Meddling Monk - Other Appearances

Other Appearances

This section concerns the appearances of the Monk in various non-TV media.

Some people believe that the Monk was actually an earlier incarnation of the Master, as mentioned by the 1980s Doctor Who role-playing game published by FASA.

In the Doctor Who Monthly comic strip 4-Dimensional Vistas (DWM #78-#83), the Monk teamed up with the Ice Warriors in a complex plan to build a giant sonic weapon. In this portrayal, the character (who piloted a TARDIS also shaped like a police box) did not wear a monk's habit, and was referred to as "the Time-Meddler"; however, it was clearly the same character. The Monk was easily defeated by the Fifth Doctor. He later reappeared in Follow That TARDIS! (DWM #147), in which the Sleeze Brothers hijack the Doctor's TARDIS in order to pursue the Monk across time and space after he damages their car.

The Monk also turned up in the New Adventures novel No Future by Paul Cornell, in which he was given the name "Mortimus". The novel was the last of a story arc published to coincide with the series' 30th anniversary in 1993, in which the Seventh Doctor encounters various alternate realities that have been created due to the Monk's meddling with time, including a reality where the Third Doctor was killed in his confrontation with the Silurians (Blood Heat), attempting to distract the Doctor while he helps the Vardans to invade Earth, thus getting their mutual revenge on the Doctor for their losses during their past confrontations with him. Although the Monk seemingly traps the Doctor on the same ice planet he was himself exiled to, thanks to the betrayal of the Doctor's companion Ace, it is revealed at the conclusion of the novel that Ace was simply pretending to side with the Monk to defeat him, the novel ending with the Monk being apparently captured by a Chronovore that he had imprisoned to help him alter time. A chapter removed from the novel would have revealed the Monk was a former operative of the Celestial Intervention Agency; later books have hinted at this.

In the Past Doctor Adventures novel Divided Loyalties by Gary Russell, a young Mortimus is portrayed as a friend of the Doctor's, and a member of a cabal of rebellious young Gallifreyans at the Academy known as "the Deca". The group also included the Doctor, the Master, the Rani, Azmael (from The Twin Dilemma), the War Chief, and Drax (from The Armageddon Factor). The Monk of an artificially-created parallel universe made a brief appearance in the PDA The Quantum Archangel, working with the Master, the Rani and Drax to destroy the Earth.

The Eighth Doctor discovers a new incarnation of the Monk in the Big Finish Productions audio drama The Book of Kells. Voiced by Graeme Garden, the Monk is once again pretending to be a human monk, this time at the Abbey of Kells in Ireland, 1006. Calling himself Thelonios, he used the illuminated art skills of the other monks to create a circuit to repair his TARDIS. He also had his own companion, who happened to be the Doctor's former companion, Lucie Miller. It turns out that several of the Doctor's recent adventures had been manipulated behind the scenes by the Monk. He and Lucie reappear in The Resurrection of Mars, this time waking up cryogenically-frozen Ice Warriors on the Martian moon of Deimos, centuries before history says they should. When Lucie realizes what kind of person the Monk is, she leaves him. He in turn coaxes another of the Doctor's companions, Tamsin Drew, to join him. After that, he sets off to reunite with the Daleks, planning to loot Earth of its art treasures and get his final revenge on the Doctor, in Lucie Miller / To the Death, only for his plans to backfire when the Daleks betray him, resulting in the deaths of Tamsin, Lucy, and the Doctor's great-grandson Alex, although the Monk saves the Doctor – who, a broken man, nevertheless dismisses the Monk utterly – and Susan in an attempt to make up for his role in the Dalek attack.