The Crimson Hand (comic story)

The Crimson Hand was the final Tenth Doctor comic strip to appear in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. It was also the last to feature companion Majenta Pryce as a regular part of the DWM stable of characters. It concluded the "Panacea" story arc. The publication of its final part in DWM occurred two days before the premiere of the Eleventh Doctor's first series on BBC One.

Summary

Intersol have searched the galaxy high and low for Majenta Pryce. They have finally found her, but what has she done wrong? Will her past threaten to destroy the whole universe and what will be her fate?

Plot

Part 1

Intersol is chasing the TARDIS. As they collide, Justice (a telepathic computer) tells the Doctor and Majenta to surrender now or be destroyed!

The Doctor and Majenta are in the TARDIS. The Doctor gets a message from himself: the TARDIS cannot leave the Time Zone. Suddenly a man appears as a hologram. he is Finn Dargo, Chief Marshall and Supreme Commander of the Intersol Fleet. He tells them that the TARDIS is now the property of Intersol. He arrests the Doctor and Majenta and shoots a beam at the Doctor. Majenta thinks he is dead, but Finn says he is stunned. She escapes before he can knock her out.

On the ship, Finn says to Justice that Majenta made it out of the TARDIS. Justice says that she will prepare an execution cube for the Doctor but Finn stops her, saying is is going to interrogate him. Meanwhile Majenta disguises herself as one of the guards.

Finn begins his interrogation of the Doctor. The Doctor wonders what Intersol want with Majenta. Finn shows him clips of her past. He says she belongs to the most dangerous criminal organision in the universe. Intersol thought they had caught her at Thinktwice prison but Majenta escaped with the Doctor. He tracked her down to the Proxima system, to Stormlight House, but they found nothing there. The Doctor speaks up for Majenta but is tortured. A masked woman asks "Is torture the right answer?"

Majenta boards a ship to leave the Doctor but she is attacked by the masked woman. They fight. Majenta is on the floor quickly. The woman takes of her mask to reveal Zed, Majenta's cell mate in Thinktwice Prison. Majenta asks Zed if it is she. Zed replies "No, Majenta, it isn't..." and fires.

Part 2

Majenta wakes inside the Justice computer banks/cells. She is sentenced to maximum interrogation. Zephyr goes to the Doctor's cell. He realises that the TARDIS allowed Justice to hack into it because there is something dangerous in Majenta's mind. The Chief Marshal watches some of Majenta's recent memories through a neuroscopic probe, then finds one from before the Hotel Historia event, when Majenta joined the Crimson Hand. The Marshal finds a hidden room in Majenta's memories. Justice detects four inbound energy signatures. It is the Crimson Hand.

Part 3

The four remaining members of the Crimson Hand walk through the portal. They start to fly through the memory banks of Justice's system and then destroy her. The Doctor probes Majenta's minds and finds that she once led the Crimson Hand and how she had to prove herself worthy, she met Wesley Sparks, seduced him and abondoned him on the night before his wedding. Majenta explains to the doctor that the Crimson Hand found the Manus Maleficus, a device that could destroy planets. A flashback reveals that the five members of the inner sanctum of the Crimson Hand used it to destroy the home planet of the Skith, a race she and the Doctor had encountered before. Majenta revealed that she got scared and ran, but without her the Manus Maleficus would not work as it needed five, so Fanson found her and wiped her memory so she would be sealed away from the hand. The Crimson Hand start to destroy Intersol killing most of the crew on the ship, but robots distracted them allowing several members of the crew to escape. Finn is then killed by Pi by getting absorbed into his system. Pi tries to attack the Doctor, Majenta and Zed, but Zed fires at him missing but scaring him off. The Doctor tries to get into the Tardis but finds the lock is gone. He looks up to see Majenta with the lock in front of her floating in air. She then destroys it and her voice changes. She says she is sorry to the Doctor and then turns him into ashes, as Zed looks on.

Part 4

The Crimson Hand members, using their power, swept away galaxies, rebuilt solar systems and erased a countless number of races from causality. In their place was new race, better worlds. This was an age of peace and prosperity for every living being in the universe. Majenta's home planet, Vessica was also changed into a happy planet, and it remained that way...for a while. Majenta does not understand why there are attacks after she gave the people of Vessica everything they could have, Zed, now working as Majenta's servant informs her that there is a rift in time and space above them. The Crimson Hand members realise they have made a mistake about Majenta, and she is to be no longer trusted. As the pressure on Majenta grows and grows, she eventually shouts 'Doctor, I need you!'; the TARDIS then appears through the rift and Majenta and Zed are warped inside. Zed is puzzled when she sees The Doctor, and Majenta replies that she didn't kill him; instead Majenta just sent The Doctor away. The Doctor tells Majenta that Zed and her have to return to Vessica and protect Majenta's race, because if The Doctor does not succeed in defeating the Crimson Hand, the people of Vessica will fall to the hand first. However, Majenta is not going to give up. She tells The Doctor to set the coordinates for the citadel of the Crimson Hand and ends her sentence with the words 'It's time to finish this.'.

