The Night Walkers (comic story)

The Night Walkers is a story published in TV Comic featuring the Second Doctor which is considered to be part of Season 6B. Published in three parts from 8-22 November 1969, it is the last TV Comic story to feature the Second Doctor and the very last adventure of this incarnation.

Summary
The Doctor, now a celebrity in the early days of his Time Lord-imposed exile on Earth, is a panelist on the game show Explain My Mystery. One mystery, a strange case of scarecrows who can walk at night, stumps the Doctor. He, intrigued, asks to go explore the farmer's land at night. When he does, the scarecrows capture the Doctor and reveal that they were sent by the Time Lords to begin the second phase of the Doctor's sentence.

Grabbing the Doctor, they head for the TARDIS. Once inside, they force his regenerative cycle and set the TARDIS controls to dematerialize. They then leave the TARDIS to land. . . somewhere else on Earth. Perhaps.

Characters

 * The Doctor
 * Scarecrows
 * Perry Conway, a game show host
 * Mr. Glenlock-Hogan, a farmer with a scarecrow problem
 * Mrs. Swiggings, an elderly woman with a domestic maintenance problem

Continuity
Published exactly six weeks before DW: Spearhead from Space aired, The Night Walkers is the only published comic strip to depict the actual moment of regeneration for a televised Doctor. Part Three of this story, published 22 November 1969, not only showed the end of the Second Doctor's life but also brought to a close the "third phase" of Second Doctor comic strips.

Begun in TVC: Action in Exile, the era had given readers tales of a companion-less Second Doctor enjoying his exile on Earth. Rather than living in UNIT obscurity, as the Third Doctor's televised exile appeared, the Second Doctor's comic exile was one of fame and luxury in the Carlton Grange Hotel.

Timeline

 * This story occurs after: TVC: U.F.O.
 * This story occurs before: DW: Spearhead from Space