Sunday 7 July 2013

The Cybermannys


The Cybermen is a one-page story about the Cybermannys, the officially-second-best monsters in Doctor Who. Because the story is only one page long you can see the whole of it in my picture above.

The story is in two parts, the first of which is about how the Cybermannys became Cybermannys and why they don't like hugs and kiffs any more, and the second part is a short summary of times when the Doctor met Cybermannys. These almost, but not quite, correspond to the Doctor Who TV stories The Tenth Planet, The Moonbase, Tomb of the Cybermen, The Invasion and Revenge of the Cybermen.

While I think that the reason that no TV stories after Revenge of the Cybermen are mentioned is that this story was written before they were made (Professor Cat agrees with my hypothesis), I am confused as to why The Wheel in Space was not included. Maybe it was edited out because there was not enough space on the page for it, or maybe the writer just didn't like it very much?

The story finishes by asking the reader
But was that the end of them ? Ask yourself, is the shore troubled by the sea ? Is the sun disheartened by the clouds ? The Cybermen feel no pain. Beware ! They will return !

A criticism of the Doctor Who TV story Earthshock that I have read on the internets is that it was so long since the Cybermannys were in Doctor Who that hardly anybody would remember who they were, so they wouldn't know to be scared by their surprise appearance at the end of part one (oops, sorry if I have given that away for you, but good luck finding a version of the story that doesn't have Cybermannys on the cover to give it away for you anyway). I think it is stories like The Cybermen that would have reminded everybody about the Cybermannys existing in between their being on TV.

The Cybermen is not to be confused with the Target novelisation of The Moonbase, which was renamed Doctor Who and the Cybermen. I don't know why this had to be renamed - it clearly isn't to make it obvious that there are Cybermannys in the story because there are Cybermannys on the cover!
Look, I will show you the cover to prove it:


Mewmewmewmewmew! It is not easy to use a scanner when you don't have thumbs.

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