Evening's Empire (comic story)

Evening's Empire was a Seventh Doctor comic story by Andrew Cartmel and featured art by Richard Piers Rayner. It featured Ace and Muriel Frost, the latter of which was included to introduce a supporting cast for the series.
The story went through delays after the first part was published in DWM 180, with John Freeman referring to it as "the Doctor Who Magazine equivlent of Shada", and it was decided that publications of the latter parts would be delayed until all creative parties had caught up with one another. The story was also an attempt to introduce darker and more complex themes, a natural evolution from the final stories featuring Sylvester McCoy, such as the themes of abuse — both sexual and parental — as well as condemnation of Christianity and bullying. However, due to its delays, the threads introduced in the story were never able to be further explored in further storylines.
== Summary ==
Arriving in Middlesbrough, the Seventh Doctor, Ace aid Colonel Muriel Frost in an investigation into a plane crash during WWII.
Meanwhile, women are being kidnapped, and UNIT is trapped on a strange world of contemporary Earth building, primitive humans bows and arrows and with two suns in the sky.
How are these events connected? The Doctor is about to find out.
== Plot ==
Saturday. In a world with twin suns, in a majestic city unmistakably human, a group of UNIT personnel are fighting a battle against the primitive locals. Corporal Ives and Colonel Muriel Frost have located Ace, and they go to rescue her, with Hammond covering them. Despite the primitives being armed with merely bows and arrows, one arrow breaks through Hammond's body armour, severely wounding him. The primitives begin to retreat, and the UNIT personnel mistakenly think that they're winning the fight; they're sorely mistaken, as the primitives' secret weapon starts decimating the soldiers.
Thursday. Forty-eight hours earlier, in the Burroughs Charted Surveyor in Middlesbrough, clerk Alex Evening is broken from his daydreaming of another world by Ace, requesting access to the local records about any crashes in the area from World War 2. Meanwhile, the Seventh Doctor remarks, "A man. A plan. A canal. Panama.", to which Frost rebuts, whilst preparing to dive into a river alongside two other UNIT personnel. They are trying to recover a crashed Nazi plane, and after they dive to the bottom of the river, the crashed plane is found, and Frost gets the marked feeling that it was waiting for her. Back in the Burroughs Charted Surveyor, Alex retrieves a selection of records on local bombings, simultaneously serving Ace a cup of strong coffee and complimenting her looks. Unbeknownst to Ace, the coffee is spiked with chlormezanone, which sends her crashing to the floor, unconscious.
That evening, more UNIT personnel arrive, extricating the plane from the murky depths. Drying herself with a towel, Frost discusses the pilot, who was little more than a child, with the Doctor. That night, Alex lets himself into his mother's shed, and she scolds him for interrupting the hymns. Ace awakes, in a place she is entirely unfamiliar with, but a type of experience she is familiar with, though this time is different. Finding herself, alone, in a cell, she shouts for the Doctor, despite knowing he isn't there.
Friday. Early that morning, Alex drives to work, putting the excitement of Ace out of his mind. At the same time, Frost is preparing herself to enter the dead pilot's mind, using scavenged technology the Doctor built. Despite Ives questioning the Doctor's device, Frost is more than willing to use it. Within seconds of activation, Frost slips into the mind of the pilot, a sensation similar to dreaming. Reaching the pilot's mind, which takes the form of a rotting cadaver, she continues towards it despite its gruesome appearance. The pilot addresses her, knowing that she has come seeking answers. He tells her to touch him, and she places her hand on his shoulder, and Frost sees the pilot's final memories, of him flying through the fresh summer air, many years prior, before his crash with a "strange air-craft". He asks her if she would like to stay with him, reading her mind and becoming privy to her troubled relationship. He tells her, that even though love is painful, it is nothing compared to death. He wishes her auf wiedersehen.
Now back in reality, Frost is distraught from the experience, She tells the Doctor that she will happily "dismantle" the machine, with a sledgehammer. She tells the Doctor that he was indeed about there being a UFO, and is troubled that is has gone missing. The Doctor tells her that the UFO isn't the only thing that has gone missing. So has Ace.
