In 1979, this was used as Doctor Who would enter into the comic world in the United States as part of Marvel Premiere.  The comic was gobbled up and proved to be a success as easily as the fact that Doctor Who was a success in the US and Canada. The following year would see Marvel create a Doctor Who comic book, which ran from 1980 to 1983, using old Doctor Who Weekly , Monthly, and old Doctor Who magazine comic strips. In 1984, Doctor Who Magazine, the one we know at present, would hit magazine racks in the US and Canada.

We got so lucky. At children’s magazine at this time could have afforded to aim for a far less mature approach. They are treating their audience with a lot of respect, not speaking down to children, instead filling their heads with ideas. Not just in the writing but the art style, which is at points chilling and psychedelic. How would a child of the 70s reacted to the sight of Tom Baker’s skeleton face?

While this story is a bit of a run around at points, the idea of a futuristic Roman legion in an alternate reality is a very elevated idea which is successfully explored. It points to a very promising run for the DWM comics. It also shows how much of a field of their own Pat Mills, John Wagner and Dave Gibbons are in. They are drawing from the TV show but in no means being limited by it.

The amount they are able to do with only 4-5 pages per issue is phenomenal. Setting the mould for everything that follows.

Oh. And now I know where the kronkburger originates from!

The Iron Legion - ★★★½☆

What makes The Iron Legion such a good first story for the Magazine is how full of wonder it is. It has a lot of creative, engaging ideas that come to life quite well with a gorgeous art; it never loses steam and is fun the whole way through. There a quite a lot of colorful characters, my favorite being the old robot Vesuvius.

The Iron Legion starts when the Fourth Doctor encounters the titular characters slaughtering an entire village. The first page alone is very evocative. The Doctor then is caught up in an interdimensional conflict when he finds out the Iron Legion came from an alternative Earth that never saw the fall of the Roman Empire, which is now determined to conquest all things.

The quick pace is both a blessing and a curse. I have come to appreciate it because these comics reminded me how much you can fit in so few pages, but we are still in the early days of the strips - we have only four pages per part, which establishes a weird pace to the story (I much prefer the 8 to 12 pages we get with later Doctors) and don't let all of the wonderful locations we visit be exploited to their fullest. The ending is also a bit rushed. I do think the villains are a cool idea - demon-like aliens influencing time itself by manipulating ancient history is quite fun - but I'm not in love with the execution. They end up just a little bland.

Just a few tweaks and The Iron Legion could be an absolute classic. It kind of is already, to be fair. Weirdly enough, there are quite a lot of ideas not completely realised here that a future DWM story would use wonderfully - how religious devotion can turn out a tragedy and justify horrors, a city made a hellscape by that belief, a "cult" bent in bringing the end of the world, and an even bigger menace behind it all just waiting to take its chance at the Doctor. Still, I like it for what it is. It's worth a read.

I'm immediately in love with the art here, that '80s (I know it's '79 but close enough) black and white British comic aesthetic is great, and it's put to incredible use here depicting the robots and future tech of this parallel Rome.

The Iron Legion leap out of the page from panel one, giving an incredible Judge Dredd/Warhammer 40K vibe, and I loved the art for every single panel. Specific kudos to the horrifying image of Tom Baker from the final part.

Unfortunately though, despite absolutely adoring the art, I found the story itself a little lacking. The cliffhangers every four pages weren't the worst most of the time, though there were a few times where it felt just very jarring. The plot itself also felt a little lacking, almost emulating the classic-who runaround, jumping from one location to the next in this parallel world, but you don't really get the chance to rest and take in any of the locations which is a real shame.

The ending also fell a little flat for me, I mean they did basically have only three pages to do it, and I think they did well with what they had, but that doesn't stop it from being a shame.

Doctor Who Magazine first debuted as Doctor Who Weekly in 1979; right from the start, it included my favourite magazine feature to date: the comic strip. Back in the 70s, the comic strip was weekly and technically within the Marvel Comics canon (this was before Panini bought Marvel UK, who originally owned the publication). Yep, the Doctor was in the same universe as Iron Man and Captain America. The first Doctor Who Weekly story was The Iron Legion and is considered to be a Doctor Who comic strip classic.

As someone who didn't start reading Doctor Who Magazine until 2011, it is strange to see the words 'Stan Lee Presents' above some of The Iron Legion comic strips. To think that the famous comics genius behind the likes of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man once contributed to Doctor Who comic strips is incredible and you can see clear Marvel influence throughout. In The Iron Legion, the fourth Doctor arrives in a parallel universe where the Roman Empire never fell and instead conquered the galaxy with their army of robots commanded by General Ironicus. The Doctor teams up with old robot Vesuvius and ex-gladiator Morris to overthrow the empire and Emperor Adolphus's 'mother' Magog (revealed to be a member of an alien race called the Malevilus, who helped the Romans in providing the technology for the robots).

