The Lunar Strangers

3 parts (DWM 215 - 217) 3rd August to 28th September 1994
Writer: Gareth Roberts, Art: Martin Geraghty, Editor: Gary Russell

The year is 2015 and the team of Moon Village One get quite the surprise when two cows in space suits arrive... 

...and are shortly followed by the 5th Doctor, Tegan and Turlough.

The Doctor detects strange energy readings... 

...but no sooner has he resolved to investigate than the base’s leader, Miss Jackson, recruits him to get to the bottom of the cows! 

The cows are in fact of a race known as Dryrth and introduce themselves as Ravnok and Vartex. 

They claim their explorer craft was badly damaged forcing a landing but the Doctor is sceptical.

The cows are in fact space criminals, in search of buried treasure.

 
 
 

Never one to stay put, Tegan dons a space suit and goes on to the lunar surface to investigate the energy emissions, with Turlough in tow, and they soon find the Dryrth container. 

The cows feign innocent curiosity when they're caught interfering with the base's reactor... 

...so the Doctor lays a trap, only for it to backfire as the cows prepare to blow the base up. 

Taken hostage, the Doctor hears how the cows are fleeing the justice of their home planet. 

 
 

They hid the treasure on the moon and have now returned for it. 

 

When Jackson arrives and kills Vartex, Varnax escapes, swearing revenge.

 

The Doctor is able to defuse the reactor in the nick of time... 

...but Ravnox suffocates on the moon's surface as a result of Jackson having emptied her oxygen cylinder.

The Doctor is disgusted with Jackson's actions, and so takes great pleasure in reporting that the currency of the Dryrth, and therefore their treasure, is in fact cheese! 

As might be expected from the pen of Gareth Roberts, this has the feeling of a romp with a sinister edge, and while it's hard to ever really take the space cows seriously, the Dryrth are certainly a memorable and distinctive antagonist, and there's pleasing echoes of Davison-era Who. 

Indeed, it's a strip that's somewhat at odds with any previous 5th Doctor strip, aligning as it does with the TV show rather than DWM's own strip continuity, though it's pleasing to see him accompanied by companions Tegan and Turlough (even if the former is uncharacteristically unrecognisable - for artist extraordinaire Martin Geraghty - much of the time). 

Consequently we get a Doctor unable to convince those in charge of the danger under their noses, who sits cross-legged when captured, defuses bombs in the nick of time, and is disgusted when the alien foes are killed. We even get a Beryl Reid-like female base boss who's a bit gung ho, in the form of Jackson. 

Tegan is characterized well, and like much of his time on-screen, Turlough stays on the sidelines snarking occasionally and uselessly. His dialogue does fit Mark Strickson like a glove, though.

Somewhat frothy and lightweight, it's not entirely satisfying but it does have a nagging feeling of being a tale that could in fact have fitted with the later 4th Doctor strips. A faltering step, then, as the 90s past Doctor strips nevertheless continued to head towards a run of particular quality. Good but not great.

7/10

TTFN! K.

Coming Soon: Food for Thought