Polly the Glot by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: John Ridgway and letters by: Annie Halfacree

 

Polly the Glot is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by John Ridgway and lettering by Annie Halfacree.  It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issues 95-97 (November 1984-January 1985) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: Voyager by Panini Books.

 

It’s quite interesting when you are reading something like the Doctor Who Magazine comics and get to a story that’s nothing but transitory.  Steve Parkhouse’s penultimate strip, Polly the Glot, is nothing but transitory.  Voyager set up the idea of Astrolabus as the big bad of these final few strips after the stories with Dogbolter had concluded in The Shape Shifter, while Polly the Glot starts as a simple moment of the Doctor and Frobisher reuniting with Dr. Ivan Asimoff who is attempting to protect the Zyglots from captivity in freak shows and hunting in an organization where the big twist is that it is headed by Astrolabus.  It’s a great twist but then there’s a third issue which is used to finish the transition where the TARDIS ends up being piloted into Astrolabus’ cabinet which is where the final story, Once Upon a Time-Lord, will be set to finish off the arc.

 

Where Polly the Glot really excels is some of the character interactions.  Embracing the absurd, the first issue ends with Frobisher and the Doctor kidnapping Asimoff at gunpoint.  Frobisher brandishes a gun and that is just a hilarious image, one of many that Frobisher just gets to create due to his shapeshifting.  Parkhouse clearly has a ball in crafting a character like this and it’s clear why those fans who know who Frobisher is have fallen in love.  Between this and Voyager the appreciation I already had from The Holy Terror can only increase because he isa delightful character.  Astrolabus also is an interesting villain as it seems he is doing a bunch of crazy things simply because the Doctor and Frobisher will notice and he wants his revenge against the Doctor.  There is a slight issue with the fact that he isn’t as interesting here as he was in Voyager, as Voyager was this brilliant introduction while here it seems like the transitory nature of the story means the character has also become transitory.  This is a three issue story and he doesn’t actually appear until the second issue which is kind of a shame, and the third issue itself feels the most transitory.

 

Overall, Polly the Glot while being about a Zyglot called Polly, the title is a bit misleading as to what it is about.  Ivan Asimoff is a lot of fun here, more so than in his first appearance, and the inclusion of Astrolabus brings things forward to what Parkhouse is about to leave the strip on.  The Doctor and Frobisher shine here really giving the reader a sense of what the Sixth Doctor’s character would become in the fandom despite at this point still being the harsher characterization of Season 22.  Not perfect, but balls of fun.  8/10.