The Might Thor #327 page 19

" Doctor Who vs. The Tennessee Valley Authority!!!" We begin this story with another comic book urban legend from "Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed": Walt Simonson based the concept of the Time Variance Authority in his Fantastic Four run on the Time Lords from Doctor Who. Mr. Simonson addressed with the following response…

"Actually, the TVA had nothing to do with Doctor Who. Where do these ideas come from? Just curious. Did you read this somewhere? I’ve never seen any Doctor Who programs although I drew a few Doctor Who illustrations a zillion years ago for Marvel.

The TVA (Time Variance Authority) was a satire of bureaucracy in general and of Marvel at that particular time and place as the company was moving towards a more corporate model. (The initials of the TVA were taken from the Tennessee Valley Authority, one of the New Deal developments during the depression.) The point of the TVA is that it was an infinite organization and still expanding (a new desk and monitor for each new universe born out of every possible time bifurcation). The office environment was the perfect visual symbol for a bureaucracy as were all the faceless monitors. The one character with a face was middle management and his was the only face you ever saw."

You may wonder why I am bring all this "Doctor Who vs the TVA" up. First off, I happen to work for the TVA (the real one, not the Time Variance Authority). I actually found a page of original comic art that mentions the TVA, this page from Thor, which also features Justice Peace (who is probably based on another english staple, Judge Dredd).

But beyond the urban legend and art, I have some more "Doctor Who vs the TVA" tales to tell. These begin at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con. I was attending a panel on "Women in Comics" moderated by the original slacker himself, Kevin Smith. One of the members of the panel was Pia Guerra, who annouced she would be drawing a new Doctor Who mini-series "The Forgotten". Once the mini-series began, I contacted Ms. Guerra's represenative to try and buy some art, but it was not for sale...