Once Upon a Time-Lord...

Once Upon a Time~Lord... (the comics love ellipses so much they're even making their way into titles now) is a direct continuation from the end of Polly the Glot, with the Doctor pursuing the renegade Time Lord Astrolabus who has penguinnapped Frobisher.

The TARDIS scanner proves to be useless, showing "an empty world, devoid of life" while we can see it has countryside, buildings, hot air balloons, Little Red Riding Hoods, and Black Riders.

As soon as the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS he is attacked by a Black Rider and cries out

"By Elbereth and Luthien the fair, you shall have neither the ring nor me!"

Even the Doctor is confused why he said that, but then Frobisher arrives and starts speaking in a strange way:

"I've been having a lovely time, Doctor! Come and meet some of my merry chums!"
"Merry chums? You're a guttersnipe from a slum on some backwater planet... you've never had a merry chum in your life!"

I can just imagine Colin Baker shouting "merry chums?" three times if it had been him delivering this dialogue. The Doctor seems to accept that this is the real Frobisher, but he doubts that the other things in the land are real, including the talking tree they meet. The Doctor has plenty of experience with illusionary landscapes, such as in The Mind Rober, The Deadly Assassin, or The Penalty, so he knows they have a "dark side" as well (although he may be thinking of The Force there).

Astrolabus is watching them and decides to let the little mannys and aliens in his audience choose their fate:

"Only you can decide, children! So on with your thinking caps... and let the story commence!"

Astrolabus is so powerful that he changes the very nature of the comic strip. For the next three pages the Doctor and Frobisher are trapped in a six-panel strip with rhyming couplets beneath each picture, and the main story told in text form at the bottom.

The perils they face are those of old-school adventure stories. The badger is friendly enough, although my friend Longdog is still suspicious of him, but the eyes in the woods are sinister.

"It's only the little people who live in the woods." "Yes, Doctor," replies Frobisher. "But what kind of little people? It seems to me that they're the kind of p-people who like to p-pick up a p-penguin!

Lol! Although a possibly trademark-infringing lol at that. Frobisher tries to run away and gets captured by primitive little mannys from before the era of Political Correctness, who intend to nom him.

"Don't they know they can't do that?" gasps the Doctor. "It would be too horrible, too tragic. Why, penguins taste awful and give you terrible heartburn!"

The Doctor is too busy making this joke to rescue Frobisher, but luckily Frobisher gets rescued by a passing Tarzanalike. The comic goes back to normal as the Doctor and Frobisher run towards a castle and get chased by a giant, but now Astrolabus has taken over the caption boxes.

While it seems as though the Doctor and Frobisher are escaping from the successive perils pretty easily, it is revealed that this is because the Doctor is mentally fighting Astrolabus for control of the story - when Astrolabus is dominant there is a new threat, but when the Doctor is in control they can get away.

In the castle, the Doctor finds Astrolabus and challenges him. They swordfight until the Doctor uncovers one of Astrolabus's arms, where he sees "the missing star charts" have been drawn. Astrolabus runs away and the Doctor chases him across a number of panels depicting different genres until Astrolabus gets even more meta and says

"Got to... get through... door. Short cut to... next page..."

"Made it! I'm in the clear! Out in the open! Untrammelled! Unshackled! Free!

If I can just make it to the next episode!"

"But what's this? I feel a power greater than my own! I'm losing control! It's taking over! By Odin's beard... que pasa?"

"Oh no! It can't be!! Not at this stage of the game! Please! Say it isn't so!"

On a minimalist page showing only Astrolabus and his footprints against a white void background, we see Astrolabus's costume has changed. Voyager arrives upon a ship of the desert (Clever. Clever. Clever.) as the Doctor uncovers Astrolabus to reveal his body is covered in the charts.

Voyager finally explains what the plot has been about.

"You stole the sacred charts for the secrets and the power they contained. For access to the last, the most mysterious dimension of all...
The dimension of death! 

You shall have your wish!
Death will be your dominion!"

He blasts Astrolabus with "a hurricane force" and then turns his camel around and leaves, telling the Doctor

"I have claimed that which is mine... you are free now, Timelord... you are free..."

Although Astrolabus is also a Time Lord, so there is an ambiguity as to which one of the two Voyager is talking to there.

The Doctor asks Astrolabus the question that's insoluble for manny or machine. The final exchange between them, as Astrolabus lies hidden behind a rock except for his withered hand, hints at something even more epic in scope than even that which we have seen.

"Such a shame... Doctor... that you had no interest... in my powers. You would have made... a worthy... successor...
You were just getting... the hang of it!"
"I follow nobody, Astrolabus. I'm free... I go my own way!"
"Aah, Doctor... How can you know?
How can you know... how long... I have been writing your life?
What will you do?
Now that I'm...
Gone?"

Astrolabus's castle explodes, in accordance with the rule of No Ontological Inertia. The Doctor and Frobisher find themselves back at the Ridgway Ringway Carnival, where Frobisher suggests visiting "the tattooed man" but the Doctor declines, saying

"I'd much rather go somewhere else."

and looking sad to show that he regards Astrolabus's death as a waste, and that this is not a totally happy ending after all.

Once Upon a Time~Lord... completes the story arc begun back in Voyager by tying up the Astrolabus-Voyager conflict. The sections where the different characters are playing with the medium of comic-strip storytelling is fantastically meta, and ensures that this is like nothing that could be done in the TV series (which would have a go at playing around with its own medium in Vengeance on Varos about the same time). As a result this a very distinctive, memorable conclusion to the plot, and sends off the characters of Astrolabus and Voyager in style.