K9's Finest Hour

"Beware of the dog!"

Writer: Steve Moore

Format: Comic Strip

Released: April 1979

Printed in: DWM 12

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, K9

Synopsis

K9 is the inadvertent target of an attack against the Doctor, and the assailants bargain for me than they can handle when the robot dog gets involved...

Verdict

K9's Finest Hour was a mighty fine story indeed to continue my reading through The Return of the Daleks graphic novel! I think K9 is the perfect candidate to have his own comic strip story and hell, I'd love for him to even have his own comic strip series because he's perfect for that kind of format and if this is anything to go by then it's a clear indication of success. I think it does help just by virtue of being a robot dog that K9 is well suite to the comic strip format because he really does look like a comic strip character. That's a big compliment and I'm honestly surprised we haven't had more solo comic strips featuring the companion because of that. This was only four pages long which really isn't much time at all in terms of page count, but they utilised every single panel. A clear and enjoyable story was told and it was very fun for K9 to take centre stage in mistakenly being the one brought from the TARDIS by the gravatronic tractor beam. Firandel as the main villain wasn't exactly happy with Rolgot botching the job but it's a good job that he did because the fate that was to befall the Doctor was pretty darn gruesome indeed. Upon arrival, there would be no air and the Doctor would suffocate! Talk about a brutal end. I would love to know a little more about how the beam had the capabilities to infiltrate inside the TARDIS, but that's part of the fun of these kinds of comic strips. There just isn't enough room or time to explain everything and sometimes you just have to go with the flow. It was really fast paced as I would expect over just four pages and K9 was quick to get onto Rolgot and Firandel about their intentions for the Doctor. I thought the line about them working for the Sontarans was good fun and with th timing of this release, I assume they are still unhappy about the events of The Invasion of Time hence their desire to see the Doctor dead. I'm surprised they didn't want the honour of killing him themselves, but I did like that there was a bigger picture at bay that could potentially tie in with the televised series albeit loosely. I thought the fun of K9 interacting with Firandel and Rolgot was great and the literal nature of the robot dog can provide so much humour and that was certainly the case here. It was bad enough for them that they didn't get the Doctor but now they had a robot dog that was talking back to them! I also really appreciated the mention of the Crab Nebula as this seems to be a system in space that has its own entire continuity now which is really fun so I loved getting to actually travel through it here even if we didn't stop to explore. The Doctor eventually following K9 through was good stuff and he was always going to save the day from there alongside his faithful companion, but it was rightfully K9 who stole the show. It was his finest hour after all! Overall, a really fun comic strip story! More of this please. 

Rating: 8/10