The Stockbridge Showdown (comic story)

 was a comic story published in the 500th issue of Doctor Who Magazine. It featured the return of all major companions original to the DWM comic strip, along with antagonist Josiah W. Dogbolter, the village of Stockbridge and a cameo appearance of the city Cornucopia. Also returning to the DWM comic strip were various comic strip artists, alongside mainstays Mike Collins, Martin Geraghty and David A Roach, and The Time Team illustrator Adrian Salmon.

It was also the first DWM comic strip to be set after Clara's departure in TV: Hell Bent. Coincidentally, Titan Publishing Group released its first monthly comic set after Clara's departure, COMIC: The Twist, just one day before The Stockbridge Showdown was released.

Publisher's summary
A very special celebratory comic strip adventure from Scott Gray, Dave Gibbons, Martin Geraghty, Roger Langridge and many more!

Plot
After a day of searching for crop circles, Maxwell Edison is driving his motorbike back to Stockbridge on a still Autumn night. Today is Maxwell's 60th birthday. As he drives past a gate, the Doctor's TARDIS materialises on the road behind Maxwell.

The Twelfth Doctor jumps out of the TARDIS with a look of joy on his face. After a moment of being surprised that the Doctor has changed his face again, Maxwell is hugged by the Doctor. The Doctor explains that he has visited Stockbridge because he detected temporal distortions coming from the area. Maxwell is briefly disappointed as he had assumed the Doctor had came to celebrate his birthday. The two then head towards Stockbridge to investigate the distortions.

They enter Stockbridge to find that the villagers have been frozen in time. The Doctor examines a woman and finds that she has been "slightly phased outside this continuum". He declares that everyone has been trapped between nanoseconds and that whoever did it must have been a genius. Meanwhile, a floating camera drone watches the Doctor and Maxwell from the sky.

Many years later, someone else is celebrating their birthday. Josiah W. Dogbolter is holding a service for his 500th birthday at the headquarters of Intra-Venus, Inc.. Watching over the party, Dogbolter asks Hob why his daughter, Berakka Dogbolter, isn't there. Hob replies that she mentioned something about an emergency board meeting.

Sharon Allen, a former companion of the Fourth Doctor who is now a journalist for the Galactic Broadcasting Corporation, confronts Dogbolter. She tells him that there have been many men throughout history as powerful as Dogbolter is now, and that eventually all their empires fell. Before Dogbolter can reply, he receives a notification on his mobile phone that pleases him immensely, and he makes his leave.

Dogbolter enters a dark basement where he greets the person who sent him the notification: Chiyoko! Chiyoko tells Dogbolter that she has achieved harmonic alignment with Stockbridge in 2016 and created a crude time tunnel leading to the village. She explains that she froze Stockbridge's citizens to lure the Doctor to the village and that the Doctor fell for the trap.

Back in Stockbridge, the Doctor and Maxwell encounter Gol Clutha and her group of mercenaries. Dogbolter has hired her to escort the Doctor and Maxwell to St Justinian's Church, where Dogbolter and Chiyoko are waiting. The Doctor uses the city's temporally frozen nature to escape: he throws a cricket ball at a nearby fountain, disrupting the static atoms of the water, causing it to explode. Maxwell and the Doctor use the distraction to run away.

Meanwhile in the future, the Intra-Venus Inc. major shareholders hold an emergency meeting. Mr Groblux brings to attention the fact that nobody knows who called this meeting together. Majenta Pryce enters the room and declares that she did. This causes uproar as Majenta, a junior shareholder, had no right to do so. Majenta tells the shareholders that soon she will no longer be a minor player, as she will soon buy all of their shares for 12 Mazumas each, which is only 0.0000001% of their real value. She begins threatening the shareholders by listing the several illegal activities committed by various shareholders, and then lowers her offer to 10 Mazumas per share.

Berakka Dogbolter bursts into the room and hysterically announces that she will give "her daddy" an extra present for his birthday: Majenta's head in a box. As she lunges towards Majenta with a sword, Majenta presses a button on her glove and a figure with a sword jumps through a circular window to rescue Majenta. That figure is Destrii!

Destrii lands on the ground and blocks Berakka's sword with her own. She then punches Berakka's face before jumping away to avoid being sliced in half. The two continue to fight in this pattern, with Destrii evading Berakka's sword but not using her own. Eventually, Destrii manages to kick Berakka, knocking her out. Majenta then addresses the shareholders, saying that she'll now buy their shares for 5 Mazumas each.

Back in 2016, Gol Clutha catches up with the Doctor and Maxwell and traps Max in a tangle web. She threatens to shoot Maxwell if the Doctor doesn't come with her to St Justinian's, forcing the Doctor to comply.

The Doctor and Maxwell enter the church to see Dogbolter and Chiyoko waiting for them; behind them covered in orange wrapping paper and a blue bow is the ultimate birthday gift: the Doctor's TARDIS. Dogbolter forces the Doctor and Maxwell to kneel before him as he explains that with a time machine he can "destroy [his] competitors before they're born" and "play the stock market and always win", letting him become the wealthiest man in all of time.

