Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: beep the meep, doctor who, ebay, marvel, Rose

What Might Marvel's Doctor Who Comic Mean For Yasmin Finney's Rose?

Published Tue, 27 Dec 2022 08:58:10 -0600

In 1979, Marvel UK began publishing the Doctor Who Weekly comic book magazine, later Doctor Who Monthly, featuring a continuing comic book strip. One of its first stories by Judge Dredd creators Pat Mills and John Wagner, and Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbonsm was Star Beast. Which, as Bleeding Cool previously noted, looks like being adapted into the upcoming Doctor Who special. The story was also coloured and reprinted in the Marvel USA ongoing Doctor Who series in issue 1 and 2, which gave it greater prominence among Doctor Who fandom.

The story was also set in a working-class council estate in England, with a teenage girl who showed bravery and intelligence, in the face of an apparent alien invasion, reported on by the local media, though all was not what it seemed. She then became a companion for the Doctor. What the TV series did with Rose Tyler in 2005, the comic books did with Sharon Davies in 1980. Also, she happened to be black. Pat Mills there, always getting in there first.

So why is Russell T Davies choosing to adapt Star Beast for his return to Doctor Who, David Tennant's return to Doctor Who. including a new companion who also happens to be called Rose, instead of Sharon Davies?

Sharon Davies grew up in the Northern steel mill town of Blackcastle, and discovered the crash-landed Beep the Meep, who she tried to help, unaware that it was being hunted for war crimes. After the intervention of the Doctor, who saved Sharon from being controlled by Beep The Meep and tuned into a weapon, Sharon began to travel in the TARDIS as the Doctor's companion, as the Doctor tried and failed to get her home. She travelled across time and space, from one side of the galaxy to the other, and back to 16th century China fighting Sontarans and Shaolin Monks. Deciding she was no longer able to go home after seeing what she had seen, she ended up in the 82nd century with another friend of the Doctor, Vernor Allen, a professional dreamer, and got married to him. Later in her life, she became a reporter for the Galactic Broadcasting Corporation, taking down the most powerful and corrupt. As well as comic strips, she appeared in a Big Finish audio drama adaptation of the original comic book story, played by Rhianne Starbuck.

Sharon was the first black companion of Doctor Who. Rose will be the first trans companion of Doctor Who. Might we see other parallels in their stories? Doctor Who has been known to adapt and grab aspects of its other media, such as Bernie Summerfield inspiring River Song. How far into the storyline of Star Beast – or the character of Sharon Davies – will the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who go?