Business as Usual

Business as Usual was a four part story by Alan Moore and David Lloyd which ran as a back-up feature in Doctor Who Weekly #40-#43, published from 17th July-7th August 1980. Like all the title's back-up stories, this creepily atmospheric tale did not feature The Doctor himself (he was confined to a headshot introducing it) but instead focused on another character, in this case luckless industrial spy Max Fischer, who breaks into the Galaxy Plastics factory in order to steal the secret of a new method of bonding carbon atoms, only to find that the place is a front for the alien Nestene Consciousness and its Auton servants in their latest attempt at the conquest of Earth. Fischer spends three episodes attempting to escape the Autons and their sinister leader Mr. Dolman, but is ultimately killed, though not before he has destroyed Galaxy Plastics. Six months later, we are told, a man calling himself Max Fischer invests money in a new plastics factory and, when he's in a whimsical mood, occasionally leaves flowers on a shallow grave in the factory grounds; the grave of the real Max Fischer. "Plastic flowers, naturally"...