The World Shapers (comic story)

The World Shapers was the final regular Doctor Who Magazine comic strip to feature the Sixth Doctor. It featured the death of Jamie McCrimmon, a fate which,, has not been contradicted in any medium. It has also attracted attention because it was written by legendary comic scribe Grant Morrison. It offered up a story that suggested that the Mondasian Cybermen had arisen from the Voord, something that seemed to conflict with stories such as AUDIO: Spare Parts. It was an idea that would potentially mean the Cybermen were partially derived from the Terry Nation estate, since Nation created the Voord. However, the television show has never acknowledged this connection to the Voord.

Summary
After a trip to Marinus, the Sixth Doctor is convinced to visit an old friend, but this will be Jamie McCrimmon's final adventure...

Part One
The Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown and Frobisher follow a distress signal to a watery planet that the Doctor recognises as Marinus, although it is now apparently deserted. The signal is coming from another TARDIS. They find an elderly, dying Time Lord who mutters "Planet 14" before expiring. As he was on his last regeneration, his body breaks down into its constituent molecules, though the Doctor notes that it happened very quickly. The late Time Lord's TARDIS informs them they were sent to Marinus to investigate violent disturbances in the space-time continuum. Frobisher moults rapidly and Peri's hair and fingernails grow; the Doctor notes that time has been accelerated. The mention of Planet 14 jogs the Doctor's memory. He dimly recalls an adventure from his second incarnation. He decides to visit Jamie McCrimmon to see if he would know.

As they depart in the TARDIS (observed by a group of Voord), a worldshaping spaceship prepares to land, piloted by Deedrun and Maxilla. They note that the previous planet they shaped was Planet Thirteen...

Part Two
The TARDIS has arrived in Scotland in the 18th century, and the travellers are escorted by Dugald to visit "Mad Jamie", who has been labelled as crazy after the Battle of Culloden, claiming to have visited the moon and stars. Having miscalculated by about 40 years, they've arrived to find Jamie an isolated old man living alone in a run-down shack. Jamie (who had been trained by the Doctor to resist the Time Lords' erasure of his memory) recalls the mention of Planet 14 by the Cyber Controller in their dealings with the Cybermen's attempted invasion of Earth via the London sewers. He begs the Doctor to take him with them, and they depart in the TARDIS before the bewildered eyes of the villagers.

They arrive on Marinus only a week since their departure, but in that time the vast oceans have been drained. They encounter Maxilla, now rapidly aged, gasping for help and claiming that 'it's all gone wrong.' They turn to find themselves surrounded by a party of Voord, who bear some uncanny resemblances to Cybermen...

Part Three
They retreat with Maxilla into the safety of the TARDIS. Maxilla tells how the Voord had captured the Worldshaper and used it to rapidly evolve. His partner, Deedrun, was killed in the process, but Maxilla partially shielded himself with a time shield. The Voord are evolving into Cybermen. The Doctor realises the peril the Cybermen would pose with the Worldshaper. He resolves that the machine must be destroyed. Leaving Peri and Frobisher behind in the TARDIS, the Doctor, Jamie and Maxilla home in on the Worldshaper. Maxilla is stunned to find it unguarded, but runs into a protective field surrounding it which ages him to death. Jamie, however, sacrifices his life by plunging his sword into the heart of the Worldshaper. An enormous burst of temporal energy engulfs the entire planet (though the Doctor escapes to the TARDIS), causing millions of years of geological development to pass very quickly. Once it subsides, they emerge from the TARDIS to find a pair of Time Lords waiting for them. The Doctor now recognises the planet as Mondas. The Time Lords order the Doctor and his party to leave, despite the Doctor's insistence they have the chance to stop the Cybermen's development before they unleash their evil on the galaxy.

As the Doctor angrily departs, the Time Lords reflect that in five million years' time, the Cybermen will evolve beyond corporeal form into the most peaceful and advanced race in the Universe. They agree that the millions of years of bloodshed in the interim are worth "the ultimate salvation of sentient life."

Characters

 * Sixth Doctor
 * Frobisher
 * Peri Brown
 * Jamie McCrimmon
 * The Voord
 * The Cybermen
 * Dugald
 * Maxilla
 * Deedrun

Continuity

 * Peri references the events of TV: The Two Doctors.
 * The references to Planet 14 derive from a remark by the Cybercontroller in TV: The Invasion; in that story, the Cybercontroller recognises the Second Doctor and Jamie from Planet 14.
 * According to the strip, Jamie was taught a mind-trick by the Second Doctor which allowed him to retain his memories of travelling with the Doctor, despite the attempt to erase them in TV: The War Games.
 * According to Peri, "a couple of years" have passed for her and the Doctor since the events of The Two Doctors.
 * The Doctor indicates that his memories of his first two incarnations are foggy; this may be an in-joke reference to the real-life junking of many episodes from those two eras.
 * Part of the story takes place on Marinus, with the Doctor recalling the events of TV: The Keys of Marinus.
 * The Voord return and it is revealed that they evolve into the Cybermen, and Marinus itself is destined to become known as Mondas. (This revelation has not to date been supported by any on-screen evidence.)
 * The Time Lords reveal that the Cybermen will eventually evolve beyond their capacity for assimilation and ascend to a state of pure consciousness, becoming a benevolent race in the process.
 * A Time Lord is shown dying, having used up his regenerations. According to the Doctor, Time Lords "degenerate" into "random molecules" and the dead Time Lord is shown disintegrating.
 * A reference is made to the events of TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen.
 * This strip was the last consistent Sixth Doctor comic strip adventure. In the course of the strips, Melanie Bush had never joined the Sixth Doctor on his travels.
 * Charlie Kirchoff was the colourist for the Grant Morrison's Doctor Who reprint.