Time Bomb! (comic story)

Time Bomb! was the second story in the pages of Death's Head (1988) to cross over with Doctor Who Magazine. Unusually for stories involving the character of Death's Head, it was not written by Simon Furman, but rather another DWM veteran, Steve Parkhouse.

The story is notable for the fact that it knits together characters that were never before associated. In particular, it depicted a meeting between Josiah W. Dogbolter and his robot assistant Hob — two characters from the Sixth Doctor's DWM run — with Death's Head, who hadn't appeared in DWM until the Seventh Doctor's era. More significantly, it unmistakably showed the Doctor's TARDIS on top of the iconic, home of the , thereby making the Doctor a character in the mainstream.

Summary
Josiah W. Dogbolter, head of Intra-Venus, Inc., hires Death's Head to kill the Doctor, and gives the mercenary a new time machine-in-a-backpack that his company is developing. He spins through time, stopping off in various historical spots, like the Battle of the Somme. Eventually he discovers the Seventh Doctor, who lets the robot into the TARDIS.

The unlikely duo soon discover that Dogbolter had dealt them both a bad hand. Attached to the time machine is a nuclear weapon, which Dogbolter can activate remotely. The Doctor thus transports to the Intra-Venus headquarters and helps Death's Head take off the time machine. They dump it right on top of Dogbolter's base and take off in the TARDIS. A mushroom cloud expands over the horizon, apparently indicating the Dogbolter's demise.

After that's done, the TARDIS materialises elsewhere, and the Doctor drops off Death's Head on the top of another building. The Time Lord tries to explain to the robot the necessity of self-improvement, and how that's a quality that organics will always have over mechanical beings. The plea seems to fall on deaf ears, however, and the Doctor returns to the TARDIS for another adventure. As he does it becomes apparent that this isn't just any old building.

The Doctor has in fact landed on top of the, its distinctive number 4 heralding only one thing: Death's Head is about to come face to face with the.

Characters

 * Death's Head
 * The Seventh Doctor
 * Josiah W. Dogbolter
 * Hob
 * Mistress Thorogood
 * Dave

Reprints

 * Reprinted in The Incomplete Death's Head Issue 9 (as a Maruthean archive)

Continuity

 * The Doctor is still carrying his vibrator piklok. (COMIC: Voyager)
 * Dogbolter finally achieves his goal of getting a time machine. Previous encounters with the Doctor involved trying to take the Doctor's TARDIS.
 * Hob later revealed on Maruthea that he and Dogbolter didn't make it to the sub-basement in time and were caught in the explosion. Hob miraculously survived and believed Dogbolter had as well. (The Incomplete Death's Head)
 * Death's Head since being sent to 8162 (COMIC: The Crossroads of Time) has set up an office in LA.