Doctor Who: EVERY Version Of The Cybermen Explained

Upon arriving in Victorian London, the Cybermen needed a quick and easy way to expand their workforce.

Ever-resourceful, their answer was to create animalistic foot soldiers (which, the Tenth Doctor speculated, used the brains of cats and dogs).

Dubbed Cybershades, these creatures had copper-coloured heads and hands, (presumably due to the fact that such metals were more readily available in Victorian London), with the rest of their bodies covered in furry black robes.

Rivets on their helmets also belied their industrial origins, while their angled handlebars evoked an animal’s ears.

The Cybershades were much more agile than their masters, tending to move around on all-fours. As such, they well-suited to gathering intel, with cameras in their eyes relaying images back to Cyber HQ.

One had a run-in with the Doctor and Jackson Lake, exhibiting enough strength to drag them up the wall of a warehouse and across one of its floors. Others brought the Cybermen victims to execute, while others drove carriages.

Presumably, the Cybershades were sent into the Void with the rest of the Cybus Cybermen when the Doctor defeated them.

And with the Cybermen never having had any reason to convert animals again, the experiment has never been repeated.