Part 5

Majenta gives the Doctor a little bit of her power, so that he can destroy the Manus Maleficus. Then she teleports out of the TARDIS, and rejoins the Crimson Hand as Lady Scaph. Majenta tells them that the Doctor is still alive, and they demand to know where he is now. Meanwhile, the TARDIS materialises by the Manus Maleficus. The Doctor sees its raw power, and realises he could do anything with it: bring back Rose, resurrect the Time Lords, stop Donna losing her memory... but he knows it has to go. He is not strong enough, though. The Crimson Hand, complete with Majenta, appear, floating in the air. Majenta says she is sorry to the Doctor, and that she knew he would not be able to destroy the machine. The Crimson Hand are anxious to start killing the Doctor in order to see how many times they can kill him. With the Hand distracted now, Majenta takes her chance to enter the Manus Maleficus. Now she can destroy the Hand, but they tell her that without them, she would be nothing again. Majenta agrees with them, and her Lady Scaph uniform dissolves away. With that, she destroys the Crimson Hand. But Pi swears that "this isssn't over, pryce... the crimson hand will returrrrrnnn..." Majenta is now extremely weak, and dying. The last thing she says to the Doctor is "I'm going to die in a minute, Doctor... but before I do... I just want to say... you've ruined my life." Then Majenta Pryce dies. Zed demands that the Doctor do something, but he can't. Then the Manus Malificus returns to its old dimension. The Doctor jumps into it, and falls into the gap in time and space (The Morass) where the Reapers and Chronovores dwell. The Doctor reaches out with his hands, closes his eyes, and when he opens them... he is in the lush green paradise that is British countryside (As seen in The Deep Hereafter), with the TARDIS, Zed, and Majenta. The Doctor tells Majenta that the Manus Maleficus brought her back to life. The only way it could do that, though, is by using the Doctor's brain, so Majenta is being kept alive due to the Doctor thinking about her. Then the Doctor leaves in his TARDIS, and Majenta and Zed start a new life in Redemption. Zed wonders if the Doctor will return to see them, and Majenta * says "You never know, Zed... you never know."

Characters

References

The Reapers and Chronovores live in the Morass.
The Doctor mentions Zephyrus.

Notes

This marks the final appearance of the Tenth Doctor in regular comic strip format. His final lines in his comic book tenure are, "Although... I am thinking of tendering my resignation, Madge. New horizons, new opportunities. That sort of thing."
The story overlapped with DWM's change of format associated with the Eleventh Doctor. This previously occurred when DWM published a Seventh Doctor strip following the introduction of the Eighth Doctor.

Continuity

Zed, who was last seen in COMIC: Thinktwice, returns.
The Doctor is tempted to use the power of the Crimson Hand to resurrect Gallifrey and the Time Lords, (TV: The End of the World et al) break down the barriers between dimensions and reunite with Rose Tyler, (TV: Doomsday) and bring back Donna Noble's memories of him. (TV: Journey's End)
Finn shows the Doctor, through memories, the havoc from COMIC: Thinktwice; characters seen are Zed and Ceecee. The robot known as Owl and Violet are seen in another clip. They previously appeared in COMIC: Mortal Beloved.
A Mentor appears in a flashback scene as a member of the Crimson Hand. The Mentors appeared in TV: Vengeance on Varos and TV: Mindwarp.
Majenta mentions acquiring the ashes to the Scroll of Horath. The scroll was destroyed by Sarah Jane Smith's sonic lipstick in TV: Enemy of the Bane.
Majenta also mentions that the Crimson Hand had a segment of the Key to Time. The Key to Time was the story arc for Season 16.
The Crimson Hand were responsible for destroying the home world of the Skith, The Skith appeared previously in COMIC: The First and The Age of Ice, both times referring to how their home world was destroyed by an unknown force.
Fanson appears in a flashback showing that he wiped Majenta's mind clean. Fanson previously appeared in COMIC: Hotel Historia and The Age of Ice.
Amongst the prisoners held by Intersol is a Wrarth Warrior. (COMIC: Doctor Who and the Star Beast)
The Crimson Hand possess a shard of the Glory. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

Tardis