From Doctor Who Magazine #104-107
A Good Story? by Tim Roll-Pickering 14/10/98
A somewhat off-beat story that doesn’t even begin to come together until halfway through, allowing for each of the guest characters--Kane, Abel Gantz and Kaon--to be effectively introduced (although the Doctor has already met Kaon's future self in War-Game, a clever use of time travel by Alan McKenzie), along with the menace of the Skeletoids and the legend of Xaos.
The menace of the Skeletoids is effectively portrayed from the outset, with reminders of the threat each issue as the crucial Galactic Alliance Summit looms and the Federation President seeks to hold it together and get some rest at the same time.
Each of the main guest characters is carefully introduced, but Peri is rushed into the strip, with little explanation for how she has become separated from the Doctor and Frobisher (but this is almost a requirement for introducing a TV companion to the comic strip). Worse still, Peri is poorly used throughout the story, and indeed her contribution is so minimal that it would have been better to have delayed her arrival in the strip until a story with a much larger role for her.
With this story, Alan McKenzie successfully ties together his two previous contributions (War-Game and Funhouse) with this one, with Abel gaining his powers from an explosion caused by a portion of the Vortex (broken off in Funhouse) and a younger Kaon appearing (from War-Game), thus proving how the strip benefits from a regular writer, with each story part of a great whole.
After establishing the menace (Kane's Story), the key guest character (Abel's Story) and the legend (The Warrior's Story), the climax comes in the form of Frobisher's Story. It’s here that the story is slightly let down, with the individual Skeletoids proving far easier to destroy than we are previously led to expect, even after the trap is sprung. But then the final part of the legend is fulfilled, in an explosive ending.
John Ridgway’s art is brilliant in this story, easily producing a likeness of Nicola Bryant from the start, and providing strong images such as the Valley of the Gods and easily depicting the many alien races seen. He does make one slight goof, though, on page three, panel 4 of Kane's Story, a Cyberman is shown overcoming a Skeleton when the script indicates this should be the other way round, but this is a very minor problem.
An above average story. The use of different titles for each instalment is strange, but it does allow each chapter to be considered on it’s own merits. 7/10
A Review by Finn Clark 4/11/04
This story is notable for the wrong reasons. Firstly, it comes from that annoying period when the DWM comic strips were titled episode by episode, giving us a headache when looking for an umbrella title for the complete four-parter. The Stories (DWM 104-107) must be the lamest title in the world, but Kane's/Abel's/The-Warrior's/Frobisher's Stories is hardly an improvement. (Exodus-Genesis!-Revelation! in DWM 108-110 at least is a manageable length.)
The other reason for The Stories' notoriety is the strange phenomenon of its last episode. When Frobisher's Story appeared in DWM 107, the pages got shuffled and the story arc's conclusion effectively became nonsense. Incidentally, that's the only time DWM ever made this mistake. Fortunately the story was reprinted in Classic Comics 19-22, with the plan of letting us read it properly for the first time... but DWCC screwed up the page order too.
If anyone wants to experience Frobisher's Story as its creators intended, read the pages in DWM 107 in the following order: 1-2, 4-5, 7, 3, 6, 8. (It's not particularly good, alas, but at least it makes sense that way.)
Overall, The Stories are three episodes of oddly disjointed build-up towards a slightly ordinary fourth episode. It's readable, but nothing special. In its favour it has John Ridgway's usual excellent art and some continuity links back to War-Game and Funhouse, making this the conclusion of a loose eight-month story arc. Kane's Story (DWM 104) begins with: "after narrowly escaping from the bizarre 'Funhouse', the Doctor and Frobisher discover that the ordeal has taken its toll on the TARDIS". Then in Abel's Story (DWM 105), a chunk of the temporal vortex that was dislodged in Funhouse crashes into the universe and demolishes Abel Gantz's laboratory! We've never seen anything like that before!
After that comes the return of a younger Kaon from War-Game. Again he displays mysterious foreknowledge (this time concerning the prophecies of fellow warriors) and awesome fighting skills, though this time he's less morally ambiguous. Further continuity elements include the introduction of Peri to the DWM comic strip, plus cameos of Cybermen, Daleks, Davros, Draconians (obviously) and the baby penguin family we last saw in DWM 99. Dunno about you lot, but personally I'm most excited about the baby penguins!
Kane's Story (DWM 104) is the first episode and a rare appearance for the TARDIS crew in The Stories! The Doctor randomly bumps into Kane, then for no obvious reason visits New York in 1985 and picks up Peri. What she's doing there, we don't know... but she wasn't expecting to see the Doctor again. It seems that she'd stopped TARDIS-travelling and come home for reason or reasons unknown, which would fit well with Bad Therapy if it wasn't for the fact that this is clearly a 1985-vintage Nicola Bryant rather than Matthew Jones's middle-aged version. What with the DWM strips, The Age of Chaos, Mission: Impractical and Bad Therapy, reconciling Peri's various adventures is even tougher than doing the same with Ace.
Abel's Story (DWM 105) is almost Doctor-free! It details the adventures of Abel Gantz and his alchemical superpowers, with only a dialogue-free cameo for the TARDIS crew on the last page.
The Warrior's Story (DWM 106) is slightly more Doctor-centric, but not much. It's mostly about Kaon and his expedition to the oldest planet in the galaxy: Xaos. Eventually the TARDIS arrives and our assorted heroes assemble to save the galaxy, but even at this late point the story's still basically in build-up mode.
Finally Frobisher's Story (DWM 107) ends it all with eight pages of dumb action and one of the weaker self-sacrifices we've ever seen in the comic strip. (It wasn't even necessarily a true sacrifice, since "I guess we'll never know whether Abel could reconstitute his molecules after exploding like that.") It's not bad, but it's a bit formulaic and perfunctory. No one's actions are truly dramatic; it's just saving the galaxy. Y'know. The usual. If you want a comic strip with a touching ending, go read Steve Parkhouse, or even Alan McKenzie's earlier War-Game.
As an aside, it's surreal that the six warriors sent to save the galaxy are five near-superheroes and... er, Perpugilliam Brown. Huh? But overall this team has some serious warriors, so capable that one can take seriously their victory over the Skeletoids despite the latter's heavy build-up in previous episodes.
Visually it's wonderful, of course. John Ridgway has fun with aliens, action-adventure and the Valley of the Gods. (The latter gets an awesome splash page that's completely pointless but looks fantastic.) In fact, looking back one can see all kinds of loose threads and story seeds in these episodes that could have fed into other stories for years. The gods, the prophecies, the surviving heroes... one wonders where the DWM comic strip might have gone had Alan McKenzie stayed as writer. (Sadly the answer is probably "nowhere good", despite my admiration for War-Game and Funhouse, but at least John Ridgway's art would have looked great.)
Oh, and if you were wondering... Davros rules the Daleks in the 82nd century, while a Cyber-Emperor rules the Cybermen.
Overall, The Stories are rather an oddity. They take months and months over the story template of "let's assemble a super-team, one by one", but then hastily conclude everything with a "blink and you'll miss it" fight scene and never even mention the super-team in any subsequent story. However it works hard on building up the Skeletoids as a menace on a galactic scale, with regular cutaways to the political situation and the negotiations between anti-Skeletoid forces. It's an enjoyable story, with terrific art and some fun ideas. It may not be the strongest comic strip of this era, but I'd certainly welcome a reprint which put the pages in the correct order...