| abstract | - However, even these two points were somewhat in doubt. The comic TARDIS wasn't actually much of a time-travel device. As almost every story was set in the far future, it was little more than a simple spaceship. That threw the First Doctor's inclination towards historical adventures out the window. In addition, his status as "grandfather" was a point of incredulity, as well. How could he be the grandfather to John and Gillian? What was their relationship to the never-referenced Susan? How did the stories told in the comic strips relate to the television series? These were all questions left completely unanswered. Worse still, the comic First Doctor was deprived even of the Daleks. Since Terry Nation had licensed the comic Daleks to appear only by themselves from 1965 to 1967, the comic First Doctor never encountered them. He was forced instead to repeatedly face the TV Comic "substitute", the Trods. The best the TV Comic First Doctor could muster by way of resembling himself was a lone story that tied in with an atypical television adventure: Dr. Who and the Zarbi on the Web Planet. It really wasn't until Doctor Who Magazine began publishing a handful of original First Doctor stories that the William Hartnell portrayal was really seen in comics. Consequently, most of the First Doctor's companions didn't have their comic debuts until the early 1990s. By then, thirty years after the fact, it was really a case of "too little, too late". Comic readers are still waiting for the First Doctor to encounter the Daleks. Given these facts, it is perhaps not surprising that, as a matter of Doctor Who Magazine continuity, the entirety of the First Doctor's TV Comic run was retconned out of existence as a dream of the Eighth Doctor. (COMIC: The Land of Happy Endings)
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