The Moderator

"To waste or not to waste. That is the interrogative."

Writer: Steve Parkhouse 

Format: Comic Strip

Released: January-April 1984

Printed in: DWM 84, 86-87

Featuring: Fifth Doctor, Angus

Synopsis 

The Doctor and his new friend Gus arrive on Celeste, a world populated by intelligent soldiers. Yet all is not what it seems. The soldiers are under the control of the sinister Moderator, who is using the gift of Celeste to create a link to Earth. Can the Doctor stop him from invading another planet?

Verdict 

The Moderator was a very good comic strip adventure and has brought an end to my reading of The Tides of Time graphic novel. After purchasing it for a mere £2.99 (which somehow also included postage!) before Christmas, it had taken me some time to finally delving in to the collection of comic strip stories from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. I'm not too sure as to why that was but the same can also be said for Doctor Who and the Iron Legion as I purchased that graphic novel before this one and I still haven't started it! But I have mentioned previously that I like having a graphic novel to do so I don't think it'll be too long before I delve into that collection of Fourth Doctor adventures. Speaking of which, my first blogged entry from this collection came in the form of Timeslip which was a very good bonus comic strip featuring the Fourth Doctor. Just why that story didn't get published in either of the graphic novels to feature Tom Baker's incarnation of the Doctor is something I'm not too sure about, but I'm sure it wasn't done without reason. I'm sure the same can be said for this story and the absence of new comic strip content in the 85th issue of DWM. I haven't since researched why that issue was skipped in having a part of this story published, but I must admit it does seem pretty strange. However, it wasn't at all relevant to my reading of the story today as it has been over three decades since the comic strip was published. And that beautiful magazine is still going as I will be blogging about tomorrow. Anyway, I'm just glad that a graphic novel as good as this didn't finish with a failure and overall, The Tides of Time has been simply sublime! The title story was an absolute epic and then we had two fantastic stories with Stars Fell on Stockbridge and The Stockbridge Horror. Both were brilliant and I've loved the overlapping story arc that continued, despite a shift in events, in Lunar Lagoon. Then we come to my blogged stories of the past two days where we saw epic returns for the Ice Warriors and the Monk in a wonderfully unexpected collaboration before the debut of Josiah W. Dogbolter in this story. I have of course met the frog before in The Shape Shifter as I have already read the Voyager graphic novel and I loved how this story set the scene for that one. I would guess that it immediately follows it so from my standpoint I was glad to read the prequel so to speak. That's not how it was of course but that's the way it's gone with my path of reading. I love his affiliation with money and the moment the Doctor mentioned his time machine was superb as he deduced that if time is money, then more time is more money. I really liked that. The Wrekka was quite a humorous robot as he seemed to be constantly spewing Shakespeare lyrics whenever he encountered people! It was bordering silly but it did provide me with a laugh which is always good. The revelation in part three that the narration we'd been having in the previous two parts was by the Moderator himself was good and it brought the story full circle very nicely. With this being the last Fifth Doctor comic strip from DWM, I knew that Angus had to leave here because of his absence from the Sixth Doctor comics. It was good that it'd been hired to destroy the TARDIS and presumably the Doctor as well and the way it was causing destruction to anything that resembled the police box. The Doctor getting Angus back home seemed like it was going to be a nice touch to finish on but instead he was shot dead by the Moderator and that saw something very unique in the Classic era. The Doctor took hold of a gun with a tear in his eye but instead took him to a hospital and saw that he got life support. But Hob, Dogbolter's assistant, disconnected that to finish the story on a rather sad note! Overall though, a very good end to what has been a magnificent graphic novel! I really do think having one writer for all of the stories has made a difference in terms of story quality.

Rating: 8/10