5. It's Handy As A Weapon
We now leap into the wonderful world of comics. And in these lovingly-inked graphic tales the recorder takes on a new purpose of sorts. On screen its a more peaceable proposition- the Doctor using it to help him think or simply amuse himself. Here, though, it has its uses as a game-changing weapon. Take a look at 'Pursued By The Trods' where its used to communicate with a mammoth herd & persuade them to help him knock out the Trod power supply. He, John & Gillian (the Doctor's grandchildren, who appear solely in the TV Comic stories) later return to Trodos in 'The Trodos Ambush'. They don't find Trods though. The Daleks have turned up and somehow wiped out the native population as a fine how do you do. But some survivors befriend the Doctor-and so a nice transition from enemy to friend is complete. Plus he gets to bash a Dalek with the hardy recorder. All arachnophobes should like this next one. In 'Master Of Spiders' he uses it to ward off some giant arachnids by using his playing to interfere with the control device of the titular Master Of Spiders- breaking his hold on the insects and buying time to build a ray gun which he uses to destroy this particular Master's mechanical hidey-hole. Which just goes to show the best way to demonstrate your power over an errant daddy long legs is to adopt a 'Beatle cut'. Thenlearn some tunes on the recorder and lord it over the fiend.