Script: Dan Abnett Art: Colin Andrew
A Review by Finn Clark 1/4/05
Dan Abnett's best story for DWM, though that's hardly the world's greatest accolade. Abnett wrote thirteen Doctor Who comic strips over 1988-1994, if you don't count the framing story in The Incomplete Death's Head, and I can't say I particularly like any of them. Pureblood (DWM 193-196) has wooden characters and a stupid resolution, but in its favour it has the balls to do wilder, weirder things with the Sontarans than anyone before or since (unless there's an astonishing audio play I haven't listened to).
The story starts with the Rutans destroying the Sontaran homeworld in the 26th century. (The story itself is a little confused on this, claiming at different times that it's the 25th and 26th centuries, but since it appears to be Benny's home era it's probably the later date.) Desperate to preserve their racepool, a handful of survivors flee to a human orbital research facility called Pandora's Spindle. Unfortunately their enemies include not only the Rutans (one of whom is with them secretly as a spy) but a forgotten race of pureblood Sontarans, untainted by cloning, genetic engineering or fashion sense.
"But Sontara wasn't destroyed in the 26th century!" I hear you cry. Maybe, maybe... but in fact most of the Sontaran activity we know about is prior to this date. For some reason, Sontaran stories have tended to be dated either in the nearish future (the next few centuries) or the past (The Time Warrior, The Gods Walk Among Us and Dragon's Claw.) Looking beyond the 26th century, I can't find definite evidence of Sontaran activity before 5316 (Wormwood) and 6211 (The Crystal Bucephalus). In this story the Doctor claims that the Sontarans will not trouble Earth again until 15,000 AD (The Sontaran Experiment) and I can't find any evidence to disprove this.
Oh, but there's another 26th century Sontaran... that barman on Paradise in Abslom Daak's comic strips. A barman? Under normal circumstances this would be unthinkable. So yes, there is slight external evidence that some catastrophe may have befallen the Sontarans around then.
The continuity rewrites don't end there, though. Check out the Doctor's info-dump from episode two... "They are a self-made race, quite literally. Ten centuries ago, they began their interstellar expansion - a fierce, martial race which would have overrun this spiral entirely, then they met the Rutan [...] and adopted cloning as a way to perpetuate and strengthen their kind. That allowed for faster redistribution of learned skills, and altered the Sontaran stock into specialist castes, like colonial insects."
Ten centuries ago? Somewhere around the 16th century AD, then? Even if we overlook The Time Warrior and The Gods Walk Among Us (DWM 59), we've seen in stories like Time's Crucible, The Infinity Doctors and Black Sun Rising (DWM 57) that the Sontaran-Rutan conflict goes back to Gallifrey's Old Time of Rassilon and Omega! Obviously the 7th Doctor in this story is talking rubbish... but what if he isn't? We know that the Sontarans are interested in time travel. What if at some point the Sontarans and Rutans acquired time machines and turned their conflict into a four-dimensional war throughout history? Thinking about it, it's strange that such bitter enemies could fight for so long without a victory for one side or the other.
That's enough continuity. I guess I should start talking about Pureblood.
This was Benny's first appearance in the comics. As the Doctor says, "You've only just joined my crew, so I don't want to lose you yet." She's as two-dimensional as the rest of the story's cast, but in fairness she's more Bennyish than in many of her early NA appearances! However in a sense it doesn't matter that the humans are ciphers. The Sontarans are the real heroes of Pureblood, with the Doctor helping to get them back on their feet and fighting the Rutans again. It's hard not to feel sorry for them, in fact. Marshal Stave may be a militaristic bastard, but he's having a really really bad day.
There's a dim Rutan who ends up giving the Sontarans all the information they need and helping the Doctor to tip off the Purebloods that "The Rutan Is Not Your Friend". Boy, is he stupid. In a sense he's lucky to get vapourised, since I hate to think what his allies might have done to him if they ever learned how badly he screwed up.
The Purebloods are kinda like Star Trek Klingons, but less intelligent and subtle. Yes, I'm afraid so. However they're kinda fun, if only for their Conan the Barbarian tailoring.
This story is hardly a classic, but you've got to admire the size of its thinking. You can't even call it fanwank, since you'd hardly recognise the mangled remains of Sontaran continuity after Dan Abnett's finished with it. It's 28 pages of fun, pleasantly drawn by fan artist Colin Howard, with energy and big ideas. It's a laugh. I enjoyed it. The fact that it's a bit stupid hardly matters, really.