Majenta Pryce

Majenta Pryce was a companion of the Tenth Doctor. A hotelier by trade, she was notable for being one of the few non-humans with whom the tenth Doctor traveled.

Biography
Majenta Pryce was a green humanoid female from the planet Vessica. Before her first encounter with the Doctor, she was a member of the criminal group the Crimson Hand. She was responsible for betraying Wesley Sparks and taking all his money, allowing her to become part of their inner sanctum. She destroyed the Skith Home World. She became frightened and ran, so her servant Fanson wiped her mind so that she would forget about the Crimson Hand and Wesley Sparks. (DWM: The Crimson Hand)

She and Fanson went on to run a successful hotel chain known as Hotel Historia. Following the Last Great Time War, however, the chain was devastated as people turned their backs on time travel. Retreating to 21st century Earth, Majenta established another Hotel Historia, using time travel tech of dubious provenance to send paying guests into different time zones throughout Earth history. The Tenth Doctor stumbled onto Majenta's operation while confronting the Graxnix in 41st century London, and used the faulty tech to travel back to the hotel.

When the Graxnix followed the Doctor, they started to kill people at the hotel. Majenta quickly decided to leave with her unpaid bills, but the Doctor prevented her escape. He used her time travel tech to imprison the Graxnix outside time, then ensured she was taken away to debtors' jail. (DWM: Hotel Historia)

An apparently coincidental visit to the Thinktwice Orbital Penitentiary in Earth's distant future brought the Doctor back into Majenta's world. The harsh regime and crude psychological methods of the penitentiary left Majenta with little or no memory of the Doctor or of her life before their first meeting. The Doctor restored Majenta's memory of him, but was unable to restore anything else.

Together, they uncovered the truth behind Thinktwice, It was being used by the Memeovax, who fed on the prisoners' memories. When one of the Memeovax attempted to invade Majenta's mind, she unleashed a blast of power that destroyed all the Memeovax in Thinktwice Prison. Afterwards, in the TARDIS, Majenta quickly co-opted the Doctor into helping her resolve her memory issues. (DWM: Thinktwice)

After a trip to Stockbridge, during which she met Maxwell Edison, (DWM: The Stockbridge Child), and helped the Doctor defeat the Lokhus of the Zytragupten, she and the Doctor arrived at an apparently abandoned house on the edge of the Proxima System. Here, the Doctor discovered a holographic party, run by a digitized avatar of Wesley Sparks, founder of Sparktech. As events from decades before replayed in holographic form, the Doctor was astonished to discover that Majenta had been a guest at the party, as Wesley's best friend, business partner and fiancee. Meanwhile, the real Majenta explored the house, and came upon the real Wesley Sparks, now a desiccated cyborg who had slowly gone insane as he preserved himself with bionic parts, waiting for Majenta to return after she left on "pressing business". He attempted to force Majenta into marrying him, but she was saved by the Doctor and Wesley's avatar, still the dignified host and gentleman Wesley had once been. Damaged in battle saving Majenta, the avatar begged Majenta to remember their lives together. Majenta tearfully broke down and embraced the avatar as it died. (DWM: Mortal Beloved)

Still trying to take Majenta to Panacea - a healing world, where the Doctor planned to solve Majenta's memory problems - the TARDIS arrived in Sydney Australia. The Doctor and Majenta were quickly taken into custody by UNIT's Australian branch. Following a suspicious UNIT officer deep into the bowels of UNIT's underwater HQ, she eventually caught up with him in the Bestiary - a hangar space full of UNIT mementoes. Majenta was surprised to find the UNIT officer was her old confidante, Fanson, disguised by a perception filter. She was doubly surprised to find that Fanson was now in the thrall of the Skith Leader, secretly helping him infiltrate the UNIT operation. Majenta was captured by the Skith General's rival forces, who were surprised to find that they were unable to access her mind. The Skith elected her as the perfect pilot for the prototype timeship (or SKARDIS), and converted her into a Skith Queen. While in this form, the Doctor was able to convince her to turn on the Skith and help UNIT destroy their ship. As the Skithship fell, Fanson revealed that he was responsible for erasing her memory to spare her some - as yet unknown - agony. Fanson died from injuries sustained at the hands of the Skith General, and the Doctor and Majenta fled. (DWM: The Age of Ice)

