Doctor Who Magazine #365
Doctor Who Magazine #365 marks the Tenth Doctor's debut in the DWM comic strip, opening the three-part story 'The Betrothal of Sontar' — the first time David Tennant's incarnation stepped into the magazine's long-running original comic continuity that stretches back to 1979. Crucially, the issue arrived before the Sontarans had been revived for the relaunched television series, meaning DWM reclaimed those classic-series aliens for the new era entirely on its own initiative; panelists at the 2014 Lakes International Comic Art Festival noted the strip may have nudged the TV production team toward bringing the Sontarans back on screen. The issue therefore sits at a productive creative intersection: a new Doctor finding his comic-strip voice, a beloved monster getting a pre-TV reintroduction, and DWM asserting itself as a genuine ideas laboratory for the wider Doctor Who universe during the high-energy Russell T Davies revival period.
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
With the television series back on air under Russell T Davies and David Tennant newly installed as the Tenth Doctor following the 2005 Christmas special, DWM editor Clayton Hickman commissioned writer Nick Abadzis and artist Mike Collins to launch the new Doctor's comic strip era. The strip debuted in the February 2006 issue with a Sontaran adventure set on an icebound alien world — a deliberate choice, as the BBC had not at that point planned to feature the Sontarans in the revived TV series, giving the DWM team unusual creative latitude with the classic monsters. The story was subsequently collected, along with seven other early Tenth Doctor strips, in the Panini graphic novel 'Doctor Who: The Betrothal of Sontar' (2008), which served as the tenth volume in Panini's ongoing DWM collected-editions programme.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Issue #365 (cover-dated 1 February 2006, published by Panini UK) contains Part One of 'The Betrothal of Sontar', the first comic strip adventure of the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who Magazine.
- The story runs across DWM issues 365–367 and features the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler as the lead characters.
- Writer: Nick Abadzis; Pencil Artist: Mike Collins; Editor: Clayton Hickman. (John Tomlinson is credited as script editor/co-writer on some indexing sources — see Flagged.)
- The Sontarans appear here before their revival on the relaunched television series; the classic-series-style Sontaran uniforms are used because the BBC's redesign for 'The Sontaran Stratagem' (2008) had not yet been developed.
- Issue #365 marks the very first words spoken by the Tenth Doctor in his DWM comic tenure.
- The story introduces supporting Sontaran characters Colonel Snathe and Lerox — the latter an unusually conscience-stricken Sontaran — set on the ice planet Serac.
- DWM is certified by Guinness World Records as the world's longest-running TV tie-in magazine, and issue #365 falls within the Panini publishing era (1995–present) that followed Marvel UK's tenure.
- The complete 'Betrothal of Sontar' three-parter was reprinted in the Panini collected graphic novel of the same name (2008), the first Panini DWM collection to feature the Tenth Doctor.