At this point the Doctor asks Dogbolter if he remembers hiring an assassin to kill him, but only resulted in the death of his friend Gus Goodman. Dogbolter tells the Doctor that he's killed thousands of "nobodies" to get his way and Angus was not more significant than any of the others. Dogbolter then proclaims that the Doctor is a dead loss and orders Clutha kill him.

Chiyoko suddenly says, "Hold the phone Josiah, this guy could still be useful... Y'know?". Chiyoko doesn't talk like this. The fact that she is an imposter revealed, she begins changing into a small penguin. He then uses his flipper to smack Clutha and says, "The name's Frobisher." He then transforms into a large brown figure with hammers for arms and knocks out the rest of Clutha's team. Dogbolter then says that, unlike Gus, he remembers Frobisher and had made preparations should they ever meet again. He then commands Hob to activate the null-beam, which reverts Frobisher to his penguin form.

Frustrated with the Doctor, Dogbolter knocks him to the ground and points a gun at him. Before Dogbolter can fire, Maxwell jumps onto him, knocking him off balance. As Dogbolter recovers from the blow, a heavy gift hits his head, knocking him unconscious. The person that threw that parcel was Izzy Sinclair! She hugs the Doctor, then uses her medical skills to make sure that Dogbolter wasn't hurt.

Dogbolter wakes up and screams, "I'll kill all of your friends!" Sharon, who was hiding behind the TARDIS, emerges from the shadow with several of the floating cameras which were seen watching the Doctor. She reveals that the entire confrontation has been broadcast back in Dogbolter's century. Dogbolter counters by explaining that he'll get his lawyers to say that everything was faked, but the Doctor strikes the final blow by saying that, thanks to Majenta, he'll be getting "serious cash-flow problems" and won't be able afford a good legal team. The Doctor then reveals that it was not Dogbolter who organised the events of this evening, but himself.

In Dogbolter's century, he is arrested on Venus by Intersol officers and Majenta has become the new CEO of Intra-Venus.

In 2016, the Doctor, Izzy and Maxwell slowly walk through Stockbridge towards the TARDIS. The Doctor explains that he froze the villagers to keep them safe from the conflict. The Doctor then tells Maxwell he's arranged a birthday party for him, and they enter the TARDIS and leave Earth, although not before Maxwell says, "Oh! You've redecorated... I love it!"

The Doctor, Izzy, Destrii, Sharon, Frobisher and Majenta then have a party on a summer evening in the golden city of Cornucopia. They don't slow down until dawn.

Characters

 * Twelfth Doctor
 * Maxwell Edison
 * Josiah W. Dogbolter
 * Hob
 * Frobisher
 * Sharon Allen
 * Majenta Pryce
 * Destrii
 * Izzy Sinclair
 * Berakka Dogbolter
 * Gol Clutha
 * Primal Miniature of Lesser Braxtonia
 * Mr Groblux
 * Mr Andro

Worldbuilding

 * The guests at Dogbolter's party include four Mobox, a Skith, a Werelok, Cazkelf and two Shasarak.
 * Groblux has been embezzling The Kandaflax Charity.
 * Andro cheated at the Celestial Casino to gain his fortune.
 * As an aficionado of Earth television, Destrii refers to Majenta Pryce as "Spock-ella."
 * Izzy knocks Dogbolter out with a complete Blu-Ray boxset of The X-Files.
 * The Doctor's to-do list includes learning to yodel.

Continuity

 * Max comments on the Doctor regenerating again. (COMIC: Endgame, The Stockbridge Child)
 * The Doctor calls himself a hugger, completing his journey from arguing against hugs to enjoying them. (TV: Deep Breath, Listen, Time Heist, Death in Heaven, Last Christmas, The Magician's Apprentice, The Girl Who Died, The Woman Who Lived)
 * The Doctor says he is recruiting Max as "local knowledge". (TV: Flatline)
 * Sharon's surname is now "Allen", reflecting her marriage to Vernor Allen. (COMIC: Star Beast II)
 * Frobisher masquerades as Chiyoko, claiming "she" wants revenge for her previous defeat at the hands of the Eleventh Doctor. (COMIC: The Child of Time)
 * Gol Clutha reacts to the Doctor as if this is her first time meeting him. When she encountered the Eleventh Doctor aboard her ship in 1965, he had intentionally not identified himself, per his desire for anonymity. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone)
 * Destrii says she can relate with Berakka on having a "demanding parent". (COMIC: Oblivion)
 * Sir Justin of Wells' memorial statue is still standing in the church bearing his name, which the Doctor recalls has having been a nexus point for time dilation in the past. (COMIC: The Tides of Time)
 * The Doctor reminds Dogbolter of how Gus Goodman was killed by the Moderator when he tried to kill the Fifth Doctor to collect a bounty Dogbolter had placed on him shortly after they first met. (COMIC: The Moderator)
 * Bogbolter and Frobisher alluded to their past meetings with each other. (COMIC: The Shape Shifter; AUDIO: The Maltese Penguin)
 * The Doctor checks to see that Izzy has rebuilt her relationship with her adoptive parents, (COMIC: Endgame) which she says she has long since taken care of. (COMIC: Oblivion)
 * Izzy and Destrii are chatting amiably at the party, reflecting the understanding they had gained of each other from seeing into each other's minds. (COMIC: Oblivion)