Skywatch-7 (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 46)

I am procrastinating the end of the strip by incorporating some bonus content I haven't got to yet. In this case, a back-up strip that received a modern reprint, albeit not from Panini. Issue #13 of IDW's reprint series Doctor Who Classics vol. 2 includes parts 2-3 of The Moderator, but also Skywatch-7, a Doctor-less story about the Zygons. I actually read both stories, but here I'll just focus on the one I haven't read before.

from Doctor Who: A Marvel Winter Special 1981

This is a standalone Zygon story: a group of UNIT soldiers at an Arctic base are menaced by a Zygon using its shapeshifting powers to cause problems. At first, I was like, "This is all a bit The Thing, isn't it?" Then I registered that one of the soldiers is named Campbell—presumably after John W. Campbell who wrote "Who Goes There?", the story upon which the film is based. Anyway, it's only eight pages so there can't be a lot of twists or tension, but it's a good little action story with a pretty dark turn at the end. You can always count on DWM in the 1980s to lift one's spirits!

Stray Observations:

• The story is credited to "Maxwell Stockbridge," a pseudonym that was used on a number of Marvel UK strips, not just Doctor Who ones. The Tardis wiki attributes it to a number of writers and says it was used from 1981 to 1984, while the Grand Comics Database credits all its uses to Alan McKenzie, and indexes stories from 1980 to 1984 using it; its first recorded use was actually in Marvel UK's Savage Action. The name, since it clearly inspired Steve Parkhouse's choice to make recurring DWM character Maxwell come from Stockbridge, feels so very DWM that it's weird to think it actually preceded it.
• Both the Tardis wiki and the GCD credit Elitta Fell as letterer, but she doesn't have a credit in the actual comic (at least not the version I read). For some reason, IDW re-lettered the recap at the beginning of Part Two.

Skywatch-7 originally appeared in two parts, in Doctor Who: A Marvel Monthly #58 (Nov. 1981) and Doctor Who: A Marvel Winter Special (1981). The story was written by Maxwell Stockbridge, illustrated by Mick Austin, [lettered by Elitta Fell,] and edited by Alan McKenzie. The story was reprinted in issue #13 of Doctor Who Classics vol. 2 (Dec. 2009), which was colored by Charlie Kirchoff and edited by Denton J. Tipton.

This post is the forty-sixth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Mistress of Chaos. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire
19. The Daleks
20. Emperor of the Daleks
21. The Sleeze Brothers File
22. The Age of Chaos
23. Land of the Blind
24. Ground Zero
25. End Game
26. The Glorious Dead
27. Oblivion
28. Transformers: Time Wars and Other Stories
29. The Flood
30. The Cruel Sea 
31. The Betrothal of Sontar
32. The Widow's Curse
33. The Crimson Hand
34. The Child of Time
35. The Chains of Olympus
36. Hunters of the Burning Stone
37. The Blood of Azrael
38. The Eye of Torment
39. The Highgate Horror
40. Doorway to Hell
41. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 1
42. The Phantom Piper
43. Daleks: The Ultimate Comic Strip Collection, Volume 2
44. The Clockwise War
45. Death's Head: Clone Drive / Revolutionary War