From Doctor Who Magazine #95-97
A Review by Finn Clark 21/10/04
You know, until the Gillatt era, I think this was the only significant example of the DWM comic strip mining its own continuity. The Davison strips had been full of ongoing story threads, but Polly the Glot brought back Dr Ivan Asimoff, a one-off character from a story published two Doctors and more than three years previously. Admittedly Asimoff had also starred in The Fabulous Idiot (a four-page back-up strip in the 1982 Summer Special), but basically he was some random alien slug-man who got tangled up with the 4th Doctor and the Freefall Warriors.
He's also a lot of fun! As far as the Voyager saga is concerned, these three episodes are a light-hearted side-step from the main action. Astrolabus is behind everything... for no obvious reason except that Steve Parkhouse wants to tie everything back to that old fraud. Well, it works. He's mad enough for anything. (Uh, that's Astrolabus not Parkhouse.)
However Astrolabus isn't the foundation of this story. Nope, Polly the Glot is 24 pages of silliness with Akkers, Dr Asimoff, the Zyglots and some really goofy robots. It's more cheerfully ridiculous than anything I can remember from the TV show, the McCoy era included, but Parkhouse's script makes it sing. He writes some absolute zingers! The first episode is mostly set-up, though I had to chuckle at Asimoff's longing for Polly. ["Oh Polly, you're so beautiful." It was then Doctor Ivan Asimoff knew he was in love.]
However it's when we hit the Akkers' ship that the script goes into overdrive. "Ignore him; he's a figment of the imagination." "But I haven't got an imagination!" "You're right! Therefore he must be real!" By the time we reach the janitor, it's clear that Parkhouse and Ridgway are simply having a ball. This is not a serious story. In fact it's the anti-matter opposite of a serious story, the storytelling equivalent of a jazz combo on a roll in one of their jam sessions. It's also simply delightful.
I've dismissed Astrolabus as mostly irrelevant to this story, but his presence is never far away. Mostly he's just lurking in the background, but it's great to see him again when our heroes finally catch up with him at the end. Apart from anything else, Parkhouse always gives Astrolabus great dialogue. It's a shame we never heard an actor deliver his deranged ramblings, which at times veer into poetry. Oh, and he's also stolen Mary Poppins's travelling bag.
The story is set in that DWM comics future era of the Freefall Warriors, Dr Ivan Asimoff, Zyglots, Intra-Venus Inc., the Moderator, various Death's Head stories and more. (It's the 82nd century, incidentally.) The Shape Shifter (DWM 88-89) ended with the Doctor saying he wanted to get as far away from Dogbolter as possible, but it didn't take him long to get back to the comics' old stamping ground. It was reprinted in Doctor Who Collected Comics (1986) and also the Voyager graphic novel, both times with painted colour by Gina Hart. It looks nice, though I had to laugh at the glitch in episode one. The Akkers capture a Zyglot... "And they always spray red when captured. Never known one not to." Uh, except when the colourist paints it a delicate blue-white, that is...
John Ridgway does his usual solid job, creating lots of loopy aliens and an exotic carnival on Ringway. Overall this story is lots of big fun, albeit possibly more likely than any other comic strip to trigger your It's All Getting A Bit Silly gene. Anyone who can happily read about the Akkers and their janitor and not even blink can probably handle anything. I love this story. It's strawberries and champagne on a summer's day. The 6th Doctor's era on TV was never this much fun.