Dr. Who & the Mechonoids (comic story)

Dr. Who & the Mechonoids was a comic story published in Doctor Who Magazine in 2022.

In a departure from the usual format, this story moves away from the concurrent Thirteenth Doctor in favour of focusing on and being set in the continuity of the theatrical films, starring Peter Cushing's Dr. Who and Roberta Tovey's portrayal of Susan. It was the first such strip to star these characters since Daleks Versus the Martians, twenty-six years earlier, and the second overall in the history of DWM (discounting parody strips).

As the title suggested, it pitted Cushing's Doctor against the Mechonoids for the first time, adapting elements of the Mechanus segments of The Chase.

Summary
Inside TARDIS, Dr. Who and Susan are in the middle of an investigation when Vince Booth, a deliveryman for Booth's Dairies, enters with a delivery of a large crate of eggs. Although Vince is briefly worried he will be experimented on, Dr. Who assures him that he is simply trying to prove scientifically what came first, the chicken or the egg. However, Vince's crate blocks his view of a stray chicken pecking at his feet, causing him to trip and fall onto the ship's controls. Dr. Who wonders where they have landed, leading Susan to explain TARDIS to Vince. Seeing a beautiful world of fields on the scanner, they step out to be greeted by two Mechonoids, demanding they follow.

The travellers are locked up in a holding room with three blue-suited travellers from future Earth. They explain that the new arrivals are lucky not to have been shot or attacked with the Mechonoids' flamethrowers, as three of their party have already been killed for acts of aggression. They add that the Mechonoids were programmed to prepare other worlds for human colonisation, but a space war meant the original colonists never arrived. The trio explain that they were sent for recon but did not know the Mechonoids' recognition codes, so they have considered them hostile ever since - made even worse by the impending arrival of the main colony ship in around an hour's time.

Meanwhile, Susan reads the colonists' book, So You Want to Colonise a Planet, and uses it to learn where the command centre is, promising that her grandfather can work out the codes in time. She works her way through a vent to open the doors from the other side as the three recon colonists decide to quietly retreat to their ship to contact the others. The two groups wish each other good luck.

Outside, Vince wonders why they could not just leave in TARDIS, leading Dr. Who to brand him a chicken. Susan uncovers a vehicle store, finding a large oval-shaped hovercar that a panicked Vince immediately assumes is a Mechonoid. Susan calls him a chicken as well. Soon, the group are riding their newly-nicknamed "egg-car" to the command centre, with the colonists' ship close behind.

Dr. Who sets to work on the codes, getting quite far but not being able to finish before the Mechonoids attack. Dr. Who surrenders and tells Vince to look after Susan, giving in: "I am nothing! You have won! You are too, too mighty for me!" This does not stop the Mechonoids, however, and they activate their flamethrowers just as the final code is accepted and they turn peaceful. Susan proudly exclaims how she easily noticed her grandfather's clues that the final codes were 0-1-2-2 and now they can all go home. However, Vince has escaped onto an automatic tree-planting conveyor belt, being grabbed by mechanical claws. Knowing they will be grabbed too if they try and help, Dr. Who simply promises to find him later.

Eventually, Dr. Who and Susan fly the hovercar up to the tree-planting machine which has arrived outside TARDIS and retrieve Vince from it. Highly bedraggled, he claims that they took their time, but Dr. Who points out that the arrived at exactly the same time. Susan realises they should conduct another experiment to find whether Vince or the hover vehicle arrived first; in other words, which came first, the chicken or the egg-car?

Characters

 * Dr. Who
 * Susan
 * Vince Booth
 * Reconnaissance
 * Mechonoids

Worldbuilding

 * Vince Booth works for Booth's Dairies.
 * Dr. Who is trying to discover whether gallus gallus domesticus or ovum (the chicken or the egg, in layman's terms) came first.
 * Susie wonders if TARDIS could have landed in a petrified jungle, or future London.
 * The Mechonoids possess flamethrowers.
 * Mechonoids were used in the 23rd century to prepare planets for colonisation.
 * Susie reads So You Want to Colonise a Planet.

Original print details

 * (Publication with page count and closing captions)


 * DWM 578 (6 pages): The End