STORY PLACEMENT

 THIS STORTAKES

 PLACE BETWEEN THE

 NOVEL "THE MANY

 HANDS" AND THE TV

 EPISODE "UTOPIA."

 

 WRITTEN BY

 CHARLIE KIRCHOFF

 

 ILLUSTRATED BY

 TOM MANDRAKE

 

 RECOMMENDED 

 PURCHASE

 IDW GRAPHIC NOVEL

 RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER

 2009 (NORTH AMERICA

 ONLY).

 

CLICK TO ENLARGE

 

 BLURB

 En route to witness

 The Beatles' famed

 rooftop concert in

 1969, The Doctor and

 Martha Jones INSTEAD

 find themselves in

 rural England in

 1669, where alien

 interference HAS

 REVIVED the Black

 Death...

 

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© IDW Publishing 2009. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

!

SEPTEMBER 2009

 

 

                                                       

 

 

Black Death is the final one-off adventure from IDW Comics, at least for the

time being, and it’s a grim and spooky affair. With a 17th century rural setting, it feels quite unlike the majority of the tenth Doctor’s adventures, instead possessing the feel of an early Hammer movie. Mandrake’s dark, dingy artwork only adds to this feeling.

 

I have to say, I can’t understand why plague doctors haven’t been used as Doctor Who monsters before. They’re perfect - the creepiest example of a real-life entity I can think of. Their heavy cloaks and hats are spooky enough when skulking in the shadows, but it’s the beaked face-mask that really gives me the willies. In fact, it’s a shame when they rip open their costumes to reveal their true selves - the macroviruses are finely designed monsters, but not nearly as scary as the plague doctors themselves. Also, they were done on Star

Trek: Voyager years ago.

 

Still, it’s a great idea: drawing a par-

allel between the bubonic plague on

Earth, and an unending war on an alien

world, between glowing humanoids

and the macroviruses. The humanoids

are their world’s equivalent of our anti-

bodies, the entire planet the equivalent

of a diseased body. When one of the antiboides crashes on Earth, he is taken in by a priest,

who views him as an angel with healing powers. But the viruses soon follow, leading to the

outbreak of a new plague. “Viruses reproduce by invading cells,” says the Doctor, “and the

people are those cells!” A fantastic idea, leading to some hideous eruption from the infected

victims. Absolute rubbish, of course, but effective nonetheless. Infecting Martha also ups the

threat, giving the story a real sense of a race against time. A good little chiller.

 

Copyright © Daniel Tessier 2010

 

Daniel Tessier has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Unless otherwise stated, all images on this site are copyrighted to the BBC and are used solely for promotional purposes.

Doctor Who is copyright © by the BBC. No copyright infringement is intended.