Happy Deathday (comic story)

Happy Deathday was a Doctor Who Magazine comic story featuring Izzy Sinclair aboard the Doctor's TARDIS.

The comic celebrated the thirty-fifth anniversary of Doctor Who.

Summary
It seems the Beige Guardian has kidnapped all eight Doctors and is forcing them to defeat all their past enemies at once. Matters, however, are not quite what they appear.

Plot
The Beige Guardian has kidnapped all eight incarnations of the Doctor, tied them up and placed them on a huge birthday cake with hissing dynamite "candles" strapped to their heads. The Beige Guardian produces every enemy the Doctors have ever defeated and announces that the Doctors will be forced to defeat them all again, which the Doctors finds tedious. Leaving the First and Eighth Doctors tied to the cake with their explosive candle fuses burning, the Beige Guardian sends the rest to battle their assorted enemies.

The Sixth and Second Doctors find themselves aboard a space station. They meet what at first appears to be a Raston Warrior Robot, but it's worse; it's a Wildean Wit Enforcer, a creature which immediately kills any source of bad puns. The Sixth Doctor notes that they're still in a lot of trouble. Davros and the Daleks show up and chase the Doctors through the station's corridors.

The Third and Fifth Doctors find themselves outside the Queen Victoria Pub from EastEnders, just as a crowd of intoxicated Ogrons and Sontarans are barred. The monsters drunkenly pick a fight with the Doctors and the Third gleefully leaps into the fray with his Venusian aikido while the Fifth looks on resignedly. A local passes by with her shopping. She groans "not you lot again..."

The Fourth and Seventh Doctors find themselves in a rocky, quarry-like environment and continue a conversation about their allergies to various foods which they'd begun back on the cake. An immense crowd of monsters are running toward them, while they bemoan the effects of Time Lord biology and regeneration on their allergies. The monsters get closer, pushing each other out of the way to be first to the targets. Almost as an afterthought, the Doctors simultaneously point their sonic screwdrivers at a pile of rocks and neatly collapse it onto the entire crowd of enemies, burying them as they blithely bewail the frustrating state of Gallifreyan medicine vis-à-vis food allergies.

Back at the Queen Vic, the Third Doctor is still happily kicking around Sontarans and Ogrons while the Fifth Doctor chats with a local about the merits of the biblical advice to turn the other cheek. As the woman turns away and begins to covertly extract a ray gun from her purse, the Fifth Doctor knocks her out from behind with a thrown cricket ball; he recognised her as his old enemy Broton the Zygon; no amount of shape-shifting could mask his incredible body odour. The Third Doctor has the last semi-conscious Sontaran by the collar amidst all his fallen compatriots and the Fifth suggests it may be time to move on; the crowd of locals seems to be weary of their presence.

On the space station, the Second and Sixth Doctors note that, of course, they're running in a circle. Deliberately slowing down, with the Second Doctor feigning a sprained ankle, they allow Davros and the Daleks to catch up. As Davros gloats over the chance to kill the Doctor twice over, the Sixth Doctor goads him into making a bad pun about his imminent victory. The Wildean Wit Enforcer summarily dispatches Davros and the Daleks in a flurry of thrown weaponry. Amidst the smoking wreckage of the Daleks, the Second Doctor stops the Sixth from reflexively making a bad pun about the situation.

The Beige Guardian watches the battles with increasing horror. He bewails his constant failures and wonders whether he hasn't been trying too hard to get the other Guardians of Time to take him seriously. While he's distracted, the First and Eighth Doctors work together to break free of the cake. They use a giant fork to launch one of the exploding candles at the Guardian just as it explodes, disintegrating him.

All the other Doctors reappear by the cake. The Eighth Doctor begins to explain his deduction that the Beige Guardian had been merely a collection of electronic impulses, easily dissipated by the explosion, but the First Doctor cuts him off and explains the same deduction in a longer-winded manner. The Fourth Doctor questions the nature of the Doctors' own existence; what if they're all just electronic impulses arranged for someone's amusement? The Third Doctor scoffs at the idea, while the Eighth Doctor responds that if such a thing is true, he hopes whoever is at the controls doesn't decide to cheat.

Watching the exchange on the Time-Space Visualiser, joystick in hand, bowl of crisps in her lap, Izzy Sinclair grins at winning her video game.

Characters
Izzy Sinclair is the only character actually participating in the story.

Video game facsimiles of other characters include:
 * Eighth Doctor
 * Seventh Doctor
 * Sixth Doctor
 * Fifth Doctor
 * Fourth Doctor
 * Third Doctor
 * Second Doctor
 * First Doctor
 * The Beige Guardian
 * A version of the Raston Warrior Robot called a "Wildean Wit Enforcer"
 * The Daleks
 * Davros
 * Ice Warriors
 * Nimon
 * Yeti
 * Ogrons
 * Sontarans
 * Various EastEnders characters
 * Sea Devils
 * Silurians
 * Omega
 * Autons
 * Cybermen
 * Broton and other Zygons
 * Monoids
 * Gods of Ragnarok
 * Osirian service robots
 * Morbius
 * Tractators
 * Quarks
 * Sandminer robots
 * Movellans
 * K1
 * War Machines
 * Borad
 * Mara
 * Macra
 * The Captain
 * Chief Caretaker
 * The Destroyer
 * Wirrn
 * Vervoid
 * Malpha
 * Terileptil android
 * Kandyman
 * Clockwork Soldier
 * Kraal
 * Dominator
 * Kroton
 * Mr Sin

Fashion and clothing

 * The Sixth Doctor wears a waistcoat with a question-mark pattern resembling the Seventh Doctor's jumper.

Individuals

 * The Beige Guardian is a pastiche of the Black Guardian.

Technology

 * The entire adventure is revealed to be a video game Izzy Sinclair is playing on the Time-Space Visualiser.
 * Video game cases scattered about near the Time-Space Visualiser include Happy Deathday, The Five Doctors, Thirteen Doctors, The Three K9s, The Chalk Pit of Slough, Measles of the Daleks, and The Rubber Suits of the Bygones.

Continuity

 * Since Izzy is revealed to be behind the whole adventure, it's entirely plausible that the events actually take place between DWM: Wormwood and The Fallen. It is also possible to consider the adventure to actually be in Izzy's real continuity, despite the fact that the story is an overt parody.
 * The Third and Fifth Doctors end up in a fight with drunk Ogrons and Sontarans outside the Queen Vic Pub from DW: Dimensions in Time and EastEnders.

Timeline

 * This story takes place after ST: Syntax.
 * This story takes place before DWM: The Fallen.