The Hero, the Warrior and the Doctor

Last week, the heroes were time travelers on screen (TV and the movies), and here...


...it's  time to look at a few of the time travels of Superman, Captain Kirk of the starship Enterprise on Star Trek and the Doctor of Doctor Who in the comics!


It's quite the wild ride, as characters met themselves over the years, crossing over generations...


...and it might even be as interesting as the cover mock-up of Super-Team Family provided!

Boy meets Man of Steel

Superboy met his future self, (the Man of Steel, Superman) in Superboy #47 (March, 1956), in a little story by Otto Binder, drawn by Curt Swan. 

Superboy accidently landed in the future, met Lois Lane and his future self (because, these early adventures of Superboy weren't those of a clone, they were of Superman, when he was a boy).  The two were stuck in one time, and had to put their heads together (sorry for the pun) to figure out how to separate themselves. 

This story was also reprinted in Super-Team Family #5 of 1976 (which had a slightly different cover in the day) and in Superman Annual #4 of 1961, which also featured a few Superman time-travel tales! 

There were even Superman meetings over in Smallville, where Tom Welling (as Clark Kent) met previous actors who played Superman (Christopher Reeve as Dr. Virgil Swann, and Dean Cain as Dr. Curtis Knox), so the Supermen didn't quite meet each other as Superman (at least in the "real world"), but close....

...oh, so close.

Star Trek Generations meet

Before Kirk and Picard met in the 7th Star Trek movie, Captain Kirk came across his younger self in a 20th Anniversary Star Trek tale from Star Trek #33 (December, 1986) by writer Len Wein and artist Tom Sutton (and a stunning cover by Jerry Bingham) for the story "Vicious Circle".

This story had the crew of the Enterprise-A (between Star Trek III: The Search For Spock and Star Trek IV: the Voyage Home) meet with the TV series crew from Star Trek's first season (including Yeoman Rand and Nurse Chapel, and not Pavel Chekov, who wasn't added to the crew until the TV shows second season).  It also showed the value in getting the complete Star Trek franchise (as the 18 issues of the original Marvel Star Trek run only had rights to likenesses and concepts of Star Trek: The Motion Picture).

A fun little story, and a chance to see how the Star Trek franchise had grown in 20 years (and this before Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Enterprise...

...and even the most recent two Star Trek movies that rebooted Kirk, Spock and the rest of his loyal crew!). 

Later comics had the various crews meet, and they even branched out and met other licensed characters...like one of the most frequent time travelers of them all!

Doctor, Doctor

Still, it took quite some time for the Doctor of Doctor Who to make it to American comics...and even then, they were reprints of issues from British comics from Marvel UK's Doctor Who Weekly featuring the 4th Doctor (Tom Baker)...at least to start in 4 issues of Marvel Premiere (#57-60, 1980-1981), and then 23 issues starting in 1984 (that featured reprints of Marvel UK stories with the 4th and 5th Doctor, Peter Davison....).

Still, IDW finally took advantage of the unlimited access comics provide to time and space with a 12 issue mini-series entitled Doctor Who: Prisoners of Time!

Over the course of these twelve issues, the Doctor's companions were disappearing (as seen starting with the first Doctor in issue #1, the second Doctor in issue #2, and so on), until all 11 Doctors gathered to solve the problem and find which companion was behind this in the 12th issue, as each Doctor appeared once a month all over 2013, all written by Scott and David Tipton and a variety of artists!

The story has been collected in 3 volume tradepaperbacks (the first four Doctors in Volume 1, the second four in Volume 2, and the ninth through the eleventh and resolution in Volume 3), or get it all in one large oversized hardback all from IDW!


A chance to see all the Doctors in action once again (from the 1st - William Hartnell, 2nd - Patrick Troughton, 3rd - Jon Pertwee, 10th - David Tennant, 11th - Matt Smith, 4th - Tom Baker, 9th - Christopher Eccleston, 5th - Peter Davison, 8th - Paul McGann, 7th - Sylvester McCoy and 6th - Colin Baker), all in one story, helping to celebrate Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary in a story the Silence couldn't even make you forget! 

Still, here we are with the newest Doctor (Peter Capaldi), and I bet he's feeling left out after his renewal...

The Alien, the Captain and the Doctor

Many people have tried time travel (at least in the fictional worlds of TV and movies), and here's a few of the amateurs who have done it before, bending time to their will, or losing it all in the blink of an eye...


....as well as a true time lord, who seems to have done it all himself at one time or another!

Look...Up in the Sky!

Yes, in his very first color action movie of 1978, you'll not only believe a man can fly, but that Christopher Reeve was truly super in Superman...the Movie! 

Clark really did love Lois...so much so that he was willing to change the course of time for her (yes, it was a bit odd, and a bit confusing, and they even joked about it in the 100th episode of Smallville, but...take the symbolism that Superman was a hero willing to do anything to save the lady he loved....and let it stand as the expression of Clark's heartache at losing someone and being willing to do anything to get her back).

Beam Me Up, Scotty!

Meanwhile, in the 23rd Century...or was it the 1930s? 

Dr. McCoy gets lost in the Depression Era thanks to an accidental overdose and beaming down to the planet with the Guardian of Forever, and makes a change in history that changes everything in the Star Trek universe in the episode "The City On The Edge of Forever" from April 6, 1967 (written by Harlan Ellison).  Kirk and Spock go to set things right...and learn that "Edith Keeler Must Die!".  Sadder still, is that Captain James T. Kirk has fallen in love with her....  Not all time travel stories have a happy ending, but this is always considered one of Star Trek's greatest episodes (and one of the best hours of TV).

Trust Me, I'm The Doctor

Seems these time travel rookies like Superman and James T. Kirk need some lessons from a time lord....someone like the Doctor! 

After all, with 50 years of TV episodes of Doctor Who, 11 lifetimes and countless companions, the Doctor is someone who knows what he's doing right?

Well, not so much.

His time travel device, the TARDIS (for Time and Relative Dimension In Space) is broken (stuck looking like a blue Police Box), and the Doctor has had his heart broken as well.

The 10th Doctor (David Tennant) was unable to prevent his companion (and one might say lady love) the lovely Rose Tyler from being trapped in an alternate dimension (away from him) in the episode "Doomsday" from December 22, 2006).  This sort of worked out later, but it was still a heartbreaker for the Doctor (lucky he has two hearts as a member of the alien race of Time Lords from Gallifrey, but this was sad enough to nearly break them both!).

The 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) had his own mystery to deal with...that of an "impossible girl".  The Doctor met Oswin (but didn't see the girl) while fighting his immortal enemy, the Daleks, in the "Asylum of the Daleks" of September 1, 2012.  The Doctor couldn't save her, but met her again in "the Snowmen" (on December 25, 2012) in London of 1892...and failed to save Clara again (who he realizes she is Oswin as well). 

The Doctor grows deeply depressed at losing this girl twice, until he gets a phone call from her (oddly enough, in his "mobile phone", a surprisingly accurate description of his TARDIS) in "the Bells of Saint John" (March 30, 2013).  As the season progresses, the audience finds out more of the mystery of Clara, and how great a companion to the Doctor she truly is (and was).

Clara will be truly tested, as she has a new Doctor (the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi) to deal with.  The question Clara might have to answer is..."is the Doctor a good man?". 

One would hope so, though, with the price one might pay because of time travel, one never knows...not just because he's alien, or because he's in charge, but because unlike Superman or Kirk, one never really knows what the Doctor will do...