The Moderator by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Steve Dillon

 

The Moderator is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Steve Dillon.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issue 84 and Doctor Who Magazine issues 86-87 (December 1983, February-March 1984) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: The Tides of Time by Panini Books.

 

It is sometimes interesting when pieces of media end up thematically connecting or developing in parallel without any sort of crossover.  The end of the Fifth Doctor’s Doctor Who Magazine run ends with The Moderator which wraps up the fallout from 4-Dimensional Vistas and does some setup for the first story of the Sixth Doctor’s run and is a critique on late stage capitalism by introducing the character of Josiah W. Dogbolter, a businessman who is intent on conquering the galaxy for capital and sending assassins after those who stand in his way.  Much like The Caves of Androzani this is a critique of the politics of the 1980s through the lens of alien worlds that ends with a prominent character death and the Doctor being stuck unable to actually save anything.  The Doctor’s plot here is essentially attempting to get his companion Gus home, which he does, but the twist ending of The Moderator is that the titular moderator, an alien hired to deal with wrapping up Dogbolter’s schemes.  The story is simple, with Dogbolter sending the Moderator to Celeste where a link to Earth is being made to invade, the Doctor interferes and ends up stopping it.  He gets Gus home to Earth, but the Moderator tracks the TARDIS and fatally shoots Gus, but not before being wounded as Gus has enough time to get one shot off to also wound the Moderator.  This is where it is revealed that the narration which has been running through this story is the Moderator relaying the story from a hospital bed to Dogbolter’s robotic assistant, who promptly turns off the life support before quietly leaving.  This means the Fifth Doctor’s run ends on an incredibly dark note which adds another layer of menace to Dogbolter, setting up nicely the Sixth Doctor run.

 

Steve Parkhouse will continue to be the writer for some of the Sixth Doctor’s run (he’ll stay on the strip until March 1985 when editor Alan McKenzie steps in for a year long run followed by the switch to alternating authors for the strip going forward as a single author is quite a lot to ask for a Doctor Who strip.  Parkhouse’s style throughout the Fifth Doctor strip may have put the Doctor in the background more often than not, even in the long stories, but even with The Moderator’s three issues the pushing to the background feels more earned here with the framing device.  The story is also paired with art by Steve Dillon, who would later go on to work on Hellblazer and Preacher, doing his only main strip here and it is a shame he did not stay on as an artist.  Dillon’s work as artist began with the backup strip way back when the magazine was Doctor Who weekly, but him coming in for essentially his last strip here is a great sendoff.

 

Overall, a sendoff is basically what The Moderator is.  It’s bringing in a new era with a new Doctor, who will have longer in comics format than a sadly cut short television run with the 1985-1986 18 month hiatus.  It’s also the perfect capstone to the Fifth Doctor’s run making it the only Fifth Doctor comic to earn a perfect 10/10.