I became a fan during the Wilderness Years. This was a time when various fans kept the flame of Doctor Who alive through various spin offs, usually on audio or video. Because the rights to actual Doctor Who were off-limits (at least until Big Finish got their hands on them) these enterprising creators would approach the estates of various writers to license monsters and characters that they owned the copyright to rather than the BBC - the Sontarans, the Zygons, the Rani and the Autons among others. What were these monsters getting up to when the Doctor wasn’t around?

Cutaway Comics range of spin-off comics feel like a nostalgic throwback to those days. Set in the worlds of Doctor Who created by writers like Stephen Wyatt and Bob Baker, they explore places like Paradise Towers and characters like Omega and Sutekh.

Omega: Vengance is a sort of prequel to The Three Doctors detailing a previous attempt by Omega to escape his prison on the other side of a black hole. It’s a lovely run of four comics which manages to include elements of The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity whilst also bringing in Underworld (another Bob Baker and Dave Martin story) and little hints of the original Three Doctors script, Deathworld.

Omega has made contact with a native of Minyos, telepathically communicating with him. It echoes Omega using Hedin in Arc of Infinity. Omega’s servant, Oxirgi, is attempting to overthrow the royal family of Minyos, allow Omega to mind control the Minyans and create enough power for him to escape the anti-matter universe.

Battling against Oxirgi is the last Minyan princess Malika. She teams up with a reprogrammed battle android and a old hermit with impressive mental powers. Taking its lead from Underworld, Malika has the ability of cellular renewal, bestowed on her by the Minyan gods. They are never named, but the gods are obviously supposed to be the Time Lords and their design echoes that seen in the old DWM comic strips of the 80s (which is unsurprising as the art for this comic is by the legendary John Ridgeway).

The old hermit, Kyril enters into a mind wrestling match with Oxirgi like we see in The Three Doctors but this is probably more akin to the battle between Merlin and Madam Mim in Disney’s The Sword in the Stone with each of them taking on increasingly weird forms in an attempt to defeat the other. It’s a great comic strip sequence.

Eventually, Malika defeats Oxirgi and proceeds to travel through the black hole to confront Omega (on a giant space bug!).

This part of the story has some echoes of Deathworld. That story was very focussed on the three Doctors fighting various mythical creatures like Medusa, Cyclops and Death itself. Here, Omega takes on various forms including a minotaur, a hydra and an angel. He is also seen to create an entire civilisation through the power of his mind but, emphasising his god-like status, his creations end up rebelling against him and, to escape his vengeance, head back into Malika’s universe aboard the space bug.

I really enjoyed this comic even if, ultimately the story doesn’t really go very far and Omega himself is very much a background character until the final issue of the four. The art is lovely (and another factor in the nostalgia of this comic, evoking, as it does, Ridgeway’s artwork for things like Voyager and The World Shapers).

Oxirgi was a fun villain and Malika an interesting hero. I would have liked a bit more exploration of the Minyan society and probably a bit more Omega himself, but overall it is a worthy addition to Omega’s story. The part towards the end where Omega starts to create a Gel Guard is a lovely tie in to The Three Doctors.