previously with the more streamlined Moonbase version now being more or less standard, the strip’s Cybermen continued to have cloth faces. Oddly, this would become the most enduring comic strip Cyberman of all. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

WRITER: Roger Noel Cook
ARTIST: John Canning.
ISSUES: 832 - 835.
COVER DATES: 25 November 1967 - 23 December 1967.
ON TV: The Ice Warriors - The Enemy of the World (Season 5)
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Magazine Issue 307.

On a planet swarming with butterflies and moths, the Doctor, John and Gillian meet eccentric insect hunter Professor Gnat. Despite the Doctor’s warning, the Professor is captured by Cybermen. The Doctor discovers dead Cybermats in a bed of flowers and soon realises that the scent of the planet’s flowers is lethal to the Cybermen. So he and his grandchildren head off to the Cyberman’s subterranean base armed only with bunches of flowers.

Probably one of the strangest strips ever to feature the Cybermen, though really the idea that the scent of the planet’s flowers is lethal to the Cybermen is possibly no stranger than the idea of gold dust being lethal to them. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

WRITER: Roger Noel Cook
ARTIST: John Canning.
ISSUES: 842 - 845.
COVER DATES: 3 February 1968 - 24 February 1968.
ON TV: The Web of Fear (Season 5)
REPRINTS: None.

The Cybermen land a giant cyber-mole machine outside London, which they use to burrow deep beneath the city and steel the deadly doomsday bomb from its vault. With the bomb in their metallic grasp, the Cybermen hold the world to ransom. The military welcomes the Doctor's knowledge of the Cybermen and, armed with anti-Cyberman weapons, the Doctor leads the assault on the cyber-mole.

The Doctor joins forces with the military to defeat the Cybermen... Hmmm.... sounds a little like The Invasion, only considerably shorter. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

This story has almost exactly the same plot as The Doctor Strikes Back (see Daleks - In the Comics for reference). You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

WRITER: Roger Noel Cook
ARTIST: John Canning
ISSUE: TV Comic Annual 1969 (1968)
REPRINTS: None

Using various exhibits in a museum in a ruined city, the Doctor, John and Gillian evade the Cybermen. As ever.

You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

WRITER: Roger Noel Cook
ARTIST: John Canning.
ISSUES: 903 - 906.
COVER DATES: 5 April 1969 - 26 April 1969.
ON TV The Space Pirates - The War Games (Season 6).

On an ice world, the Doctor decides to indulge in a spot of skiing. However, he is mortified  to discover a Cyberman patrol on the planet. To evade them, he fakes his own death, then joins forces with an Eskimo inventor named Joe. Armed with an unlikely arsenal of robot gulls and exploding eggs, the Doctor and Joe attack the Cybermen’s base.

This strip is also referred to as Cybermen on Ice and Conflict on Ice, both of which are marginally better titles. The Cybermen in the snow recalls their very first television appearance. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

WRITER: Roger Noel Cook
ARTIST: Patrick Williams
ISSUE: TV Comic Holiday Special 1969
REPRINTS: None

When the TARDIS is caught in a strange web, the Doctor and other luckless travellers are forced to wrestle in an arena for the amusement of the spectators. The Doctor defeats an ape-like creature, but is then forced to face a Cyberman...

Exciting, tense, dramatic, deep... all words that you could never associate with this facile little strip. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

Lightweight and disposable fun as the Cybermen launch another audacious and frankly absurdly ill-conceived plan to defeat the citizens of Earth. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

ARTIST: Steve Parkhouse (yes, it is that Steve Parkhouse)
WRITER: Geoff Rowley

ISSUE: 161 (UK Edition)

The Doctor, Hairy and Squarer land aboard a space ark where geniuses (including all the previous Doctors) are held in suspended animation. Unfortunately the Doctor is attacked by a self-knitting scarf, and Hairy’s attempts to save him don’t go to plan. Or something.

Despite being nothing more than a cameo for the Cybermen who pop up in the background, this strip has the distinction of being the first to portray the Cybermen as anything other than the cloth-faced variety. It only took ten years. The strip itself is sometimes amusing and sometimes just plain silly.

You can read a fuller synopsis and see more images by clicking here.

Kroton, the Cyberman with a soul, would make several return appearances through the years, becoming one of Doctor Who Magazine’s most enduring characters, and he owes his success to this strip which works wonderfully well to convey his growing sense of alienation, as he finds that he doesn’t fit in to either the Cyberman or human worlds.

ARTIST: Steve Dillon
WRITER: Steve Moore
ISSUES: 5 - 7
COVER DATES: 14 November 1979 - 28 November 1979.
ON TV: The Creature from the Pit - The Nightmare of Eden (Season 17)
REPRINTS: Reprinted as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’’ The Glorious Dead, published November 2005.

On Mondaran, junior Cyberleader Kroton finds that he has emotions. Befriending human rebels, he saves their leader from the other Cybermen. Unable to stay, he sets off alone into space...

