From Doctor Who Magazine #98-99
A Review by Finn Clark 28/9/04
One of the most playful Doctor Who comic strips of all time. Admittedly we've since seen the work of Roger Langridge, but this two-parter is basically Steve Parkhouse and John Ridgway letting rip with every kind of gag and homage for most of the story before closing the arc with Voyager's return in the last four pages.
(Incidentally there's a certain symmetry in this being Steve Parkhouse's last story for DWM. His first Doctor Who story wasn't for Marvel UK at all, but was actually Doctor Ooh in Mad 161, a none-too-affectionate five-page parody of The Ark in Space that ended up stripping Sarah Jane to her underwear and bringing together the first four TV Doctors against Peter Cushing. Once Upon A Time-Lord... understandably shows more fondness for the Doctor and his universe, but is no less laden with fourth-wall-breaking nudges and winks.)
The story starts with the Doctor sending the TARDIS into "a magician's cabinet". We might assume it's really Astrolabus's TARDIS or some other such technobabble... but "magician's cabinet" is a much better description. Within its world, the Doctor finds himself sharing the worlds of Red Riding Hood, Tolkein's Ringwraiths and what might be the talking trees from the Wizard of Oz. For three pages John Ridgway changes format to Alfred Bestall's Rupert Bear comic strip work, which may not mean much to non-UK readers but blew my little mind when I first read this in 1985. Burne Hogarth's Tarzan turns up too, with Ridgway even forging a bit of Hogarth's signature!
Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Steve Parkhouse is high on drugs every bit as powerful than John Ridgway's. Astrolabus is infecting our heroes' dialogue and the results are as light-hearted as in the previous story, Polly the Glot. I was on the floor laughing at what Parkhouse did to the third Rupert the Bear page. (Apparently their way of working on these stories was for John Ridgway to draw the pages with only a plot outline to guide him, then for Steve Parkhouse to come back afterwards and add dialogue and captions. Clearly by this point the two were having a ball with a "top that" contest.)
But then come the last four pages. Voyager returns, now in Arabian costume on a camel instead of playing the ancient mariner, and there's a reckoning for Astrolabus. It's awesome and chilling (though less powerful than the last episode of The Tides of Time). That final scene between Astrolabus and the Doctor is practically Steve Parkhouse talking through his creation, but it's also one of the best goodbyes to a Doctor Who villain that I can remember. That flayed hand on the rock... brrrr.
However even the last page shows John Ridgway having fun. In the background of the final frame are a baby penguin family and Cyril the Editor Droid, a character created by Steve Parkhouse and recently taken over by John Ridgway in the weekly Star Wars comic. Both would return on the 6th Doctor's page of Time and Time Again (DWM 207) and the baby penguin family can also be seen in Kane's Story (DWM 104), Party Animals (DWM 173) and Mind Meet! (The Incomplete Death's Head).
Looking back, what's most remarkable about Once Upon A Time-Lord... is that it's both: (a) the chilling conclusion to a year-long epic, and (b) a bubbly self-aware gag-fest. It's hard to think of another writer who'd even imagine that combination in the first place, let alone have the courage to attempt it. Still more amazingly, the result is a bloody good story. Let others sing the praises of The Tides of Time (and that's impressive too, don't get me wrong), but for me the Parkhouse-Ridgway Voyager story arc is something special. Forget the TV show. DWM's comic strip was the real 6th Doctor era.