Doctor Who and the Time Witch by: Steve Moore with art by: Dave Gibbons

Doctor Who and the Time Witch is written by Steve Moore with art by Dave Gibbons.  It was released in Doctor Who Weekly issues 35-38 (June-July 1980) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Iron Legion by Panini Books.



Steve Moore is a comics writer who took over from Pat Mills and John Wagner as writer for the Doctor Who Weekly comics in June 1980 and ran the comic until May 1981, still during the Fourth Doctor’s run.  Doctor Who and the Time Witch is his first story and immediately there is a marked difference in the structure of the story, instead of the eight-part epics of Mills and Wagner’s four stories Moore’s debut is a four-issue adventure.  This story feels like unlike Mills and Wagner’s penchant for expansive stories, Moore is attempting to emulate the format of the television series.  He gives a four-part story over the course of four weeks with a structure similar to a four parter of the era.  There’s one problem with this, the length of these comics are still only about 4-5 pages per magazine issue and a total page count of only 16 pages.  That’s not that much time to tell a Doctor Who story in.  I’m not certain as to why, but for whatever reason it is just these four issues that had their page count reduced as midway through the next story the page count is back to a more sensible 6-8 page count per issue once Doctor Who Weekly becomes Doctor Who Monthly.  The only possible explanation for this may have been that Moore couldn’t finish eight pages of script on a week to week basis.



The story itself has an interesting concept, a woman called Brimo from the planet Nefrin is imprisoned in an eternity capsule.  She has psychic powers which she used in some sort of conspiracy, we are not privy to the details, and the eternity capsule slowly drives her insane.  She’s still alive in there and eventually is ripped into a pocket dimension which she uses her psychic powers to inhabit with a paradise of her own making.  The TARDIS with the Doctor and Sharon inside wander in which causes some interference and slowly destroys her dimension.  She fights back, attempting to kill the Doctor and Sharon and being generally unwilling to discuss the possibility of peacefully discussing things, so the Doctor has to stop her.  Sharon is also aged four years at the end of this story.  As a plot it’s got the makings of a great Doctor Who story, but the tone of this story is far too comedic for the tone and Moore doesn’t take full advantage of the Doctor and Sharon being under the thrall of someone all powerful.  Brimo’s insanity is also far too subtle and the amount of time that passes isn’t quite understood, all due to the lower page count.  Perhaps if this story was eight issues more time could have been taken to expand the plot and give some more depth, but for what it is it’s just a good installment in the comics.  6/10.