The Widow's Curse (comic story)

The Widow's Curse was a Doctor Who Magazine comic featuring the Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble in her DWM debut, though it was not her comic strip debut. It was the second time author Rob Davis had introduced a televised companion to the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. Ultimately, however, Donna would appear in only one further story afterward.

Synopsis
The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble travel to an island that doesn't exist where an old enemy is waiting in Westminster Abbey...

Part one
Zombies walk under the sea. On a boat people talk about where they have been. Donna Noble tells them all the places she has been by herself and with the Tenth Doctor. The others introduce themselves as Norah, Jean and Harry. They ask Donna where she is staying and she says the TARDIS. The others think it is a fancy hotel. Donna corrects them. Harry tries to talk to the Doctor, who stands next to Donna. He is looking through binoculars at Shadow Cay and says there is no such place as Shadow Cay.

The Doctor introduces himself and explains it can't exist because he has never met anyone who's been there. Harry reads the island's history from a book to prove it is real. Jean tells the Doctor he has a crooked aura. The Doctor says he had a nasty fall as a child.

On a beach on Granma Island, two people have found a spiky object they think is a sea creature. Suddenly a group of zombies attack them and take away the object. The boat arrives at Shadow Cay. The Doctor and Donna discover a model hand stuck in a wall. They see the Convent of a building that looks just like Westminster Abbey. The Doctor tells them it is Westminster Abbey. The group from the boat prepare to enter the abbey but the Doctor is grabbed from behind. Two men close the doors, trapping the others inside. When a man protests, a skull on a rope swings out and catches him on the neck. He collapses. The Sycorax reveal themselves telling the humans they are in the Church of the Sycorax.

Part two
The man who grabbed the Doctor did so to keep him from being discovered by the Sycorax — whom the Doctor recognises as female.

Inside the church, the Sycorax attack the humans, binding them with ropes, but Donna escape with Norah. As they escape, they run into another Sycorax. Donna sprays her with perfume. Donna and Norah try to find out where the Sycorax are taking people. The Sycorax discuss their plans with the leader — the Haxan Craw. Some zombies bring in a spherical object — which she reacts to with joy — they now shall have the truth.

The Doctor realises the "locals" are all zombies, or human abstracts, as is the man who rescued him — the Sycorax are controlling them remotely. The man introduces himself as Lee Deverill. The Doctor notes he is different, but is puzzled because zombie control doesn't allow for individuality. They decide to go into the Sycorax ship.

In the church, some of the humans recognise the Sycorax as the "Christmas aliens on television" — but the Sycorax tell them not to speak in front of the Haxan Craw. Donna and Norah watch from behind rocks as the Haxan Craw brings in the stone, which she identifies as the Foraxi Yox. She orders the killing of the humans — but Donna protests. The Sycorax put the stone ball into a screen — which shows them what happened to their husbands. Donna realises it is like a Black Box recorder. The Sycorax watch the clip, which shows them being targeted by the humans and say they have been betrayed.

The Doctor and Lee come across a beach filled with the heads of abstracts — the Doctor notes they are "very, very, very dead... like they've died hundreds of times". Lee tells the Doctor that a 747 has gone missing — the Sycorax seem to have hypnotised the entire world. They set off an alarm and are chased by Sycorax riders.

Back in the church, Donna looks on in horror as the Sycorax widows watch the clip of their husbands being destroyed over and over again.

Part three
The Doctor and Lee run from the Sycorax riders. Lee is captured but the Doctor escapes by using the Sycorax ropes to pull them off their mounts. He steals a mount to get away. Inside the Shrine, the Haxan Craw watches images of her husband, the Sycorax leader Fadros Pallujikaa, meeting his death. The images show the swordfight between the Doctor and the Sycorax. The Haxan Craw identifies a part the leader's bone jewellery as her rib, a marriage bond he wears. The Haxan Craw screams at the sight of her husband's death, draws her sword and stabs Harry through his chest. Jean tries to remove the Torkfish but the Haxan Craw says they only let go when the victim dies.

Lee is taken to the Gilfane Craw. The Doctor also arrives and is slapped for commenting on Sycorax rites. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to threaten the Sycorax. He backs away to a man strapped to the mainframe of the island. It is Lee, the man who wrote a guide to the Caribbean islands.

