TV series. In the Time Monster, the Doctor threatens to time-ram the Master’s TARDIS so it would have been disappointing if, instead of a cataclysmic explosion, all that happened was a man with a moustache and ridiculous hat appeared. (Scratch that – it would have been wonderful). Although the time-ram incident isn’t entirely comparable, as the action would have been a deliberate landing in the same place and time rather than an accidental collision. The TV show gives the sense that if the Doctor crashed into anything in the space-time vortex he’d be on his own. I may be wrong, but I can’t recall the TARDIS ever colliding with any other physical object in the Time Vortex on TV.
 

4-Dimensional Vistas

Coming straight from Transformers Comic means that Geoff Senior is quite capable of making giant robots look fabulous. It doesn’t mean he can draw a convincing Sylvester McCoy but I think he gives it a good go. The slightly malicious grin on the Doctor’s face as he pulls out the Master’s TCE is spot on.

The alien jungle is spiky and weird, providing a neatly bizarre backdrop. The Time Warden’s outfit is another matter though, being utterly ridiculous and clownish. It makes him into a pompous and idiotic bureaucrat when something with a bit more authority and mystery would have been more appropriate.
 

End of The Line

Having been a fan of Transformers when I was a kid, this story is now something of a guilty pleasure - along with most of Deaths Head’s other adventures. Deaths Head is a one-dimensional character, which in many ways is his greatest strength. He is an utterly honourable mercenary with a vicious sense of black humour and this makes him vastly more sympathetic. For example, his reaction to being shrunk by the Doctor is wonderful.

Crossroads of Time is a rather dodgy crossover marketing exercise, the type of which Marvel seemed inordinately fond of in the 1980’s. In fact, they’re probably still keen on them today. It may have been more sensible to pit Deaths Head against a super-powered character, but it’s fun to see the Doctor going up against this straightforward killing machine. The Doctor’s eventual solution is pretty smart as well, making this a largely successful one-off.
 

Follow That TARDIS!

Deaths Head is the first crossover of another comic book character into the DWM comic strip. The Doctor would return the favour by turning up in Deaths Head’s own comic a few months later, in a story written by Steve Parkhouse. Despite featuring Dogbolter and Hob from The Moderator, it was utterly dreadful.

Geoff Senior also provided art for some of the seventh Doctor comic strips in that blasted publication ‘The Incredible Hulk Presents’.

The Time Wardens / Guardians are also Marvel standbys, having appeared alongside Killpower and Motormouth. No, doesn’t ring any bells with me either.

This story opened the floodgates – there would be a lot more comic crossovers to come, culminating in … well, you’ll see!

If this review is too kind to Crossroads of Time, please understand that it was in my first ever issue of Doctor Who Magazine from when I was a young boy.

In the Doctor’s pockets: yo-yo, jelly babies in a paper bag, can opener, cricket ball, recorder, apple core and one of (1x) Tissue Compression Eliminator.