Majenta and the Doctor next visited New Old Detroit, a planet in the Proxima System. There they solved the final case of low-life private eye Johnny Seaview, and wrested control of the World Bomb from a corrupt Alpha Centauri. The Doctor triggered the World Bomb, transforming the slums of New Old Detroit into a world mapped on his memories of England. (DWM: The Deep Hereafter)

After that the Doctor took her to see the play The Mousetrap. In the London Underground they found "Ghosts" saved by a being known as Mnemosyne. After they defeated Mnemosyne, the doctor said he was going to take Majenta to Panacea. At that moment a fleet of ships surrounded Earth and demanded she come out with her hands up. (DW: Ghosts of the Northern Line)

Majenta and the Doctor tried to escape in the TARDIS, but this failed as Intersol launched a tractor beam, sending Majenta onto Intersol's ship. She was mind-probed by Intersol's computer, Justice and then attacked by her old cellmate Zed. However the four remaining members of the Crimson Hand arrived, having followed her around the universe. They killed most of Intersol's staff and took Majenta over again. As she was taken over, she turned the Doctor into ashes.

Majenta did manage to restore Vesica. It had been a planet of immense poverty; this changed when she used the Crimson Hand to make the planet rich again. The population rebelled against her and she was forced to resurrect the Doctor. After she did this, she and the Doctor destroyed the Crimson Hand at the cost of Majenta's own life. The Doctor resurrrected her and placed her in the restored New Old Detroit. As long as the Doctor remembered her, she would stay alive. (DWM: The Crimson Hand)

Personality
Majenta was confident, resourceful, and intelligent. She was also intensely determined; whenever something went wrong, she was willing to do whatever it took to put make it right.

A key part of Majenta's personality was her sense of superiority. She had little compunction about ordering others around, or letting them know exactly what she thought of them. She did have a streak of compassion, watching out for those she came to care about.

In a reversal of the usual relationships the Doctor had with his companions, Majenta held that the Doctor was working for her, technically making him her companion, rather than the other way around. After the incident with Fanson, Majenta offered the Doctor the opportunity to leave her employ, if he wished. With a handshake, however, the Doctor and Majenta agreed to retain their "business" partnership. (DWM: The Age of Ice).

Powers
Majenta had a barrier in her mind, blocking mental intrusion. When Thinktwice originally removed her memories, they didn't seem to encounter it; however, when they tried a second time, they found the barrier blocking them. When a Memeovax breached the barrier, Majenta manifested a mysterious 'shadow-force' from her hand, destroying all Memeovax on Thinktwice. Neither she or the Doctor knew what this 'shadow-force' was, or where it came from.

A certain object of immense power known as 'the hand' followed Majenta as she traveled with the Doctor. It was eventually revealed to be a monstrous device, the Manus Maleficus, which she once helped control.

Behind the scenes

 * When Doctor Who Magazine began publishing strips based upon the revived Doctor Who series in 2005, it was decided to feature the Doctor either travelling alone, or with one of his TV companions; this was, in fact, one of the reasons (as stated in the Panini Books DWM comic strip omnibus The Flood) why the comic strip companion Destrii was abandoned with the switch from the Eighth Doctor to the Ninth Doctor in the comics. Majenta is the first ongoing comic strip-exclusive companion to be introduced since then.
 * Majenta is also the first original (i.e. non-TV) Tenth Doctor companion to be introduced in any media, predating various post-Donna Noble characters featured in the New Series Adventures novels, companions featured in the Doctor Who Adventures comic strip, and Grayla, a post-Rose Tyler/pre-Martha Jones companion revealed in the IDW Publishing standalone comic book The Whispering Gallery.
 * Majenta's presence as a companion would seem to contradict the Doctor's stated reluctance to travel with anyone, although it could be said that her adventures might have taken place prior to Donna Noble joining the Doctor. The beginning of The End of Time establishes an interval of unknown length occurred between DW: The Waters of Mars and The End of Time, during which Majenta's adventures may have occurred.