Check out these pistols!
The first story in Voyager is The Shape Shifter, which is also the first story to appear in Collected Comics, a rather generic title for a 1986 Marvel special similar in appearance to the Marvel 1985 Summer Special Classic that featured The Iron Legion.
The only difference between the two versions of The Shape Shifter is that the one in Collected Comics has been coloured in, so I will review that one since I like colourful things more, perhaps because I am a colourful cat?!
The art here is by John Ridgway, and already we can see his trademark style of sometimes having part of the picture escaping from the confines of the rectangular panel system. He's a maverick!
This is the first appearance of the Doctor's new Companion Frobisher, and the story begins from his point of view. He is the "shape-shifter" of the title, an alien "Whifferdill" who works as a private investigator on some nameless space-noir planet.
After a couple of pages of seeing Frobisher getting into scrapes and demonstrating his shape-shifting power that gets him both in to and out of said scrapes, he returns to his office where he sees there is a reward being offered for the Doctor, either as Peter Davison or as Colin Baker. This story was first written in 1984 when Colin Baker was the brand new Doctor on TV, so it is clever of them to also give a reminder of the previous Doctor that readers would have been comfortable and familiar with.
He goes to look for the Doctor in nearby bars (space bars?) and, while the comic is not above the pun of Frobisher disguising himself as a "barfly", it does miss the trick of, when he eventually sees the Doctor, not including something along the lines of 'Of all the bars in all of time and space, he had to walk into mine.' Oh well. Mew.
The Doctor is already involved in a plot of his own, although precisely what it is we don't find out, and is looking for clues. When he gets attacked by two mannys outside the TARDIS (using the old cat logic of 'if they attack me it must be a clue'), Frobisher saves him before vanishing. The Doctor goes into the TARDIS and then
Frobisher hi-jacks the TARDIS. The Doctor makes a joke here that, with the benefit of hindsight regarding Colin Baker's ultimate fate, proves to either be foreshadowing or just bitterly ironic, not to mention exceptionally meta:
Frobisher gives the Doctor some examples of what he can do if the Doctor doesn't agree to fly the TARDIS to
The Doctor's likeness to Colin Baker is variable throughout this story, but this page is the nadir. The Doctor gives in and agrees to take Frobisher to Venus, but then Frobisher informs him he is going to hand him in for the reward.
The next page sees the TARDIS arrive on Venus with a "Vworp! Vworp!" It lands on the roof of Intra Venus Inc, the headquarters of Mr Dogbolter. It seems it was Dogbolter that offered the reward for the Doctor.
Dogbolter, who is not a dog but a cigar-smoking alien with a passing resemblance to Michael Grade's uncle Lew (could this be the real origin of Michael's vendetta against the programme?), is a recurring baddy in Marvel comic stories, although The Shape Shifter is the earliest story with him in that I have read.
In the way of Marvel comics, Death's Head #8 (published in 1989) is a crossover story with Doctor Who that seemingly brings the Doctor and Dogbolter's story arc, of which The Shape Shifter is a part, to an end.
The Doctor is handed over to two of Dogbolter's henchmannys in exchange for a suitcase full of moneys.
But then suddenly there are three henchmannys instead of two-and-the-Doctor. This is because it was not the Doctor who was handed over, but Frobisher shape-shifted to look like the Doctor. Frobisher stuns the two real henchmannys (at least I hope he only stuns them, he does say they're "out for the count") and then waits for the Doctor to rescue him.
The TARDIS materialises ("Vworp! Vworp!" again) and it turns out that between two pages the Doctor and Frobisher decided to team up and pull a heist on Dogbolter, like a two-alien IMF team. This makes for an effective plot twist in addition to further showing off Frobisher's shape-shifting skills. There is then another twist right at the end as Frobisher announces he has "decided to stick around" and become the new Companion... whether the Doctor likes it or not.
This is a decent enough story, with the fairly minimal plot being secondary to introducing the character and abilities of Frobisher - that is clearly its main purpose and one at which it succeeds.
What is therefore surprising is that Frobisher isn't named as such at any point during The Shape Shifter. He doesn't tell the Doctor his name, and is always referred to in the captions as "the Whifferdill." Curiously, his office door does have a name on it, but it says "Avan Tarklu Private Investigator"..?
No comments:
Post a Comment