‘EXODUS’/’REVELATION!’/’GENESIS!’
Please feel free to comment on my review.
Cybermen on Sylvaniar with the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Frobisher
This is a three-part adventure in the ‘Doctor Who’ comics with each of the three parts having individual titles to them. The story is by Alan McKenzie and it’s drawn by John Ridgeway. I read the third instalment of this story first when checking out Issue #110 of ‘Doctor Who Magazine’ in 2012. 🙂
‘EXODUS’ (Part 1)
In ‘Part One’ of the story called ‘Exodus’, the Sixth Doctor is doing some repairs to the TARDIS with Frobisher helping him out. Peri is fishing through a basket of clothes. Very soon, the TARDIS trio discover a dilapidated spacecraft and its passengers in a dark room, to which the Doctor is outraged.
He demands the refugees to leave his boxroom. Peri is angry with the Doctor, telling him to be compassionate and offer the refugees food. It’s unusual to see the Sixth Doctor be brash and abrasive here, as he was in the TV series. He didn’t act like that before in the previous comic stories.
Is it only when Peri’s around that the Sixth Doctor becomes brash and abrasive like he was in ‘The Twin Dilemma’ and Season 22 of the TV show? I would have thought the Sixth Doctor would be past that stage. Perhaps this is do with Alan McKenzie being the writer of this story and not Steve Parkhouse. 😐
As the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher attend to the refugees, one of them shares that they have crop failures and disappearances of people on their planet called Sylvaniar. There are also well-fed scientists in a castle who refuse to assist the farmers. It’s something that perks the Doctor’s interest.
The Doctor deduces the only way the refugees’ ship could have got aboard the TARDIS is that the TARDIS somehow materialised around it. Once dematerialising his TARDIS and freeing the refugees’ ship, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to Sylvaniar to investigate the disappearances that are happening there. 🙂
‘REVELATION!’ (Part 2)
In ‘Part Two’ of the story called ‘Revelation!’, the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher end up in a castle on Sylvaniar where they find the body of Professor Verdeghast strangled and murdered. They’re instantly caught and suspected of murder by the chief of security called Krogh, along with his guards.
As the Doctor, Peri and Frobisher are met by Krogh in their prison cell, it’s revealed that Verdeghast wasn’t the only person murdered. There’s also Dr. Polezig, who was killed the day before. Krogh frees the Doctor to help him in his murder investigation whilst Peri and Frobisher stay imprisoned. 😐
The Doctor explains to Krogh that he, Peri and Frobisher came to Sylvaniar to investigate the disappearances of people on the planet, as established in ‘Exodus’. Investigating Verdeghast’s chamber, the Doctor discovers that his research is missing and that he wasn’t killed by a living being.
The Doctor and Krogh also meet other scientists like Dr. Kravaal, who is a horribly scared geneticist with an eyepatch. He came looking for Verdeghast. There’s also Dr. Sovak, who cries for help. Apparently, Sovak’s neck bears the marks of an attacker similar to the one who killed Verdeghast. 😐
This instalment concludes with the Doctor and Krogh going to see Director Rukh to report all that has happened. They find him in his office being strangled by a Cyberman. It’s clearly an ‘Earthshock’ Cyberman, but it has one human arm. This is pretty unusual to see in a Cyberman in ‘Doctor Who’. 🙂
‘GENESIS!’ (Part 3)
In ‘Part Three’ of the story called ‘Genesis!’, we see more of the Cybermen being half-mechanical, half-human, especially with one half showing bare arms and bare legs. It’s also established that the peasants of Sylvaniar have been converted into Cybermen and it’s revealed Dr. Sovak is responsible.
Upon revisiting ‘Genesis!’ after first checking out the instalment in Issue #110 of ‘DWM’, I initially assumed Dr. Kravaal was behind it all. It must have been a surprise to readers of this comic to find Dr. Sovak as the villain of this comic story, especially since he started off being benign in ‘Revelation!’.
I think this three-part story needed to be a four-parter, especially since the Cybermen don’t seem to do much in the story, apart from appearing. The Cybermen also don’t have any dialogue in the story. I suppose that should be a blessing in disguise, as the Cyber Leader doesn’t get to say “Excellent!”. 😀
Peri and Frobisher are also reduced in roles in the story, as the Doctor picks them up in his TARDIS after unravelling Dr. Sovak and the Cybermen at the end. I wish a ‘Part Four’ instalment was made to give more to Peri and Frobisher as characters in order to help the Doctor fight against the Cybermen.
The story concludes with Frobisher revealing to the Doctor that he has monomorphia and he’s stuck as a penguin. I’m not sure how this came about. It wasn’t implied that he was ill in ‘Revelation!’. But from hereon, it seems that Frobisher is going to stay stuck as a penguin for the next set of his stories.
‘Exodus’/’Revelation!’/’Genesis’ has been an enjoyable three-part story featuring the Sixth Doctor, Peri and Frobisher visiting Sylvaniar along with the Cybermen. I wish this was a four-parter instead of a three-parter, since more time would have been spent on the Cybermen as well as Peri and Frobisher.
‘Exodus’/’Revelation!’/’Genesis!’ rating – 7/10
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