Meanwhile, the Sycorax are preparing to kill the humans when Norah throws the Sycorax's recording device into their screen, causing an explosion. In the panic, the humans flee. Jean is tied to the rest by the Torkfish but cuts the rope so she can stay with Harry, who is now dead, the Torkfish having relaxed its grip. Lee discovers he is just a spirit in another man's body. He throws himself at the Gilfane Craw and both land in the pool of acid surrounding the mainframe and dissolve. The Doctor frees Lee from the mainframe and turns to face the Haxan Craw and her warriors. Donna and Norah board a plane.

The Sycorax wake the dead, who are contaminated with a spell/virus that will be spread round the world in the Sycorax's vengeance, stopping the death of humanity while removing the immune system, causing agony for hundreds of years. Donna and Norah realise the plane is full of corpses contaminated with the virus, ready to be flown to London. The Sycorax declare this is their curse and advance on the Doctor. The Haxan Craw mockingly proclaims, in a paraphrase of the Doctor's own words, "No second chances, we're that sort of a clan!"

Part four
The Sycorax widows advance on the Doctor, who gives them a chance to leave this world. The Sycorax say they will leave this world to rot when the abstracts have freed the curse. The Doctor attaches himself to the lithic womb to control the abstracts. Donna and Norah are aboard the plane with the disease carrying abstracts. They soon find out that the pilots are abstracts too.

The Sycorax prepare to kill the Doctor, who is in control of the abstracts on the island. He forces them into the lithic womb. They begin chanting, "I am the Doctor". The Doctor can speak through the abstracts. He tells the Haxan Craw not to underestimate humanity and definitely not Donna Noble. Donna and Norah remove the pilots from the pilot seats. The Doctor begins to melt the walls of the lithic womb while a Sycorax falls into the acidic water, pushed by an abstract.

The Doctor realises he can use the Sycorax's magma sculptor to replicate anything on Earth, and uses it to sculpt all of planet Earth. The Haxan Craw protests, saying the island is too small to recreate the whole of planet Earth. On the plane, Donna struggles to keep it in the air as the abstracts awake and begin breaking down the door.

Donna redirects the plane to Shadow Cay. The Doctor replicates the seen in a Sandra Bullock film, and uses it to catch the plane. The Haxa Crawn smashes the part of the lithic womb connected to the Doctor. He runs off, hunted by the Haxan Craw. The "spell" of the magma sculptor continues to cripple Shadow Cay. The Doctor gets Jean to come with him on the way out. She is still upset over Harry's death.

The island takes off; it is a Sycorax spaceship. The Haxan Craw catches up with the Doctor, easily knocks him down and prepares to slay him. Suddenly a Torkfish winds itself around the Haxan Craw's neck. She realises it is Jean. The Torkfish keeps the two together with the rope. Jean uses the Haxan Craw's spear to knock her over the edge of a building, intending to join her in a plummet to her death. At the last moment the Doctor cuts the rope, saving Jean. The Haxan Craw falls to her death.

The humans meet on a ferry as the island rises into the air. The Doctor says, "There's enough pain in loss to bring down mountains, to crush whole planets...and if pain turns to revenge it can tear you apart!" The Sycorax ship explodes.

Characters

 * Tenth Doctor
 * Donna Noble
 * Norah
 * Lee Deverill
 * Haxan Craw
 * Gilfane Craw
 * Jean
 * Harry
 * Shelk
 * Ramon
 * Pepé

Worldbuilding

 * Donna received a bottle of Odeur Delaware as a gift from Sylvia Noble during Christmas 2001.
 * When asked about her holiday experiences, Donna listed the locations which she had visited as Minehead, Paris with her school, Lanzarote, the Isle of Wight, Corfu, Crete, Cornwall, the rings of Saturn, the Magellan Clouds, Venus, Mercury, Pluto, the birth of the Earth, the death of the Mestophelix Galaxy and Skegness.

Original print details

 * (Publication with page count and closing captions)


 * 1) DWM 395 (10 pages) To Be Continued!
 * 2) DWM 396 (10 pages) To Be Continued...
 * 3) DWM 397 (10 pages) To Be Concluded!
 * 4) DWM 398 (11 pages) The End.

Continuity

 * Donna mentions having seen the birth of the Earth. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
 * The Sycorax are searching for their husbands and brothers from the Sycorax invasion of Earth, and learn about how Harriet Jones destroyed the Sycorax spaceship and the Doctor killed the Fadros Pallujikaa by throwing a fruit and making him fall of the Sycorax spaceship. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
 * Donna recalls flying the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)