The Touchdown on Deneb-7

"Co-operation is the best policy."

Writer: Paul Neary

Format: Comic Strip

Released: December 1980

Printed in: DWM 48

Featuring: Fourth Doctor, K9

Synopsis

The Fourth Doctor and K9 arrive on a small barnacled moon long after the planet Deneb-7 has ceased to exist. Trouble is to be found when K9 defies his master's orders of not exiting the TARDIS...

Verdict

The Touchdown on Deneb-7 was a bit of a rubbish comic strip adventure to continue my way through the Black Sun Rising graphic novel of Doctor Who Magazine backup tales! I was initially very excited to see the Fourth Doctor actually featuring in a panel and taking part in the story rather than acting as the narrator bookending comic strip tales, but it actually turned out to be a bit of a red herring and an instant disappointment. I have no problem at all with there being a K9 focused story because he literally has his own spinoff pilot and an alternate series that I will one day get to blogging. We saw it done well in K9's Finest Hour in The Return of the Daleks graphic novel so that's not the issue at all, but when you have the Doctor there right at the start and then take him away it feels a bit of a cheat and a missed opportunity. I think the reasoning behind him not exploring and exiting the TARDIS was also a load of poppycock because when has the Doctor ever not been curious? A planet that he was intending on landing on and then finding out that it hadn't existed for four-hundred million years sounds incredibly enticing. So he just goes to sleep?! I couldn't believe what I was reading and seeing. That's just absolutely ludicrous, and especially for the fourth incarnation! He would be blasting his way out of the TARDIS and filling his boots to find out what had happened. But instead he decides now is the time to rest? Nope, not having that. I do like that curiosity got the better of K9 and whilst it isn't a new development for companions to defy the Doctor and his highly recommended advice in the form of orders, it feels a little bit different that it's the robot dog. His being mistook for the pendant bearer was fun and I do like the idea of K9 interacting with other robots, but they were really annoying. The actual artwork wasn't bad and is obviously well drawn as a published comic strip tale, but I think the actual design of the Robs that featured just looked annoying. I don't know if that was the intention, but I was immediately not a fan of their look. Maybe that's just my design preference? Who knows. One thing I really hated about them was that they were speaking in a terrible accent that was something like cockney but it was written that way too. I hate when things are presented phonetically as I'm not sure that's how it should be written? Just because it sounds that way, I don't think it would be scripted as such. It was just really off-putting and in what was already quite a whacky little story, it didn't help with understanding what exactly was happening. The Robs awakening and being active again after millions of years of isolation and dormancy was good because they were waiting to colonise a planet that was missing. I thought that was a good premise but it wasn't in the forefront enough. It was all just very simple then which I do understand for a five-page comic story, but it's just a bit naff as a reader to know that it's still going to be millions of years before a new planet forms for the robots to colonise. Back below they go and that's that, with the Doctor then exiting after he's rested? Well, at least he did go out and explore but it would have been better for him to be around fully. Overall, not my most favourite of comic strip adventures unfortunately. 

Rating: 4/10