War World! (comic story)

War World! was the Doctor Who back-up strip which appeared in the pages of The Incredible Hulk Presents #4. Like all in the series, it was monochromatic and featured the Seventh Doctor travelling alone at the beginning and end of the story.

Summary
Landing on a war torn planet, the Doctor discovers that the combatants aren't who they appear to be.

Plot
The Seventh Doctor lands in the middle of a war between humans and robots on the planet Bellus IV. The human commander, Deldran, quickly takes him to the human headquarters. There, the remains of a great experiment to simply turn off the robots has been halted by the death of the chief scientist. The Doctor finishes the work, flips the switch — and promptly discovers that the "human" side are robots, too.

As he powers down for good, Deldran explains that the humans died ages ago, leaving the war running by robot proxy. When Deldran uses his last bit of power to explain that the robots wouldn't have known what to do with peace, the Doctor echoes the sentiment. He wonders if anyone is really built for peace.

Characters

 * Seventh Doctor
 * Commander Deldran

Continuity

 * The Seventh Doctor utters, "There should have been another way," when it becomes clear that he's effectively "killed" both robot armies. This evokes the Fifth Doctor's line at the very end of TV: Warriors of the Deep and the Third Doctor's at the end of TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians.
 * Like many stories printed in IHP, this one begins with a scene depicting a Seventh Doctor in conversation with the TARDIS and something going wrong with the time machine. In fact, such scenes simply didn't happen with the televised Seventh Doctor until his final flight in the TARDIS in the 1996 television movie.
 * The Doctor emerges from the TARDIS only to have weapons thrust in his face. Such a scene wasn't particularly common in the "classic" televised era, but it's been done in the BBC Wales series a few times, such as when the Tenth Doctor and Rose emerge from the TARDIS to the guns and bayonets of Victoria's guards in Tooth and Claw.