April 1, 2023

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Doctor Who Classics “The Life Bringer”

The Doctor runs afoul of the Greek gods.

Well, after that detour to Grant Morrison’s take on the Sixth and Seventh Doctors, it’s back to Steve Moore and Dave Gibbons writing about the Fourth.

The Fourth doesn’t really do anything here.

OK, that’s not entirely true.  The Doctor (with K9) discovers the most unexpected of things:  the Titan Prometheus chained to the side of a small rock.  See, it used to be a mountain, but it eroded away.  The Doctor knows Prometheus was chained there by Zeus as punishment for stealing fire from the gods or creating humans or both.  Prometheus claims it is both because he stole the fires of creation, but it may be time to take Prometheus home.

And from there, the Doctor largely observes.  He and K9 did get Prometheus released from his chains, but Prometheus takes control of the TARDIS, and then one trip to Olympus later and it turns out Zeus is still mad.  It seems that the life Prometheus created got all violent and chaotic, and despite the fact that Helios and Nyx are creating a new galaxy, until the gods can make life perfect, he doesn’t want to see anymore of it.  And sure, the Doctor himself seems to be cool and all, but the gods don’t really believe it.  Instead, Prometheus gets locked up and the Doctor is sent off for medical experiments.

Fortunately, K9 came along.  Not because he can stop a god.  More like because his blasts tickle and they find that amusing.  That gives the Doctor a chance to escape before he’s dissected, and from there, he helps Prometheus out of another cell.  And then…well, he and K9 kinda just watch while Prometheus gets them to a lab to swipe more of the fire of creation, then they flee, barely get back to the TARDIS ahead of Zeus’s thunderbolts, and then Prometheus jumps out into space to start life on some planet that may be Earth in the past or some other planet in the future, but the Doctor never found out.

So, what did the Doctor do?  Well, he let Prometheus out of two prisons, I suppose.

I kinda hope he has more to do next time.  There aren’t many of these left.

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