Cybermen - 1975 to 1982

I've been thinking about the Cybermen recently, following a couple of very good articles in a recent issues of DWM. Now I'm old enough to remember watching The Revenge of the Cybermen on first transmission back in 1975 and I was still watching when they made their surprise return in Earthshock in 1982.

 

Somewhere in between that I became a "proper" Doctor Who fan and as such you have to decide who your favourite monster is and for me it was the Cybermen.  Sure the Daleks were good but the Cybermen were much better, much scarier, much more unknown and unknowable.  As a modern fan of the new series, I'm very much of the opposite opinion because the new writers really understand the Daleks, where as the Cybermen have been reduced to tin plated soldiers, looking for a good plot.  And with hindsight, they always were.

 

Anyway my recent thoughts were about how and why the Cybermen had become my favourites back then, especially when there was so little of them on screen for so long.  And we are going back to a time before the internet, video and with little or no repeat of old shows on any of the two BBC channels. How then did they even feature in my younger life.

 

How indeed...

 

Revenge of the Cybermen 1975

 



1975

1975

 

 

1975

 

1976

 

1977

 

1977

1978

 

1978

 

1979

 

Black Legacy - Comic strip 1980

 

Deathworld - comic strip 1980

Throwback - Soul of a Cyberman comic strip  (1980)

 

1981

Earthshock in 1982

 

And there you have it; they were hiding in plain sight.   Interesting though how almost no two are quite the same and at least half are not the correct version for the story they are meant to be illustrating.  And yet the Cyber brand is clearly identifiable and strong enough to carry the race's reputation across the decade.

 

Steve

The Day of the Triffids - Comic adaption (1975)

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction (1)  was a black & white, sci-fi anthology comic magazine published by Magazine Management, who were Marvel Comics' parent company at that time. It featured original and reprint comic strip stories, literary adaptations of SF novels, and interviews with authors such as Alfred Bester, Frank Herbert and Larry Niven.

The premiere issue featured part one of a two part adaption of John Wyndham's seminal "catastrophe" novel; The Day of the Triffids, by writer Gerry Conway and artists Ross Andru and Ernie Chua.  Interestingly it's thought the adaption had originally been intended for Worlds Unknown #7 and #8 (2) but had been bumped for The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, a more contemporaneous film which it was calculated might help lift the flagging sales figures of the latter publication. - It didn't!

The second part of the adaption followed in #2 of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction with art on this occasion by Rico Rival.  Though full of some wonderful material, the magazine lasted only 6 regular issues and one Giant Size special before dying the death of diminishing sales.

All of which is marginally interesting but only really relevant long after the fact because I read The Day of the Triffids as a back-up strip in the Marvel UK published; Planet of the Apes Weekly some time around about July 1975, issues 40 and 41 (3)  I will write more about The Planet of the Apes and Planet of the Apes Weekly and some of the other back up strips it carried but that's for a another day. This day if for Triffids and my first major encounter with them.

I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading the Triffids strip and studying the potent artwork. If I say it haunted me that might suggest it troubled me but that's not actually the case.  Its hard to describe the feelings really especially after all this time. Transfixed? Enthralled? Possessed?  Yes-no-maybe.  It spoke to me but it didn't corrupt me.  I was complicit in it you see because it was my secret to witness these monstrous and murderous creatures and the end of civilisation.  I knew it was just story but what power it held.  No one else looked at my comics, not my parents or my siblings.  They were just comics after all.  Silly childish stories about superheroes and monsters and those funny looking monkeys off the TV.  And in their ignorance my weekly visits to these dark grown-up worlds were safe, week after week.  Something of my own to savour and explore...  or so I thought

There was a moment, some months after the strip had finished when my mum said something about the willow tree in the garden being like a Triffid.

     "A what?"

     "A Triffid."

How did she know that word?  And then I realised, although it made no sense, that she must have been reading my comics when I wasn't around.

     "..a sort of big killer tree with a sting?"

     "Yes a giant plant that can walk."

      "Have you been reading my comics?" I asked her outright and upon her denial, raced upstairs to retrieve exhibit: A. from the pile in the cupboard

I seem to recall that she was equally impressed with me for knowing what a Triffid was and upon revealing just how I knew, she was also impressed with the fact that this "children's" comic contained adaptions of grown-ups novels - either missing the point or ignorant to the fact that  Pierre Boulle's 1963 novel La Planète des Singes, progenitor of the entire Apes franchise, was writ large upon the cover!

So how did she know about Triffids then if she hadn't been looking.  There's a film of it, she said.  It's a very good film.  And the book is good as well.

I was blown away and on a mission to find both.

We connected in an interesting new way that day.  A bond tangential to mother and son, one of a shared interest in stories of sci-fi and horror and strange goings on. And there was me thinking she made tea in time for Doctor Who for my benefit!

Steve.

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