Ace's cries for the Doctor haven't gone well. Two guards arrived, and one, Uncle Totwald, tries to force Ace, the "slave of honour", to wear revealing clothing to look beautiful for the emperor. Ace kicks the other guard down, stealing his sword and fleeing. In the corridor, she smells something familiar, but she can't quite place the smell. As she exits through a door, two things happen: Ace recognises the smell as the glue used on model aeroplanes, and that there is a chasm beyond the door. Clinging to the doorhandle, Uncle Totwald finds her, and she concedes, allowing herself to be dressed for the emperor's pleasure in exchange for being helped from her precarious position.
Later, Ives and Frost remain inside the UNIT Staff Car while the Doctor enters the Burroughs Charted Surveyor, looking for Ace. Ives asks Frost what exactly she meant when she said the pilot read her mind. She tells Ives about her troubled relationship with her boyfriend, Nick. Meanwhile, the Doctor asks a duo of men inside the Burroughs Charted Surveyor, one them being Alex, if they've seen Ace. Alex denies knowing where she is, and again, commenting on her appearance after seeing a photograph of her. The Doctor stares at him. Ace also isn't the only girl to have gone missing in the area, as it seems.
Ace is with two other girls, Wendy and Shaz, both being treated as slaves, watching a bloody fight being fought between two warriors. Wendy hopes that the warriors don't do "", an act performed only on Fridays. Unfortunately for them, it is a Friday; one of the warriors uses his sword to slice the top of the head off the other warrior, and Wendy shields her eyes. In Middlesbrough, the Doctor follows Alex home, to his shed. Inside, Alex is letting himself slip away, which he plans to do all night and all of tomorrow, a Saturday. He believes he is alone. He is not.
Ace is told about what day it is, and Uncle Totwald, approaching Ace, tells her that today is the day that the lord returns. Ace looks up, looking past the sights of the beautiful world, to see Alex Evening, laughing.
Ives sits in the UNIT Staff Car, parked outside Frost's flat. Ives looks in through the window of the home, whilst sat in the warmth of the car; it is raining outside. Ives imagines how Frost grew up, recalling own her childhood, with the constant bullying from a trio of girls. She recalls the memories of being bullied about her weight, her appearance, and being pushed face-first into tarmac. She distracts herself, imagining Frost and Nick together. However, for Frost, things aren't quite as idyllic between her and Nick as Ives imagines. He jibes her, and after she tries to get him to talk about not fighting, he tells her that even though she thinks the physical side is still good, he visualises someone else doing it. She gets angry, the emotion fuelling her "like magic", and she holds a gun to his head. He goads her to pull the trigger, and even though a dark part of her inner psyche wants to it, she interrupted by ringing telephone, distracting her from her anger. Ives is on the other end. She tells Frost that the Doctor has found the UFO.
Ives and Frost arrives at Alex's home, and Frost is still angry, which slightly confuses Ives because she thought she did a good thing, calling Frost when she did. Reaching the Doctor, Frost demands he tells her what's going on, as she is tired of being strung along. She gets annoyed when she sees Alex, unmoving, but the Doctor merely points at something. Frost turns around — it's the UFO — albeit it is much smaller than she expected.
Saturday. In the morning, Ace reminds herself that she isn't in the real world. She wishes she was dead. She can remember Wendy's sobs from that night. Alex talks to her, and she ignores him, trying to forget the previous night. Alex continues, telling her about the supposed "toy" he had found, and how it had "captured his imagination", enabling him to construct his world. His deserts, his forests... his people. But the people weren't enough, he desired the real thing. He drugged and kidnapped real women, bringing them to his world.
In the shed, the Doctor tells Ives and Frost about the Q'Dhite Mind-Treader and its ability to journey through space, to find new intelligences to weave realities for. He knows it is creating a new reality, in the boy's mind. He tells Ives and Frost to follow him to his TARDIS, and they bring a company of UNIT soldiers with them.
In a world with twin suns, in a majestic city unmistakably human, a group of UNIT soldiers are fighting a battle, a battle they're quickly losing against Alex's secret weapon. Alex reflects on the flaws of his world, telling Ace that he won't make them again. He blames everything on Ace, even though he can't formulate a reason why. Ives and Frost arrives, attempting to intervene, but Alex commands a "bible", a monstrous entity built on Alex's fear of the pain the bible can bring, to attack Ives, the "fat one". It picks her up, and it bites her with its claws high up in the sky, however, she tries to fight it, shooting it with her gun. It drops her, and as she falls, the memories of the bullying she endured at school rush back to her. She hits the ground — her spine breaking, her nervous system crashing — she can't see expression of grief on the Doctor's face. He leaves, telling her that he knows "how to end this nightmare."