ARTIST: Steve Dillon.
WRITER: Steve Moore.
ISSUES: 23 - 24.
COVER DATES: 19 March 1980 - 26 March 1980.
REPRINTS: Reprinted as part of the Panini ‘graphic novel’’ The Glorious Dead, published November 2005 (for cover, see above).

Kroton’s ship is picked up by a spaceship caught in a time warp. Kroton succeeds in freeing the ship, but time catches up with those aboard, ageing the crew to death. Kroton is alone once more.

 BLACK LEGACY

ARTISTS: Mike McMahon and Adolfo Buylla.
WRITER: Steve Parkhouse.

ISSUES: 58 - 59.
COVER DATES: November 1981 - December 1981.
ON TV: An Unearthly Child, The Krotons, Carnival of Monsters, The Three Doctors, Logopolis (The Five Faces of Doctor Who repeat season)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in Doctor Who Comics Issue 13, and also in the Panini graphic novel Dragon’s Claw, which was released in November 2005, and in the IDW Doctor Who Classics Series 2 Issue 4, March 2009.

A Cyberman, long deactivated and forgotten in an intergalactic junkyard, becomes reactivated. It kidnaps a mechanic named Jetsam and hijacks the TARDIS, intent on reviving a Cyberleader named Zogroan. Jetsam turns him instead into a super-butler.

The Cybermen meet the Doctor in the comic strip for the first time since 1969.

Despite their absence from television screens since 1975, it is perhaps surprising that it took fifty-eight issues before the Cybermen were introduced into the main Doctor Who comic strip. It is perhaps even more surprising that it is the original cloth-faced Cybermen that appears rather than the Seventies variant. I have always loved the striking and heavily caricatured artwork on this strip - a definite jolt from the usual style - but one that works extremely well on this particular strip.

ARTIST: John Ridgway.
WRITER: Alan McKenzie (writing as Max Stockbridge)

ISSUE: 104.
COVER DATE: September 1985.
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics Issues 19. Also reprinted in black and white as part of Doctor Who Voyager, published by Panini in 2007 as a graphic novel. The cover for this publication is shown below.

The Cybermen are just one of the races defeated by the Skeletoids before the Doctor, Peri, Frobisher, a Draconian, Kane and an alchemist called Abel Gantz are drafted to save the galaxy.

A brief one-frame cameo for the Cybermen. Oddly, considering their popularity on television during the Eighties, this was one of only five appearances in the ongoing comic strip during the whole decade. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

ARTIST: John Ridgway.
WRITER: Alan McKenzie (writing as Max Stockbridge)

ISSUE: 107.
COVER DATE: December 1985.
REPRINTS: Doctor Who Classic Comics Issues 19. Also reprinted in black and white as part of Doctor Who Voyager, published by Panini in 2007 as a graphic novel. The cover for this publication is shown above.

Later in the same story (despite the different title), in fact in the final frame, we catch a glimpse of the Cybercontroller rather bizarrely attending a peace conference.

For those who can’t see him, he’s on the right of the table, just behind the alien with lots of eyes. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

In something far worse than the worst excesses of the Eighties television series, continuity abounds as Jamie, Cybermen, Time Lords, a passing mention of Planet 14 from The Invasion, Marinus and the Voords all combine to create something that is actually a rather thinly plotted mess, and hardly a fitting end for either Jamie McCrimmon or the final regular strip outing of the Sixth Doctor. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

ARTIST: Unknown.
WRITER: Unknown.

ISSUE: 8.
COVER DATE: January 1989.

A none-too-subtle advert for Doctor Who Magazine.

Someone must have doodled this during a ten minute phone conversation as the artwork is frankly rotten. The Cybermen only feature in the opening panel that you see reproduced here.

ARTISTS: Mike Collins (pencils) and Steve Pini (inks)
WRITER: Andrew Cartmel

ISSUES: 175 - 178
COVER DATES: 10 July 1991 - 2 October 1991.
ON TV: The Pilot Episode (first ever broadcast in August)

As the Doctor and Ace arrive in a service station in 1950s Nevada, soldiers, led by Colonel Rhodes, are nervously anticipating an attack by flying saucers. However, their unseen enemy transports a whole section of the desert up to a waiting warship. Cybermen erupt from the ground, killing many of the soldiers, capturing others. Only Ace and the Doctor escape. Colonel Rhodes is conditioned and hooked into the warship’s control pod, as it requires an aggressive, warlike pilot. With this ship they plan to attack the Earth. However, the Doctor tricks the Cybermen and sets back their invasion plans.

ARTISTS: John Ridgway.
WRITER: Paul Cornell.

ISSUE: 207.
COVER DATE: 22 December 1993.
ON TV: Planet of the Daleks (repeat)

The Cybermen receive another brief cameo in this story of the Key to Time.

Written by the author of Father’s Day, Human Nature/The Family of Blood, not to mention several Doctor Who novels.

You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

Two-panel cameo for the Cybermen - and a host of other baddies - in this Third Doctor strip.

ARTIST: Adrian Salmon.
WRITER: Gareth Roberts.

