SHORT STEPS AND SIDE STRIPS: Throwback – The Soul of a Cyberman
Presented in: Doctor Who Weekly Issues 5 – 7
Parts One and Two are unaccredited
Part Three is marked up simply as Moore + Dillon
Page Count: Three installments of four pages
Main Characters: Kroton, the cyberman with a soul
Synopsis:
The planet Mondaran has been invaded by the cybermen but several months after the invasion the humans are still resisting. Two of the resistance fighters, Pendar and Marilka, manage to destroy one of the cybermen before dispersing into the night before more cybermen arrive. Cyberleader Tork has done the logical thing, 23 of his cybermen have been destroyed and so he has sent for reinforcements from Telos. On Telos, one of those reinforcements, Kroton, isn’t ready to go. He’s too busy looking at the sky until one of the other cybermen, Liron, takes him to the supply ship where he is switched off until arriving on Mondaran six days later. Once on Mondaran he goes about his duties, which involve capturing the rebel leader Willoway. However, he refuses to let one of the other cybermen kill Willoway’s daughter. He gives Willoway the chance to inform the cybermen of the rebels’ plans or to feel pain but Willoway happily sacrifices his life rather than give information. This distresses Kroton who heads to the rebels himself to try and understand them better. The rebels, including Pendar and Marilka, attack him but they’re forced to run when Kroton demonstrates his weaponry. A cyber-patrol spots the rebels but Kroton saves them by refusing to let the other cybermen raze everything to the ground. Kroton returns to the cyber headquarters to meet the human informer, Zarach, and is told that there will be a general uprising in three days time. Pendar is captured and taken to Kroton for questioning. Rather than question him in the cells though, Kroton takes him to the wastelands. Kroton tells Pendar that he’s free to go. Pendar initially wants to kill Kroton but finds that he’s unable to. He returns to the rebel headquarters to tell the others. As they return to Kroton they find him sitting on a rock pondering his existence. More cybermen arrive just as the humans get to him but Kroton kills his own kind rather than Pendar and friends. Kroton helps the rebels steal a spacecraft but they find that it doesn’t have enough fuel to get them to another planet and so Kroton deposits them back on Mondaran but in a place of safety. Unwilling to stay with the humans, Kroton takes the spacecraft back into space where it runs out of fuel and Kroton waits for his own power supply to run down.
Episode Endings:
One – Kroton’s appearance at the rebel gathering causes mass panic.
Two – Pendar lifts a rock above Kroton’s head to kill him.
Three – Kroton sits motionless in the space ship, his power exhausted.
Continuity
The cybermen in this story look to be a design similar to that featured in the television story “The Invasion”. However, their features are far flatter and plainer and they look to be made more out of sheets of metal than one-piece suits. They have four fingers and a thumb on each hand. They also seem to have reverted to the “Tenth Planet” style of having names and the “natural” sounding dialogue of the cybermen in this story also indicates a “Tenth Planet” style attitude. It would appear that each cyberman has a number of some sort on their chest unit (the leader of the reinforcements has a zero, Kroton has a one and we also see an eight and a nine). Presumably this story takes place some considerable time either before or after “Tomb of the Cybermen” and “Attack of the Cybermen” as Telos is a very active looking home world for them. Cybermen measure time in seconds. A blow from an axe to the head can destroy them. They run off batteries and need to recharge regularly.
Kroton’s rank is Junior Cyberleader. He has been trained to pilot a spacecraft.
The capital of Mondaran is simply called Mondaran City. The planet Mondaran is six days travel from Telos in a cyber ship.
The rebels are fighting with almost Stone Age looking tools and some are even dressed in furs. Names of rebel leaders include Torstin, Vanan, Marilka and Pendar.
In several frames, Pendar looks remarkably like the dalek killer, Abslom Daak.
Comments:
I’ve got mixed feelings about this story. The concept of Kroton is a good one (and he was popular enough to be revived again and again up to twenty years later in “The Glorious Dead”) but the actual execution in the story is not so good. I think my main problem is that there’s not enough difference between Kroton and the other cybermen when it comes to their speech patters and indeed the speech given on arrival to Mondaran looks positively emotional given that it’s not Kroton giving it. The artwork for the story is pretty good with the cybermen actually looking menacing and realistic. No longer confined to the one piece jump suits of the television, here we have a much more “constructed” look with joints and sections of body armour looking far more cyber-like than wetsuits and silver Doc Martens. The ending of the story is a highpoint, the invasion isn’t defeated but just a handful of people are given a chance to make something from a new life and then there’s the final shot, Kroton dormant in his space ship, his batteries dead. “Throwback – The Soul of a Cyberman” isn’t a classic but it’s definitely worth reading to see how it all started.
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