The most obvious Marvel Comics influence is the design of the Iron Legion robots of the title. They bare a striking resemblance to the Sentinels (robots who hunt mutants).

And then there's also the way it is written, with character monologues and the way the description boxes effortlessly set the scene.

That's one of my favourite things about Marvel compared to DC: they are much stronger at providing the context and establishing early on the narrative of the piece. It helps considerably to immerse you into the action. Before I go any further, I must stress that the comic strip is in black and white and the above picture is from a colourised version that was released in the U.S.

The narrative itself is one big, epic saga; it utilises the comic strip medium to the advantage by using a story that will likely never be able to be achieved onscreen. It would take a considerable budget to realise the Doctor's gladitorial fight with the Ectoslime or the robot flying squad.I doubt even the new series would be able to afford to realise those scenes. Doctor Who comic strips on the other hand don't have to worry about budgeting; this story is therefore exactly the kind Doctor Who comic strips should be exploring.

General Ironicus and the robots feel like a very credible threat for the Doctor too and at many times during the narrative you wonder how he is going to win. The odds seem firmly stacked against him (especially considering he has just come from his universe's Earth the robots managed to invade) and that's a quality that can be found in some of the best Doctor Who stories. Sometimes the Doctor is at his best when he is the underdog as opposed to an all-conquering God-like figure. When he fights Magog during the story's conclusion, it actually looks like he's going to lose. Magog appears to be in the most power as the Doctor explains the TARDIS controls, which makes the conclusion all the more appealing when his trickery concerning a certain button he is hiding is revealed.

It's a shame that they didn't decide to keep Vesuvius on as a comic strip companion as he is a fantastic character and I have a feeling he could have gone to be as popular as the shape-shifting penguin Frobisher. Vesuvius is endearing as a cranky old robot and has one of the best comic strip catchphrases in 'these days'. Like Frobisher, his eccentric quality suits the Doctor Who comic strip perfectly and whilst on TV he would probably come across as annoying in the comics format he offers a fun dynamic with the Doctor. For this Doctor in particular he feels like a well-suited supporting character; let's not forget this is the Doctor who asked for a talking cabbage as his companion.

If there's one thing that doesn't quite work for this story, it's the black and white aesthetic. Due to the cost of colour during the 1970s, all Doctor Who Weekly comics were published in black and white and to this story it feels detrimental. There's so much going on in the panels that sometimes it can be hard to follow without colour as a visual guide. My copy of The Iron Legion is a part of the Collected Comics offered to premium subscribers as part of the Doctor Who Complete History partwork collection; unfortunately they opted for the Panini Doctor Who Magazine reprints rather than the Dave Gibbons Collection colourisation. In colour I imagine the story would work much better.

Overall, The Iron Legion is a fantastic use of the comic strip medium to tell a narrative that the TV series would not be able to do with their allocated budget. The story feels suitably epic with strong opposition for the Doctor and a brilliant supporting character in Vesuvius who really should have been made a comics companion. My only negative point is that the black and white aesthetic can make the story hard to follow; however there is a colourisation version available as part of The Dave Gibbons Collection if the black and white styling puts you off.

This was a fun comic book story on the whole. Doctor Who and the Iron Legion a little clunky and flawed in the writing, with some pretty awkward transitions between parts, a relatively weak character in the form of wacky robot named Vesuvius, and a relatively weak ending. One could argue Vesuvius reflects that this is more for children, but the comic also is pretty mature in certain areas, such as with the violent death of a companion. It has more of an all ages feel, but in either case there isn't much reason why content labelled for children should be any less well made than the more all-ages or outright adult stuff.

In either case, what I like about the story is the creativity of its setting - an alternate world where Rome never fell. Writers John Wagner and Pat Mills (although according to artist Dave Gibbons, Iron Legion was written entirely by Mills) do a good job at really developing the idea. Rome has not remained stagnant in the centuries since it would have fallen and has changed a lot as it began to span the entire galaxy. I like that stuff and there are a lot of details that enhance some of those moments.

The best part of Iron Legion is the art. This isn't my first comic with art by Dave Gibbons so it is not a surprise but he does spectacular work here and truly enhances the feeling of being in a vividly different world from our own. He definitely does an amazing job at making this alternate history futuristic Rome come to life. A single panel will be full of aliens and creative ideas, which is a lot more effort than in some other Doctor Who comics I've read.

I haven't heard the audio version of this by Big Finish but I am very curious to see how they adapted this. There's a lot of potential to Iron Legion, even if I'm not sure it is fully realized.