Living in the Past (short story)

Living in the Past was a short story in DWM 162. It was the first appearance of Ace in DWM fiction. Morever, it offered an explanation for where she had been for the several years that had elapsed since her introduction on television — namely, that she had been living in the Cretaceous period of Earth's pre-history.

It and Teenage Kicks, which followed it, were unusual cases of DWM prose that was narratively continuous with the DWM comic strip. The events of this story were in fact prefigured by the issue's comic story, Doctor Conkerer, which was explicitly said to be the adventure immediately before the Doctor "picked up Ace".

Summary
The Doctor arrives in Mongolia during the Cretaceous period to pick up Ace, whom he had dropped off there. Along the way he encounters a pit of Dholes and an alien slave who has escaped from a nearby construction site. Ace arrives with a herd of assorted dinosaurs to trample the site, destroy it and free the slaves.

Characters

 * The Doctor
 * Ace

Continuity

 * Ace first expressed a wish to visit the Cretaceous in TV: The Happiness Patrol.
 * The Doctor first mentioned that Ace was visiting the Cretaceous in COMIC: Train-Flight.
 * This was the first appearance of Ace in a Marvel UK publication. Ace's proper comic debut, however, isn't until COMIC: Fellow Travellers.