Back in reality, Janice Evening looks down on her son, after the strangers left, understanding that something is wrong, but is given strength by her faith. She wonders what is going on in her son's head.
Alex screams at Ace and Frost, telling them that they "have ruined it!" He wants to "wipe the slate clean", and tells Karn to execute them, but is interrupted by the Doctor and his mother. He is taken aback, but quickly gathers himself, instead telling Karn to kill the Doctor. The Doctor isn't scared, as he knows it is all over — as Janice reprimands her son, everything begins to shatter and the dream is over. The Doctor gathers any survivors, getting them to the TARDIS. He asks Ace if she is okay, she responds she isn't, but will be. They leave Alex's world, leaving his nightmare to begin.
In the shed, once more, the Doctor tells Janice that her son is now in a coma. The Doctor, Ace, and Frost leave, taking the Q'Dhite Mind-Treader with them, intending to release it into space, so it can do good. Next to the river, the Doctor tells Ace to let her recent memories of the terrible things that happened to her go, to let them drift away. She likens it to petals on the water, as she lets a broken flower fall from her grasp. The Doctor enters the TARDIS, and Ace takes a minute to let everything go.
== Characters ==
* Seventh Doctor
* Ace
* Colonel Muriel Frost
* Corporal Ives
* Alex Evening
* Janice Evening
* Wendy
* Shaz
* Nick
* Uncle Totwald
* Karn
* Pilot
* Hammond
* Slayton
* Alison Fox
* Janet Prince
* Lucy Pritchard
== Worldbuilding ==
* Hammond compares the world created by Alex to the Wild West.
* Frost tells the Doctor that if she doesn't return from her dive within a hour, her mum could have the Datsun.
* The machine the Doctor built for Frost to enter the mind of the dead pilot with is partially constructed from Cyberman technology he collected after he destroyed a Cyberman warship that was orbiting the moon.
* On the counter in the Burroughs Charted Surveyor, there is a Smarties mug and a book, Slave Star, by Scott Cochrane.
== Notes ==
* Originally intended as a multiple-chapter story for Doctor Who Magazine, only the first chapter was ever published in DWM, in November 1991. The remainder was abandoned due to production issues. In September 1993, the complete strip, colourised and altered, was published as the DWCC Autumn Holiday Special. Although published in magazine format, some sources such as the reference work Howe's Transcendental Toybox treat it as a graphic novel. The original black-and-white version of Part One is reprinted in DWCC Autumn Holiday Special.
* An exact year is never specified in the story. The Doctor and Frost had previously met during 1999 in COMIC: The Mark of Mandragora, and it is mentioned that fifty years have passed since World War II, definitively setting this story during the 1990s.
* Part One as published in DWM was remade into pages 7-13 of the full story. Speech bubbles are redrawn and re-lettered with revisions to the text:
** The title of the story is removed and the opening narration is changed.
** "World War Two" is changed to "World War 2."
** The Doctor's quoting of "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama" is altered. In response, Colonel Frost lists three points instead of two. (Part of an original speech bubble can be seen on the Doctor's hat.)
** Narration is added to Colonel Frost's dive.
** The conversation between Ace and Alex is largely rewritten.
** Dialogue between the Doctor and Colonel Frost is added. Frost estimates the dead pilot's age as 19 instead of 23.
** Dialogue from Alex as he locks up the shed is added.
** Additional narration is added as Ace wakes up in the dream world. "Next: Down in the dark" is removed.
* The twins suns orbiting the world Alex created are likely inspired by A New Hope, the first Star Wars film. Alex's "slaves" having to wear bikinis is reminiscent of Princess Leia's slave attire in Return of the Jedi. There also seems to be inspiration drawn from , and other male fantasy inducing fiction.
== Continuity ==
* The Doctor repurposes the device he stole from the CyberMondans. (COMIC: The Good Soldier)
Category:Seventh Doctor DWM comic stories
Category:UNIT comic stories
Category:1991 comic stories
Category:1993 comic stories
Category:Stories set in the 1990s
Category:One part comics