Ship of Fools

"Why should we fear you... we've never even heard of Cybermen!"

Writer: Steve Moore

Format: Comic Strip

Released: March 1980

Printed in: DWM 23-24

Featuring: Kroton

Synopsis

Verdict

Ship of Fools was a good little comic strip adventure to continue my way through The Glorious Dead graphic novel! Alas, I have read the story last printed in the collection by virtue of my efforts to read through in release order and I liked the continuity this one had with Throwback: The Soul of a Cyberman. It's unique for these backup Doctor Who Weekly comic strips to have some story depth but this one was full of it once Kroton was awakened. It was nice to get a little reminder of what exactly Kroton had gone through on Mondaran and that he was the Cyberman that had rediscovered emotion. The idea of an emotional Cyberman is obviously contradictory but it was used well here in a place in space where time stood still. This did not compute with the logical nature of Kroton's interior workings and that was fun to explore. The cruiser ship setting was very good and a unique place for a Cyberman to be hanging around and the cliffhanger served as a great revelation where the ship's name was revealed to The Flying Dutchman II. The historical connotations associated with that name were lost on Kroton which I actually liked, but it meant something on Earth which was good. Some of the characters that were party on the ship were fun with Leonart and Cassandra particular standouts. Of course, when the entire story is only eight pages long there's only so much you can do with the characters! I was actually impressed with how much went on in the story and I think the fact that Kroton was a familiar character and we followed on from a previous story certainly helped in that regard. The time being stuck at 7:17 was fun and I loved the logical nature of how Kroton stated that he thought their clock was broken. He was second guessing just what was going on aboard the cruiser ship and getting the inner thoughts of the Cyberman and how he wasn't sure if he was being played was a very good use of the comic strip format. It's not often we get to see what a Cyberman is thinking! I'm still a massive fan of the design of Kroton and it really does capture a lot of the fantastic designs associated with some of the Classic era Cybermen. I think he's excellent. His intentions of solving the issue of the time warp and getting everybody back home was really nice and logic pointed towards going to the pilot. This pilot being robotic was good and I liked how that allowed Kroton specific knowledge of how he was wired and what had gone wrong. There was a malfunction and the pilot had saved the lives of the passengers as a priority by staying still in the Vortex until rescue arrived. Except the Vortex was moving too and they weren't far from a planet that was inhabitable. Kroton gave the pilot new instructions but he wasn't to know that the ship had been in limbo for 628 years and upon exiting the Vortex, the passengers quickly aged to death in pretty gruesome style! It was a powerful ending and with Kroton being emotional, I do wonder how he will handle this burden now placed upon him. Overall, a fine story for the format and length! 

Rating: 7/10