| Spoiler warning! This article contains plot details that people who haven't experienced the source material yet might wish to avoid. |
| Magnus Greel | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Naming | |||
| Others | The Butcher of Brisbane Weng-Chiang | ||
| Personal information | |||
| Species | Human (metabolically altered) | ||
| Gender | Male | ||
| Affiliation | Tong of the Black Scorpion Mr. Sin | ||
| Occupation | Minister of Justice (formerly) | ||
| Current status | Deceased | ||
| Cause of death | Shoved into his own life-draining machine by the Doctor | ||
| Biology | |||
| Body type | Humanoid | ||
| Sentience | Sentient | ||
| Sapience | Sapient | ||
| Behind the scenes | |||
| Universe | Doctor Who | ||
| Created by | Robert Holmes | ||
| Performed by | Michael Spice | ||
Magnus Greel was originally a 51st century Minister of Justice and pioneered the research on time travel by using zygma energy. A combination of grievous unethical experiments and war crimes has earned him the moniker of the Butcher of Brisbane and led to his status as one the most hated figures of his time, before escaping into an experimental time cabinet to the 19th century, where he assumed the guise of a Chinese god named Weng-Chiang and commanded a criminal organization called the Tong of the Black Scorpion. Due to the unstable nature of his time-traveling methods, a temporal distortion in his metabolism left Greel grotesquely disfigured and weak, forcing him to wear a mask to conceal his inhuman face, and to consume the life force of young victims in an attempt to cure his condition.
Biography[]
As Minister of Justice, Greel murdered a hundred thousand people that he described as "enemies of the state" in order to conduct experiments that advanced his research on time travel. As his enemies assumed power, he became a wanted criminal and escaped by going back in time in one of his machines, along with the rogue sadistic Homunculus, Mr. Sin, who had almost been responsible for World War Six.
When he arrived in 19th century China, weakened and exhausted from his journey, Greel was taken care of by a man named Li H'sen Chang, who believed that this strange visitor who had materialized in a blazing fire cabinet could only be the god Weng-Chiang. As such, Chang nurtured him in his sanctuary and promised him eternal loyalty. The time cabinet, however, ended up being confiscated by soldiers of T'ung-Chi and presented to Brigadier-General Litefoot as a gift from the Emperor. Desperate to retrieve it, Greel assembled the Tong of the Black Scorpion - a criminal organization headed by Chang, and consisting of devout worshipers of Weng-Chiang - to track down the cabinet all the way to London. There, Greel installed himself in a subterranean lair underneath the Palace Theatre, where Chang found employment as a stage magician and starred in a ventriloquist act, with Mr. Sin posing as his dummy.
Using technology from the future, Greel granted Chang real psychic abilities that aided him in his stage act. Due to his horrible disfigurement and the effects of temporal displacement in his metabolism, Greel used a mask to hide his deformed face and was forced to consume the life force of living victims to mitigate his own state. He ordered Chang to kidnap young women (which Chang selected from his audience and mesmerized on stage) so that Greel could later kill them and absorb their life essence. Even with Chang's psychic abilities allowing him to erase memories, and the Tong's murdering potential witnesses and troublesome individuals (such as the husband of one victim who went out looking for her), the series of missing reports still attracted lots of attention from the police, putting a strain on the situation as Chang feared getting discovered.
Eventually, Greel's time cabinet was found to be in the possession of Prof. George Litefoot and successfully retrieved, but in the meantime, the investigation conducted by a Time Lord known as the Doctor and his assistant Leela led them to interfere with Greel's plans. When Leela managed to trade places with one of the abducted girls and escape, Greel was furious and blamed the situation on Chang. Eventually, he abandoned Chang altogether and fled to the House of the Dragon, where he planned to consume the essence of his final victims and use the time cabinet to escape. However, the Doctor had come in possession of the time cabinet's key, and told Greel that he would shatter it unless Greel freed those that he was keeping hostage at the time (namely Litefoot and theatre manager Jago, who were assisting the Doctor in his investigations; as well as two kidnapped young women).
During a final confrontation in the House of the Dragon, Greel managed to take hold of the key, but was ultimately defeated as Mr. Sin went berserk and started to attack everyone present, including other members of the Tong. This provided the Doctor with an opportunity to strike Greel, who fell into his own life extractor and was disintegrated.
Appearances[]
- Doctor Who, season 14, "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (1977)
Notes[]
- Greel was the second iconic Doctor Who villain to be played by Michael Spice; the first being Morbius.