Dr. Who's Time Tales (comic series)
Dr. Who's Time Tales was a regular feature of early editions of Doctor Who Weekly from issue 30 to 43, excluding issue 38. Each comic featured the Fourth Doctor telling, introducing, and concluding a time tale, in reality a reformatted version of a comic strip that was created for other US Marvel Comics titles. In addition to the addition of an opening narration by the Doctor, multiple other alterations were often made to the text of the stories, changing character names or settings.
Like Tales from the TARDIS, which Time Tales replaced, this was used by editor Dez Skinn as cheaply-produced filler material for the magazines. In contrast to Tales from the TARDIS, however, the Time Tales were short, one-part stories rather than serialised. The titles of the original American stories were additionally not retained, either on the title page or in the table of contents.
While the Tales from the TARDIS were adaptations of classic works of science-fiction literature, the Marvel stories selected to be refitted into Time Tales were generally original short narratives. In many cases, they appeared to be selected due to gaining newfound resonance if considered as events in the Doctor Who universe: for example, the first featured a sarcophagus used as a portal between eras, echoing the one used a few years before on television in Pyramids of Mars, while the fourth ended with an ambiguous force (easily reinterpreted as the Time Lords) destroying a hubristic human time-traveller's time machine and erasing his memory of his adventures in time, coincidentally echoing The War Games.
Original print details[]
| # | Story[1] | Story pagecount | Original version's release | DWM issue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | (Man in the Mummy Case!) | 5 pages | Amazing Fantasy #15 | DWM 30 |
| 2 | (Those Who Change) | 5 pages | Amazing Adult Fantasy #10 | DWM 31 |
| 3 | (The Frightened Man!) | 6 pages | Tales to Astonish #33 | DWM 32 |
| 4 | (I Saw the End of the World) | 5 pages | Strange Tales #73 | DWM 33 |
| 5 | (I Dared to Defy Merlin's Black Magic) | 5 pages | Strange Tales #71 | DWM 34 |
| 6 | (Put Another Nickel In!!!) | 7 pages | Chamber of Darkness #6 | DWM 35 |
| 7 | (Always Leave 'Em Laughing!) | 7 pages | Chamber of Darkness #1 | DWM 36 |
| 8 | (Gundar!) | 5 pages | Tales of Suspense #39 | DWM 37 |
| 9 | (A Thousand Years Later...) | 6 pages | Strange Tales #90 | DWM 39 |
| 10 | (I Took A Journey Into Fear!) | 5 pages | Journey into Mystery #63 | DWM 40 |
| 11 | (Forever is a Long Long Time!!) | 5 pages | Journey into Mystery #74 | DWM 41 |
| 12 | (I Must Enter the Tomb of Tut-Am-Tut) | 6 pages | Tales of Suspense #35 | DWM 42 |
| 13 | (When the Switch is Pulled...) | 5 pages | Journey Into Mystery #89 | DWM 43 |
Footnotes[]
- ↑ The stories were untitled when reprinted as Dr. Who's Time Tales. These titles are placeholder names derived from the original Marvel releases, and are used here for reader convenience.
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