Who is the Stranger

I sometimes realise I need to do more research before embarking on various parts of this marathon. This 3rd Doctor comic strip from TV Action was listed on my spreadsheet as being ‘WW2’ with no specific date attached and, indeed, it does have no date attached. However, it does involve the French resistance and with Scorched Earth touching on similar ground, but at the end of the war after liberation has begun to occur in the wake of the D-Day landings, this has to place prior. Therefore, I have given it a arbitrary date of 1943.

Oddly, this story feels extremly reminiscent of another 3rd Doctor ‘Nazis in France’ comic strip – Timebenders. It has many of the same elements – the Nazis/Gestapo capturing the Doctor; a scientist; a blond lone female member of the resistance; the resistance needing to be convinced of the Doctor’s reliability.

Like many comic strips from this era, it echoes the sentiment from a generation growing up post war. If more modern stories set in World War Two are sometimes at pains to humanise the Germans, those written during the 60s and 70s (such as the Sgt Fury and the Howling Commandos comics from Marvel) only ever depict the Germans as evil Nazis, hell bent on taking over the world by whatever means necessary. They are almost always written as caricatures seemingly always on the edge of losing their temper at any given opportunity. The Nazi scientist in this story allows the Doctor to slip him the truth serum he is trying to trick the Doctor into drinking. Consequently he goes on to tell the Doctor exactly what the Germans are planning!

The Doctor uses this information to make contact with the French resistance and, ultimately, capture the scientist, root out a spy within their midst and set fire to the Gestapo headquarters.

These are very matter-of-fact comic strips. The good guys and bad guys are clearly defined. The spy is a pretty blond girl (who never speaks and is never actually seen conspiring or doing anything except stand around). The scientist and Gestapo are hoist by their own petard. The resistance are suspicous of, but won over by, the Doctor.

During this marathon we’ve seen the 3rd Doctor travel back in time three times now, twice to World War Two Occupied France. Bearing in mind the TV series didn’t have the 3rd Doctor travel back into history ‘properly’ until The Time Warrior (allowing for the brief trip to Atlantis in the final two episodes of The Time Monster) and that the only audio trip for the 3rd Doctor in my marathon so far has also been to World War Two, it seems odd that this is the period of history is the destination for these rare trips for the 3rd Doctor.