The Poison Planet (comic story)

The Poison Planet was a Doctor Who Adventures comic story featuring the Tenth Doctor.

Summary
Answering a mayday, the Doctor discovers the dead body of Dr Kaleb Loss on planetoid KX77 in the Bromid system, known as Death's Door owing to its toxic atmosphere. He concludes the researcher died from spacesuit rupture: noting that Dr Loss worked for the Institute for Exo-Contamination Treatment (InFECT), he takes the body several light years to Mustron V, where the Institute is based, curious as to Loss's reason for being on Death's Door. On Mustron V, the TARDIS is forced to land outside the Institute by a force field: taking the body in by foot, wearing a spacesuit, the Doctor finds no sign of the remaining four InFECT staff. He is attacked by a large blue biped, which he stuns by pulling an astrograph over on it; he discovers team member Rachel "Red" Barlow in hiding, who tells him the creature is one of two Vox, used as guard dogs: the other has been killed by the figure of a faceless spaceman, causing everyone to go into hiding.

InFECT is researching a cure for the Space Plague ravaging the Outer Worlds. The Doctor gathers the researchers — Red, Mick, Jennifer and Asif - and tells them of Dr Loss's death, but they discover his body is missing from the sick bay. While they search for the missing corpse in the airlock, Red explains to the Doctor that Loss was collecting samples of stryntium, vital for the cure's development, which the Doctor left in the airlock on his way in. Suddenly, they are ejected from the airlock by the faceless spaceman.

The Doctor tells Red to hold her breath, while he reopens the airlock with the sonic screwdriver, and they regain safety. He seizes the faceless spaceman, breaks the Acme "Magic" refraction Visor that was making its head invisible, and reveals Jennifer, who, obsessed by the loss of her brother to the Plague, has become convinced that the team were working too slowly and is determined to develop the antidote quickly herself. Keeping the others back at gunpoint, she accidentally infects herself with a sample of the Plague, but the Doctor goes into the decontamination area and treats her with her antidote — which works. The team agree to call the cure the Kaleb Loss vaccine and prepare to broadcast details of it to the galaxy as the Doctor leaves.

Characters

 * Tenth Doctor
 * Rachel Barlow
 * Asif Khan
 * Mick Hogan
 * Jennifer Arders
 * Kaleb

Original print details

 * Publication with page count and closing captions


 * 1) DWA 58 (5 pages)
 * 2) DWA 59 (5 pages)
 * 3) DWA 60 (5 pages)

Continuity
to be added