ISSUE: 234.
COVER DATE: 17 January 1996.

ARTISTS: Lee Sullivan and Alan Craddock (colour)
WRITER: Gary Russell

COVER DATES: (1 -7 June 1996) - (22 February - 2 March 1997)
REPRINTS: None

The Cybermen attack a spaceship where they convert the crew. All except Stacy, who escapes with the Doctor. However, they are soon captured and the Cyberleader plans to gain mastery over all time and space through the Doctor and his TARDIS. But the Doctor and Stacy rely on the last vestige of humanity left in one of the converted crewmen and manage to eject the Cybermen from the TARDIS.

This half-page comic strip, which began its run the week after the TV Movie aired in the UK, ran for a total of 42 issues. It featured the Cybermen only in its opening ten-part story. Considering this opening story runs for ten weeks, it is somewhat basic and uninspired in its plotting, falling back on a number of Doctor Who clichés to move itself along. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

ARTIST/WRITER: Sean Longcroft
ISSUE: 243

COVER DATE: September 1996

Yet another cameo for the Cybermen in this glorious and nostalgic strip about what it is to be a Doctor Who fan of a certain age.

ARTIST: Adrian Salmon
WRITER: Alan Barnes

The Brotherhood of Logicians (The Tomb of the Cybermen) send a gunrunner named Joylove to recover the Cybermen that Flotsam and Jetsam have been reconditioning and sending out as butlers and menial workers. But the Cybermen have other ideas...

A follow up to the strip that first appeared in Doctor Who Monthly Issues 58-59, again featuring those cloth-faced Cybermen...

Although it’s nice to revisit these characters after fifteen years, this strip, despite some striking and highly stylised artwork, does little to build on what we previously knew so ends up feeling like a pale retread.

ARTIST: Roger Langridge
WRITER: Scott Gray

ISSUE: 272.
COVER DATE: 15 December 1998.
REPRINTS: Reprinted in black and white as part of Doctor Who The Glorious Dead, published by Panini in October 2006 as a ‘graphic novel’

Another cameo for every conceivable type of Cyberman in this light-hearted 35th anniversary story.

A glorious celebration of all that is Doctor Who, drawn in fine and unusual style by Roger Langbridge. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

This strip features neither the Doctor nor Izzy, and acts instead as a means to reintroduce Kroton, last seen in Ship of Fools way back in 1980. It reads, doubtless as it was intended to, like one of the old back-up strips from where Kroton hails, though what younger fans must have made of it is anyone’s guess. The artwork is bold and striking and works well with the content of the story. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

ARTIST: Adrian Salmon and Fareed Choudhury (inks).
WRITER: Scott Gray.

ISSUE: 284 - 286.
COVER DATES: 17 November 1999 - 12 January 2000.
ON TV: Spearhead from Space - Doctor Who and the Silurians (BBC2 repeats)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in black and white as part of Doctor Who The Glorious Dead, published by Panini in October 2006 as a ‘graphic novel’.

The TARDIS is caught up in a space pirate attack, a prelude to finally meeting Kroton. With the Doctor and Izzy, Kroton investigates the pirates and discovers they are in the pay of a madman named Tobal Reist, who destroyed his home planet while testing a weapon that turned out to be far more powerful than he imagined. Kroton joins the TARDIS crew.

This strip marks the first meeting between the Doctor and Kroton. You can read further comments, a fuller synopsis and see how this story fits into comic strip history by clicking here.

ARTIST: Martin Geraghty, Roger Langridge, Robin Smith (inks)
WRITER: Scott Gray

ISSUES: 287 - 296.
COVER DATES: 9 February 2000 - 18 October 2000.
ON TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, Genesis of the Daleks (BBC2 repeats)
REPRINTS: Reprinted in black and white as part of Doctor Who The Glorious Dead, published by Panini in October 2006 as a ‘graphic novel’.

The TARDIS takes the Doctor, Izzy and Kroton to Paradost, a museum world. However, Cardinal Morningstar and his followers are planning to revive the fortunes of the Church of the Glorious Dead, and launch an attack on Paradost. When the Doctor vanishes, Izzy and Kroton are left to fend for themselves. However, Morningstar is revealed to be a slave of the Master, seeking to control the heart of the omniversal spectrum. Its keeper is dying and has chosen the Doctor and the Master as potential replacements. But first they must fight...

ARTIST: Shane Oakley.
WRITER: Alan Moore (plot), Leah Moore (script), John Reppion (script).
ISSUE: 1
PUBLICATION DATE: October 2006 (trade paperback)

Another cameo for a Cyberman, this time as an exhibit in a science fiction-themed cafe.

Before you rush out to buy this, please be aware that this is the only frame the Cyberman appears in and he plays no part in the story whatsoever.

It is interesting that Doctor Who Magazine chose to use an 80s style Cyberman rather than a new series version. We might assume that this Cyberman was recovered either during the events of Sixth Doctor story Attack of the Cyberman or possibly the Seventh Doctor story Silver Nemesis.