Episodes - Afterlife: The Web Planet

Bill Strutton never made any secret of it. He hoped that the creatures from his Doctor Who story would generate money for him through merchandising - having seen the success enjoyed by fellow writer Terry Nation.

Unfortunately the various insect inhabitants of Vortis never returned to the TV screen, but the Zarbi and Menoptra (usually spelt as "Menoptera") did manage to have a life beyond The Web Planet.

Along with a Voord and a gnome-like Sensorite, the Zarbi and Menoptra featured on the front cover of the very first Dr Who Annual (issued September 1965).The background looked not unlike the surface of Vortis, whilst the inside frontispiece depicted an image of the Doctor in a much more Vortis-like environment, even wearing his Atmospheric Density Jacket from The Web Planet.

Within the pages of the annual was a text story entitled "The Lost Ones", which saw the Doctor captured by Menoptra, who think he is a member of a species who have been attacking them. The Doctor escapes and encounters a humanoid race - the Sons of the Sun - who are 8 feet tall, with bright red hair. They are members of a crashed expedition from Atlantis. Realising they are a violent race, the Doctor lures them into the middle of a battle between Zarbi and Menoptra, and the Atlanteans are killed when the native species of Vortis unite against them.

A second story in the annual was "The Lair of the Zarbi Supremo" (image top). This sees the Doctor return to Vortis and come across a spaceship from Earth. He also finds robot Zarbi, with dead Menoptra inside them. The "Zarbi Supremo" is a giant version of the species, enslaving the Menoptra in its plan to invade Earth. Some crewmen from the Earth ship shoot the Supremo dead after the Doctor frees them from its hypnotic control. 

This story seems to have been inspired as much by The Dalek Invasion of Earth as by The Web Planet, as Vortis has been moved through space to the vicinity of Jupiter, after the Supremo built massive engines into the planet.

"The Lair of the Zarbi Supremo" wasn't the first return visit to Vortis, however. The Web Planet was just coming to an end when Dr Who and his grandchildren John and Gillian landed on the planet. This was in the TV Comic strip "Doctor Who on the Web Planet", which ran from 22nd March to 26th April, 1965.

This time the Zarbi were under another alien influence - the Skirkons - who were using them to overpower the Menoptra and force them to mine a substance called Galvinium X. The Skirkons, who were led by Zarka, were small bipedal creatures with big eyes and beaky noses. They employed fake flying Zarbi as weapons. The Skirkons were defeated when their stockpile of Galvinium X was detonated by one of their captured flying Zarbi, blowing them up.

There was a further comic visit to Vortis, this time by the Fourth Doctor accompanied by Sarah in "The Naked Flame". This appeared in the 1995 DWM Yearbook. The threat came from a rogue Menoptra named Versus.

The vast majority of Doctor Who merchandise available in 1965 was Dalek shaped. The BBC maintained a very poor record for exploiting their own product until well into the 1980's - mainly because they saw such crass commercialism as being something beneath them, the sort of thing ITV did. Apart from TV Comic and the annual, the Doctor himself and the TARDIS were poorly marketed.

One item which would have pleased Strutton was a set of plastic badges from a company called Plastoid. They created a range of badges based on Gerry Anderson productions, as well as some Doctor Who items. As well as large and small Dalek badges, they produced one depicting a Menoptra, and another of a Zarbi with a Larvae Gun (which they termed a Venom Gun).

Zarbi and Menoptra also featured on a set of Doctor Who transfers, alongside Daleks, Voord and Mechonoids...

...and there was an extremely brief adventure involving the Doctor and his companions on Vortis available with the Doctor Who Give-A-Show projector. This was basically a rerun of the TV story. A Zarbi even made it onto the box.

When Virgin Books began to produce past Doctor stories - their "Missing Adventures" range - it was perhaps inevitable that one of the best remembered Hartnell stories might form the basis for a sequel. It wasn't the First Doctor who featured in Twilight of the Gods however. The 26th book of the range, published in 1996, this saw the Second Doctor arrive on a lush forested world with Jamie and Victoria. It is only when they encounter Menoptra that the Doctor realises that they are on a much altered Vortis.

It transpired that the planet had been created as an experiment by gaseous super-beings known as the Gods of Light. Like in "The Lair of the Zarbi Supremo", the planet had an engine at its core. One of the Gods fought and sacrificed itself to defeat the Animus, with Jamie's help, and the planet was left for the Menoptra as the rest of the Gods withdrew.

The Web Planet is one of the most visual stories of the monochrome era - so naturally Big Finish thought it worthy of being the basis for an audio... Return to the Web Planet saw the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa visit Vortis, and was initially a subscribers' release only. The cover is inspired by the Chris Achilleos Target book covers. BF shoved a few Doctor / Nyssa solo stories in between Time-Flight and Arc of Infinity - even though the latter is clearly set immediately after the former, as Nyssa is still going on about the Cybermen damaging the TARDIS.

When it came to the 50th Anniversary drama An Adventure in Space and Time, The Web Planet was one of the stories selected for recreation - thanks to its distinctive imagery.