Special Executive

The Special Executive (conversationally contracted to Special Exec) was a mercenary group of parahumans.



An early version of the team consisted of an elderly Leader, Zeitgeist, Cobweb, Legion, Numbers and Havanner. The Leader plotted to turn Gatecrasher's Technet against her and to have Fascination join the team three centuries early. Paradok, Ferro, Thug, Ringtoss and Pandora left Technet to join the Special Executive. However, Fascination and Gatecrasher's pet lizard Yap remained loyal to her. (COMIC: Alarms and Excursions)

In the early days of the Time Lords, the Special Executive was hired by Gallifrey to retrieve the assassin Fenris. Wardog, alongside Time Lady Rema-Du, did the retrieval, and Viridian the Brainfeeler scanned Fenris' mind to identify his employers as the Order of the Black Sun. At that moment, agents of the Order attacked; Viridian was killed and Wardog had his left arm blown off. (COMIC: 4-D War)

Ten years later, the Executive — Wardog, Zeitgeist, Cobweb and Millenium — escorted Rema-Du to a trade negotiation that involved the Sontarans and a third party. The third party turned out to be the Order from before they declared war on Gallifrey. The Sontaran ambassador Brilox wiped Millenium's mind with a psy-snare and brainwashed her into murder the Black Sun Elder. Wardog killed her in a failed attempt to stop the murder — and because the Executive were employed by the Time Lords, the Order of the Black Sun believed this to be a deliberate assault and declared war. (COMIC: Black Sun Rising)

While talking to his wife, Captain Britain recalls his encounter with the Special Executive. (COMIC: Myth, Memory and Legend) Captain Britain later encountered Gatecrasher's Technet which consisted of several earlier versions of Special Executive members, including Fascination, as well as Legion's brother Thug. The group informed him that Wardog wouldn't be whelped for another hundred years and that Cobweb was elsewhere, before taking him prisoner. (COMIC: Sid's Story)

Behind the scenes

 * Alan Moore, their creator, did not write any further Doctor Who strips, preventing him from using most of the material he had planned for the Executive. He went on to use them in the Captain Britain strip of Marvel UK's The Daredevils — one of multiple crossovers between Marvel Comics and Doctor Who by the UK branch. They made two subsequent cameos after Alan Moore finished writing Captain Britain, one in Captain Britain Monthly, and one in Marvel's Excalibur, the former showing that Wardog was not the first leader of the Executive.
 * Lance Parkin's short story Executive Action, originally published the charity anthology Walking in Eternity, explained that the parahumans of the Special Executive were the result of Rassilon's first experiments with Looms, and Rassilon formed the Special Executive to do the Time Lords' "dirty jobs". Later, when Rassilon ordered a purge of the Womb-born (as seen in Cold Fusion), the Special Executive fled Gallifrey and became an independent team.
 * This backstory has been accepted by many Marvel fans and was referenced in the Faction Paradox short story Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, where "the first parahuman brigades" are listed among other elements from Rassilon's early reign. Marvel has also acknowledged the information in their official handbooks, with the entry for the character Saturnyne in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #10 mentioning that she "hired Gallifreyan parahuman interdimensional mercenaries, the Special Executive", and the entry for the Technet (a rival team to the Special Executive which included some of their members) in X-Men: Phoenix Force Handbook explicitly identifying said members as "loom-born Gallifreyans."
 * Daniel O'Mahony's A Rag and a Bone, published in the 2003 fanzine Myth Makers Presents: Essentials, mentions "Dawn Brigades of parahumans" fighting "cat people" in Gallifrey's past. The story features a dog-faced parahuman in "Gallifreyan scarlet" as a veteran of Gallifrey's First Time War and an assistant of Sabbath.