“Invaders
from Gantac!” is written by: Alan Grant with
art by: Martin Griffiths and Cam Smith, and lettering by: Gordon Robson. It was released in Doctor Who Magazine issue 148-150
(April-June 1989) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: A Cold Day in Hell! by
Panini Books.
While Alan Grant and Norm
Breyfogle were writing and drawing Detective Comics for DC, the former
was also closely linked with John Wagner, writer of early Doctor Who Weekly comics. “Invaders from Gantac!” is Alan Grant being
poached by the Doctor Who Magazine team for three issues. Grant doesn’t actually have some big
connection to Doctor Who, but Grant was one of the earliest writers for 2000AD
making it odd that it took this long to actually get him onto Doctor Who. The same can be said for artists Martin
Griffiths and Cam Smith who provide the visuals for “Invaders from Gantac!”. “Invaders from Gantac!” is also notable for
being like “Culture Shock!”, “Planet of the Dead”, and “Echoes of the Mogor!”
that it is interested in being a Doctor Who story and not a backdoor pilot
for a different series. Alan Grant had a
job to do and he was going to do it. He
wanted to write a story about an alien invasion, so he wrote a story about an
alien invasion. It’s a relief to get a
story that is just trying to be Doctor Who because the sense of the
early Seventh Doctor comic run is that there’s almost a shame in telling Doctor
Who stories, possibly because the magazine’s sales were down and the costs
to produce the magazine were quite high.
There were even talks of cancelling the comic feature of the magazine while
the Seventh Doctor was still in his television tenure. “Invaders from Gantac!” released during the
gap between Season 25 and 26, the show was still in production with Ghost
Light, the final serial in production order. It’s the last comic released while the
original run was in production, production would finish when the strip picked back
up in issue #152 production on Ghost Light would have completed.
“Invaders from Gantac!” does
have a problem, however. While it’s a
story that’s not ashamed to be a Doctor Who story, it’s a standard Doctor
Who story. The Gantacians are
invading Earth to find a treasure for their great leader, implementing a
bureaucratic martial law that’s played largely for comedy but at least is something
to define them. The twist of the story
is that the treasure they want is on the other side of the galaxy which is
quite the funny twist, but it doesn’t actually add anything. The Doctor still beats them anyways with the
help of new friend Leapy, a tramp who has been caught in the situation of
martial law. Grant does try making Leapy
a slight commentary on how the homeless are overlooked by society so that’s
something, but he’s also defined by his many fleas for comedy. Grant is also largely familiar with the
Doctor as the character in Season 24, making jokes and mixing metaphors which
while slightly annoying is again at least a characterization of the Seventh
Doctor. The plot also makes use of being
slightly longer than recent stories, having three issues so there’s actually
some development to the Gantacians as a society even if they are a basic parody
of bureaucracy, them getting the planet wrong is technically a joke about how
things slip through the cracks when things are gone over too many times.
Overall, “Invaders from
Gantac!” is at the very least fine, it’s better than a lot of what the strip
had been doing by being an actual Doctor Who story, but it’s not going
to live on as one of the greats or anything.
The Doctor is fine and the Gantacians are at least fun enough for a
joke, but this is a story that’s fairly easy to forget in a sea of at best forgettable
stories. 5/10.
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